Closing the AI guidance gap in education

AI is prompting a fundamental reassessment of what education should prepare societies for. As intelligence becomes easier to access and apply, the question is no longer simply what people need to know, but which skills and capabilities will help them thrive in an AI-enabled world. Recent debates around PISA and AI, including those led by the OECD’s Andreas Schleicher⁠(opens in a new window), underscore this shift. They also point to a central lesson: as AI becomes more capable, the role of teachers becomes more important, not less. Their expertise, judgement and ability to guide learning remain essential. Equipping teachers, schools and governments with AI skills and confidence to make informed decisions about these tools must therefore be a priority for education systems.

Across EMEA, we are working with governments and education systems, including in Estonia, Slovakia, Greece and Italy, amongst others to explore how AI can support educators. These collaborations share three priorities: equitable access to frontier AI tools, jointly designed AI literacy programmes, and ongoing measurement and evaluation, whilst adapting to local languages, curricula and institutions.

This report shares emerging lessons from our education partnerships in EMEA, focusing on educator support, AI literacy, local capability and evaluation. It examines what partners have tried, what they have reported and what remains uncertain. Country examples reflect their particular contexts and arrangements, and their findings should be interpreted within those limits. Five themes organise these lessons: clear educational goals, educator preparation, local partnerships, critical AI literacy and credible evidence.

Three early patterns are emerging from this work:

• Country partnerships offer context-specific lessons. Experiences in Estonia, Greece and Slovakia point to three lessons that other education systems can apply: strong public leadership to set a clear direction, investment in teachers' skills and confidence, and practical support tailored to local curricula and classroom needs. While implementation will vary across countries, these principles offer a useful foundation for governments seeking to integrate AI responsibly and at scale.

• Closing the AI guidance gap in education is becoming increasingly urgent. New research from ThinkYoung,⁠(opens in a new window) which examines the ways teachers and students are already engaging with AI highlights a clear guidance gap: 79% of surveyed students reported using AI for homework or assignments, but only 47% reported being shown how. Governments need to support educators and give students clearer expectations. Below we set out how educators can be better supported to set the terms and conditions of use.

• Early benefits for teachers are clear. Adoption and reported time savings for teachers are encouraging. Understanding where AI strengthens knowledge, independent thinking and retention requires sustained evaluation and through the government actions that we observed, we identify how to prioritise more research into this critical area.

Our aim is to share practical lessons from these partnerships that education leaders can consider in their own contexts. These are early experiences, rather than a single model for education systems to follow.

We are also learning how to judge progress with evidence: teacher adoption and reported time savings offer encouraging early signals. Surveys, programme monitoring and consultation help us understand participants’ experiences and the barriers they encounter.

At OpenAI, our mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits everyone. Helping learners flourish is central to that ambition. We believe that every young person should have the opportunity to develop the skills to participate in a world increasingly shaped by AI, whatever their background or wherever they attend school. We have a responsibility to contribute to that evidence and learn openly from the findings, including when they challenge our assumptions. Through the OpenAI Learning Lab, we are bringing education researchers together to understand when and how AI can support education systems.

The choices made today will shape how the next generation learns, works and participates in society. With ambition, care, public leadership and a commitment to evidence, AI can help extend educational opportunity and strengthen young people’s capacity to understand, create and act for themselves.

Tom Duff Gordon

VP, Global Affairs EMEA

Leah Belsky

VP, Education

November, 2026