OECD Digital Education Outlook 2026: Exploring Effective Uses of Generative AI in Education

At the initial interviews, the majority of the teachers (N=8) reported ChatGPT as their main GenAI tool and two teachers reported using other tools such as Snippet for code generation or Microsoft Copilot, which they found more accurate than ChatGPT. Half of the teachers (N=5) used these tools for course design (e.g. for outlining the course structure), and the other half during course enactment, either asking students to use it to conduct learning assignments or as annotation tool used by the teachers to comment and reflect upon student answers. Specifically, most teachers (N=8) reported using GenAI tools for replacement purposes (see Table 8.2, category “replacement”, A and B) to conduct orchestration tasks, such as the creation of learning materials, which previously had to be done manually. Several teachers use GenAI tools to conduct educational tasks more effectively (N=3) like introducing GenAI tools as learning options for students to support their learning activities (see Table 8.2, category “complementarity”, A and B). Finally, some teachers (N=3) use GenAI as a learning tool to enhance their teaching methods (see Table 8.2, category “Learning”, A and B). The teacher group thus represented a variety of views.

Most students (N=9) reported ChatGPT as the main GenAI tool used, and three of them reported the use of other tools, such as Wombo Dream and DALL-E, for generating photos and artwork; or Deep AI and Microsoft Copilot for text generation. Also, most students (N=9) used GenAI at home for assignment preparation, while only three used GenAI either at home or at school following the teacher's recommendations and guidance. The use of these tools was related to a wide variety of topics: History (N=4), Computer Science (N=2), Geography (N=1), Economics (N=1), Literature (N=1), English (N=1), Sex Education (N=1), Physics (N=1). Unlike the teachers, most students described using GenAI as a resource for gathering information for their assignments (N=8, Table 8.2 [Complementarity] C, D).

In several cases GenAI was found to act as a partner for students to test their knowledge, to provide explanations or to practice and improve their writing skills (N=4, Table 8.2 [Learning] C, D). At the same time, three students stated they used GenAI tools by copy-pasting their outputs to prepare their assignments (Table 8.2 [Replacement] C, D). In that case, there is cognitive offloading as AI is replacing the work done previously by the students themselves.

A. “ I wanted to create 17 questions about the topic of ‘friendship’, and manually it is time-consuming”

B. “I use GenAI a lot to create assessment rubrics"

A. “In my Arts course we use many tools to do visual work. I showed Dall-E to my students and asked to make drawings with the help of AI”

B. “It is easier to capture lesson the findings”

A. “I was looking how I could use active learning approaches and learn what they are and that’s why I also used ChatGPT to help me”

B. “It helps me to pick up new teaching methods”

C. " I use it to learn, because it can clarify quite a lot of things. I can prepare better for the test weeks”

D. “I prompt information to Deep AI, and it writes it in a beautiful way that helps me to improve my skills”

When it comes to GenAI-associated fears (which can guide the design of the new system), most of the teachers’ concerns (N=16) were related to students’ cognitive offloading and the negative impact on learning (see Table 8.3, [Cognitive Offloading] A, B). Another GenAI disadvantage was related to an overreliance on the AI-generated outcome. Many teachers (N=13) were concerned about students becoming over-dependent on AI without questioning the results (see Table 8.3, [Overreliance] A, B) and on how they themselves might also rely too much on the GenAI output (N=7) (see Table 8.3, [Overreliance] C). Additionally, eight teachers connected such overreliance with the lack of quality of AI answers given the hallucinations that an AI model can produce (see Table 8.3, [Overreliance] B). Furthermore, many teachers (N=8) were concerned about how GenAI impacts their own role and control in the teaching process. Two teachers expressed their worry regarding the student-teacher relationship (see Table 8.3, [Teacher Replacement] A-C). Lastly, many teachers (N=7) were concerned about how to monitor students’ use of GenAI (see Table 8.3, [Monitoring] A-C).

