Artificial Intelligence in Education

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly becoming embedded in everyday life, influencing how people work, learn, and interact with the world. To prepare all young people to navigate and shape this changing landscape, a cohesive approach is essential to ensure all young people are equipped to live and work in a world entangled with AI.

AI literacy

Young people across the UK are growing up surrounded by Artificial Intelligence (AI), but without the knowledge and skills to understand, question and use it responsibly.

A rapid review of AI literacy frameworks, commissioned by the Royal Society to inform wider debate on the role of AI in the education landscape, finds that while teachers and pupils are already using AI in classrooms, no agreed national approach currently exists for ensuring all young people are equipped to use AI effectively and appropriately.

The report highlights that most existing AI education efforts focus heavily on technical skills (such as coding or understanding algorithms) with less emphasis on broader societal and environmental dimensions. The UK therefore risks raising a generation of competent users of AI tools, who are unaware of the societal and other challenges of this technology that is shaping their lives.

The Society will continue to gather evidence to build understanding of AI literacy in education and inform future policy development across the sector.

Key findings

• Teachers are already using AI, but ‘flying blind’ - Over half of UK teachers already use AI for planning and marking, yet most lack training or confidence to teach about AI itself. Teachers are improvising while policy guidance lags behind
• Fragmented approaches across the UK - England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are pursuing different strategies, but none provides a coherent, system-wide framework
• Risk of inequity - Without a shared baseline, AI literacy risks becoming dependent on local initiatives or individual teacher expertise, widening educational inequalities

Download the full report (PDF)

Emerging conversations on AI in education

The Society is also monitoring conversations about AI in education that can broadly be sorted into three categories:

• Teaching about AI - Supporting young people in detecting, understanding, and critically interpreting content created by AI and how it works (AI literacy), so that they can use digital technology and media in safe, responsible, and ethical ways. These skills could be defined as: technical understanding, data literacy, ethical awareness, critical thinking, and continuous learning
• Teaching for AI - Equipping young people with the mathematical, data, and computing skills required to manage and build AI systems in the future. This would include the development of computing education, digital skills in the wider curriculum, qualifications, and careers information
• Teaching with AI - How teachers can use AI to reduce administrative burdens and create increasingly personalised learning and assessment experiences for students. This category has considerable ethical implications, including mitigating harm to students, closing or exacerbating existing inequalities, reducing plagiarism and other forms of cheating, and the skills and role of teachers