As artificial intelligence tools move rapidly from novelty to classroom fixture, a growing body of research is documenting unease from the very students, teachers, and parents meant to benefit. A year-long international study suggests that the ease and availability of generative AI may be reshaping how children think, learn, and relate to others — in ways that are proving difficult to measure and harder to reverse.
A Global Experiment in Classrooms
Across schools worldwide, AI-powered chatbots and writing assistants are being introduced at an unprecedented pace, often without a shared framework for how they should be used. Researchers involved in a year-long project described the rollout as a “massive experiment on kids with uncertain results,” noting that adoption has outpaced evidence.
The project drew on interviews, consultations, and discussion panels with 505 students, parents, teachers, education leaders, and technology professionals across 50 countries. Researchers also reviewed hundreds of prior studies examining AI’s impact on learning and child development. Together, the findings painted a picture of education systems adjusting in real time to a technology whose long-term effects remain unclear.
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According to the report, teachers’ use of AI in classrooms has risen sharply, from 34 percent to 61 percent, even as guidance and safeguards lag behind. This rapid uptake, researchers said, has left schools grappling with fundamental questions about learning, responsibility, and human connection.
Offloading Thought, Losing Engagement
One of the study’s most consistent findings was the tendency of students to “offload” thinking onto AI systems. Many participants described generative AI tools as easy, frictionless, and always available — qualities that made them appealing, but also potentially corrosive to active learning.
“It’s easy. You don’t need to use your brain,” one student told researchers, summarizing a concern echoed throughout the study. When students rely on AI to generate answers, explanations, or assignments, the report found, they can become disengaged learners who passively accept outputs rather than interrogate or internalize them.
Researchers warned that this reliance may contribute to cognitive decline over time. Sixty-five percent of students surveyed expressed concern that heavy dependence on AI could weaken their thinking abilities. Some educators interviewed noted that students were beginning to forget material previously learned, trusting instead that AI systems would “remember” it for them.
The Illusion of Connection
Beyond academics, the report raised concerns about how children relate to AI on a social and emotional level. Generative models, researchers noted, can create an illusion of understanding that feels indistinguishable from genuine rapport.
“They create an illusion of connection that is difficult to distinguish from genuine rapport,” one unidentified panelist told the research team.
Young people, the panelist said, may gravitate toward AI because it is undemanding and nonjudgmental — qualities that stand in contrast to human relationships, which require negotiation, patience, and the ability to sit with discomfort.
Several educators and researchers argued that this dynamic risks undermining the development of empathy and social skills. Because AI systems are often agreeable or “sycophantic,” children may not learn how to navigate disagreement, misunderstanding, or emotional complexity — experiences that are central to human relationships.
Strain on Families and Schools
The study also documented broader relational consequences. Teachers reported that AI tools can blur lines of accountability in classrooms, weakening the relationship between instruction, effort, and evaluation.
“If students can just replace their actual learning and their ability to communicate what they know with something that’s produced outside of them and get credit for it, what purpose do they have to actually learn?” one teacher asked during the study.
Parents, too, emerged as stakeholders affected by the shift. Researchers noted that some children feel more comfortable divulging personal thoughts and problems to chatbots than to adults in their lives. In extreme cases cited in news reports referenced by the study, this dynamic has been linked to severe emotional distress, including instances of suicide following obsessive AI relationships
Taken together, the findings suggest that while generative AI is increasingly embedded in education systems, its presence is altering not just how students learn, but how they relate to teachers, parents, and themselves — raising questions that schools and policymakers are only beginning to confront.
