More than half of teens are using AI for schoolwork—and many parents don’t know it

Raising kids in the digital age is hard. Keeping up with the chatbots doing their homework is even harder.

More than half of teens are turning to AI for school work, according to a Pew Research Center survey. The study—a survey of 1,458 U.S. teens and their parents from Sept. 25 to Oct. 9, 2025—finds that 57% of teens use AI to search for information, while 54% use it to help with schoolwork.

Yet their queries extend beyond asking a chatbot to define the Pythagorean Theorem or to explain the significance of Boo Radley’s character in To Kill a Mockingbird. In fact, some teens may not even pick up  Harper Lee’s classic at all, as the study finds four in 10 use chatbots to summarize articles, books, and videos. 

While not everyone is using AI for schoolwork—about 45% of teens claim not to use the technology for school—one in 10 admit to using AI for most if not all of their schoolwork. And about a quarter of teens say the technology is either very or extremely helpful in conducting schoolwork, with another quarter saying it’s somewhat helpful.

“On the highest end, they’re using [AI] for researching a topic,” Monica Anderson, director of internet and technology research at Pew Research Center and co-author of the study, told Fortune. “On the lowest end, it’s about editing.”

A perception gap among parents

But some teens are shielding their AI use from their parents, or at least using the technology without their knowledge. The study found a “perception gap” between teen use and parents’ knowledge of their children’s relationship with the technology. A total of 64% of U.S. teens report using chatbots, but only 51% of parents think their teens use the technology, and many more have no idea whether their teen uses AI at all. “A healthy share of parents, close to three in 10, told us they’re not sure if their teen is using these tools or not,” Anderson said.

Although many parents aren’t keen on the technology’s capabilities,Anderson said this mismatch doesn’t exist for social media use as parents are more aware of their children’s presence on apps like Instagram and TikTok. “A lot of this also comes from the fact that this is still a very new technology and also new for parents and families overall.”

Despite this gap, the majority of parents say they’re okay with teens using chatbots for schoolwork, with 64% approving it for article and book summaries and 58% approving it for homework help.

The perils of frictionless education

The research comes amid growing warnings that AI is worsening a learning crisis across the country. A Brookings report titled “A new direction for students in an AI world: Prosper, prepare, protect” deems generative AI the “fast food of education,” providing “frictionless” outcomes for students and subtracting from much of the learning experience.

“At this point in its trajectory, the risks of utilizing generative AI in children’s education overshadow its benefits,” the report read.

The Brookings study laid out a framework for AI adoption for students, complete with  suggestions on how schools should prepare teachers how to teach with AI and promote AI literacy among teachers, students, and parents alike.

Despite a majority of teens using AI for schoolwork, about a quarter are still concerned with the technology’s impact on society, according to the Pew study. “The most common response was around this concern that people will become over-reliant and lose their creativity and critical thinking skills,” Anderson said.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com