Featured image source: Max Gruber / https://betterimagesofai.org / https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
KAREN WESPIESER, TEACHER TAPP, UK
| Quick-read summary AI has shifted from novelty to near-routine in teachers’ professional lives. By autumn 2025, a majority of teachers report using AI weekly to support school work, although 12 per cent have never used it. Teachers’ use of AI is selective and task-focused. It is most commonly used for lesson planning (54 per cent), creating quizzes (50 per cent), test materials (45 per cent), letters to parents (41 per cent) and school reports (39 per cent). It is far less common in live lesson delivery (11 per cent), and only 14 per cent of teachers used AI to plan their most recent lesson. Primary and secondary teachers use AI differently. Primary teachers are more likely to use it for lesson planning (61 per cent) and report writing (55 per cent), while secondary teachers are more likely to use it for quizzes (64 per cent) and test materials (54 per cent). Non-use is driven by professional concerns rather than lack of confidence. Among non-users, 56 per cent cite concerns about reliability and 46 per cent cite cheating and plagiarism. Only 19 per cent report lacking confidence in learning how to use AI. Despite the growth of education-specific AI tools, most teachers continue to rely primarily on general-purpose tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini or Copilot. Specialist tools show strong recommendation scores among users but remain in the early stages of awareness and adoption. |
Methodology
Teacher Tapp surveys over 10,000 teachers daily via its mobile app, asking three multiple-choice questions each day. Responses are statistically reweighted to reflect the national teacher workforce using the DfE Workforce Census, ensuring appropriate representation by phase, age, gender, region and job role. Key findings are also checked against other national surveys to ensure reliability and comparability.
Since 2020, Teacher Tapp has been checking how teachers are adopting AI (artificial intelligence) tools and their evolving attitudes towards these technologies. During November and December 2025, between approximately 8,000 and 10,000 teachers responded to questions about their use of AI. Questions explored frequency of AI use, specific tasks for which AI was used, concerns about AI, sources of information and awareness and usage of selected education-specific AI products.
Together, this data provides a large-scale, practice-focused snapshot of how AI is currently being used across English schools.
The data featured in this Teacher Tapp research has been gathered from our daily surveys. We are confident that this methodology fairly represents the teaching population overall, as it includes:
- ‘Reweighting’ the sample each day: This means statistically rebalancing the results, using the DfE Workforce Census, to ensure that there is the right proportion of teachers by gender, age, phase, job seniority and region.
- Checking the results from key questions against other national surveys: This shows that we get very similar results to other ‘random sample’ surveys. For further discussion of the polling methodology, see Jerrim (2023).
From novelty to near-routine
Two years ago, conversations about artificial intelligence (AI) in education were dominated by speculation. Would it replace teachers? Undermine assessment? Transform classrooms overnight?
Today, the picture looks rather different. AI has moved from novelty to near-routine in many teachers’ professional lives, but in a measured, selective and highly practical way.
The story is not one of wholesale transformation. Instead, it is one of task-level adoption: teachers using AI where it saves time, reduces friction and supports professional judgement, and avoiding it where risk feels high.
AI is now mainstream (but not universal)
In little more than a year, AI use has normalised rapidly. What was used occasionally by a minority in early 2024 has, by autumn 2025, become something that a majority of teachers report using weekly to support schoolwork. However, this does not mean that everyone is on board.
Only 12 per cent of teachers report that they have never used AI for schoolwork, with non-use highest in special/AP (alternative provision) settings (28 per cent) and lowest in Key Stage 2 (eight per cent). Importantly, non-use appears to be driven less by a lack of confidence and more by professional concern. Among non-users:
- 56 per cent cite concerns about reliability of information
- 46 per cent cite cheating and plagiarism
- 46 per cent worry about pupil overreliance
- 35 per cent believe that it will not save time because outputs need checking
- 24 per cent cite data protection concerns.
However, only 19 per cent say that they lack confidence in learning how to use it.
In other words, caution appears rooted in professional responsibility rather than technophobia. As one teacher put it in an open response, reliability remains ‘variable… however it is promising in some subjects’.