Reflecting the teachers’ concerns, most of the students (N=7) indeed characterised GenAI as their personal “24-hour teacher” (Table 8.3, [Teacher Replacement] D, E) and five students expressed their unquestionable trust in its output (Table 8.3, [Overreliance] D). Also, a few students admitted being sceptical about how GenAI use affects their cognitive development and their work evaluation. Concretely, four students mentioned that the use of GenAI may hinder their learning growth because they tend to simply use the output with no further thought or work on their part (see Table 8.3, [Cognitive Offloading] C, D).

A. “I am afraid students make something, such as the assignments, out of nothing, because they need to think very creatively outside of what is given to them and they just stay on what ChatGPT is giving to do them”

B. “I am afraid students have stopped thinking or brainstorming; this impact the

Cognitive development of critical thinking”

A. “They [students] do not use other resources and uncritically they are copying everything”

B. “ChatGPT is going to hallucinate, and you do not realise that, both us and especially the students”

C. “I ask myself whether to trust the GenAI output or it is not trustable at all?”

A. “Help! how can I guarantee my autonomy?”

B. “I am afraid there will be collision between student and teacher, because the expert is considered to be ChatGPT”

C. “I am not sure how to foster the student-teacher relationship within the AI era”

D. “The teachers are the ones normally providing information. But the teachers are not always available. So, it is easier and faster to use ChatGPT”

E. “It is like a teacher for me. You can actually ask all the questions you don’t understand, and it is always there for you. And for me, that’s basically the same as a teacher”

A. “There is the problem that you cannot see how much it has been created by AI and how much by the students”

B. “I want to follow more students’ progress using GenAI”

C. “I do not know how to check how my students used GenAI”

Validation of requirements [phase 2]

While teachers and students had identified potential benefits of GenAI tools such as their usefulness for assignment support and efficiency, the interviews indicated that when GenAI is not pedagogically oriented, it can decrease teachers’ awareness and capacity to exert control over the students’ learning progress, i.e. it can decrease teacher autonomy during the instructional cycle. A loss of autonomy can potentially impact effective and contextualised teaching, especially important in primary and secondary education. Consequently, the results helped in the identification of design requirements for GenAI systems in education to foster teacher autonomy (see Figure 8.3).

Teachers raised the need to control the GenAI output in order to enhance students’ cognitive skills (e.g. “I am afraid students have stopped thinking or brainstorming, this impacts the development of critical thinking”). Currently, students (and teachers) use general-purpose GenAI models which are likely to not be contextualised. Thus, the envisioned tool should provide teachers the opportunity to train the models with their own documentation, and to place some “controls” on the responses these models provide to students. For instance, teachers might increase the level of hallucinations to increase students’ critical thinking when using these tools, or the depth and timing of the GenAI’s output. Han et al. (2024) also mentioned the need to create GenAI tools that will permit teachers to maintain their agency and control by finetuning options in the GenAI system (see also Cukurova, 2026; Baker et al., 2026).

Tracking students’ interaction with the GenAI tool was an important aspect raised by the teachers to assess whether these tools support the learning progress or merely replace the task completion (e.g. “I want to follow the students’ progress more closely using GenAI”). Students also reported bad practices of copy-pasting the GenAI output directly (e.g. “I know that this is not the proper way to proceed but I normally copy-paste the information that ChatGPT gives me”). Monitoring the student interactions with GenAI tools permits the identification of potential knowledge gaps and the shaping of pedagogical informed interventions, readjusting the learning objectives, the lesson plan and the GenAI use (Hoogland et al., 2016). Thus, the desired GenAI tool should permit teachers to follow student interactions with GenAI and provide pedagogical guidance accordingly.

Teachers employ GenAI tools for replacement and complementarity purposes based on the nature of different educational tasks. Therefore, there was agreement that it is desirable to let teachers define the level of autonomy they desire with the tool, as proposed by Molenaar (2021). For instance, some teachers might prefer to programme semi-automatic reactions when students overuse the GenAI system; others might prefer to get an alert, and others may not care about such issues.