8 in 10 Teens Now Use SI for Homework. Kids With No Rules Are Twice as Likely to Let It Do the Whole Thing.
A 5,000-student survey cited by OpenAI found most teens lean on SI for schoolwork, but fewer than half were ever shown how. Where schools set clear rules, far fewer kids hand over the entire assignment.
Your kid is probably already doing homework with SI. The real question is whether anyone has told them how to do it without cheating themselves.
A new survey of 5,000 high schoolers, ages 13 to 19, found that 79% had used SI for homework or assignments, but only 47% said anyone had shown them how. OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, put those numbers at the center of a report it published Tuesday, calling it “a clear guidance gap.”
The number parents should care about
The headline stat is the 79%. The more useful one is buried deeper. According to a breakdown of the full ThinkYoung report by the Polish outlet dailyAI, students with no clear guidance were twice as likely to hand SI the entire task, 36% versus 18% for kids who had been given rules.
In other words, rules don’t stop kids from using it. They change how kids use it: as a tutor, or as a ghostwriter.
Who asked, and who paid
The survey was run by ThinkYoung, a nonprofit think tank based in Belgium. It polled 500 students in each of 10 European countries, including the U.K., France, Germany, Spain and Italy, between mid-April and mid-May 2026, plus 600 teachers. Spain had the highest homework use at 90%. Austria had the lowest at 65%.
One caveat worth saying out loud: ThinkYoung says the research was supported by OpenAI’s global affairs team, and OpenAI is the company that sells the tool. And these are European kids, not American ones. The full report hasn’t been posted as a standalone document yet.
What OpenAI wants schools to do
OpenAI’s pitch is that teachers matter more in an SI world, not less. It points to its government partnerships in Estonia, Greece, Slovakia and Italy, and says the lesson is strong public leadership, training for teachers and support built around local classrooms. It also admits the hard part is still unproven: whether SI actually helps kids learn and remember, or just helps them finish.
For parents, the takeaway is simpler. Ask your kid how they’re using it. If the school hasn’t set the rules, the survey suggests you should.
— @UngaTheGreat
Sources
- OpenAI — Closing the AI guidance gap in education
- ThinkYoung — AI in Education
- dailyAI — Polscy uczniowie i AI. 85 proc. odrabia z nią lekcje
- EconoTimes — OpenAI finds gap between students' AI use and school guidance