What teachers are using AI for
When we move beyond headlines and look at specific tasks, a clear pattern emerges: AI usage clusters around preparation and administration. Among teachers who have used AI for schoolwork:
- 54 per cent use it for lesson planning
- 50 per cent use it for creating quizzes
- 45 per cent use it for creating test materials
- 41 per cent use it for letters to parents
- 39 per cent use it for school reports
- 46 per cent use it for marking (although this remains more limited in depth)
- 11 per cent use it for lesson delivery.
This concentration around drafting and generating content reflects where current AI tools are strongest: text-based, preparatory tasks that sit away from live classroom interaction.
But while many teachers have used AI for lesson planning, that doesn’t mean that all lesson plans are now AI-led. When teachers were asked whether they used AI to plan their most recent lesson, only 14 per cent said that they had (13 per cent partially; one per cent completely). This suggests that AI is functioning as a starting point, prompt or scaffold and not as a replacement for professional judgement.
Teachers consistently describe using AI to:
- start work/overcome the blank page
- summarise complex documents
- structure schemes of work
- adapt reading ages and differentiate materials
- draft EHCP (education, health and care plan) targets or Social Stories.
Inclusion and differentiation: An emerging strength
One of the most striking developments in this year’s data is the role that AI is beginning to play in accessibility. Teachers increasingly report using AI to:
- adapt texts for different reading ages
- support pupils with SEND (special educational needs and disabilities)
- generate differentiated question sets
- draft personalised materials
- create Social Stories
- support newly arrived EAL students (those with English as an additional language).
Of course, this use remains uneven. But it highlights an important shift: AI is being used not only to produce more content, but also to make content more accessible.
Primary and secondary: Different patterns
AI use looks different across phases. In primary schools, the most common uses are:
- lesson planning (61 per cent)
- writing reports (55 per cent)
- creating images (55 per cent).
In secondary schools, teachers are more likely to use AI to:
- create quizzes (64 per cent)
- create test materials (54 per cent)
These patterns reflect structural differences. Primary teachers plan across multiple subjects and often design integrated sequences of learning. Secondary teachers work within subject-specific assessment systems, where structured quizzing and exam-style questions are central.
Subject differences reinforce this pattern. Creating quizzes is particularly common in science and humanities (around four in five teachers report doing so), and also high in English. Maths is more of an outlier, potentially reflecting existing specialist software and the limitations of large language models in accurate calculation.
There is no single ‘AI user’ in education. Uptake is shaped by role, phase, subject and context.
The types of tools teachers are using
Most schools already operate within large digital ecosystems. With four in five teachers using Outlook and over one in five using Gmail, most schools sit within Microsoft or Google systems that now include bundled AI functionality.
This means that, whether planned or not, baseline AI access already exists in many schools. As a result, general tools still dominate. Even among teachers who class themselves as frequent AI users, specialist education-specific platforms are not yet the default.
General-purpose tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot dominate because they are:
- easy to access
- flexible across tasks
- already embedded in existing systems
- often available without additional procurement.
Conclusion
There is no single way in which schools use AI. Most use sits around preparation and documentation, and not live teaching or marking. Uptake depends on aligning with specific tasks, roles and contexts.
Teachers are neither blindly embracing nor resisting AI. They are making small, practical decisions about where it helps and where it does not.
For the profession, the challenge is not whether AI will arrive – it already has – but how to embed it responsibly: building trust around accuracy and safeguarding, supporting professional judgement rather than replacing it, and ensuring that access does not widen inequalities between contexts.
The transformation, it turns out, is quieter than predicted. But it is real.
The examples of AI use and specific tools in this article are for context only. They do not imply endorsement or recommendation of any particular tool or approach by the Department for Education or the Chartered College of Teaching and any views stated are those of the individual. Any use of AI also needs to be carefully planned, and what is appropriate in one setting may not be elsewhere. You should always follow the DfE’s Generative AI In Education policy position and product safety standards in addition to aligning any AI use with the DfE’s latest Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance. You can also find teacher and leader toolkits on gov.uk.
