Thinking Less? How AI Is Rewiring the Student Brain

Students are using AI more than ever for schoolwork — and most of them are worried about what it is doing to their ability to think. Over 2025, AI homework use jumped from 39% to 62% among U.S. students. In the same period, those who believed AI was harming their critical thinking rose from 44% to 67%. Five charts trace this growing tension.

Chart 1 — AI Use Rises, and So Does Concern About Thinking

Three survey snapshots across 2025 show a striking pattern: the more students use AI, the more they worry about what it costs them cognitively. Both lines move together — and upward.

67% of students believe AI harms critical thinking by Dec 2025

Source: Schwartz, H. L., & Diliberti, M. K. (2026). RAND Corporation (RR-A4742-1). n = 1,214 U.S. youth aged 12-29. Three survey waves: Feb, May, Dec 2025.

Chart 2 — What Students Outsource to AI vs. Do Themselves (Multivariate)

Students delegate the most cognitively demanding tasks to AI — brainstorming, drafting, finding answers — while keeping routine tasks like note-taking for themselves. This is exactly the pattern that worries researchers most.

Source: Schwartz & Diliberti (2026), RAND. Task breakdown from reported survey findings (Dec 2025).

Chart 3 — Who Worries Most? Concern by School Level and Gender (Multivariate)

Critical thinking concern is not uniform. Younger students worry more than older ones. And at every level, female students express significantly higher concern than male students.

Source: Schwartz & Diliberti (2026), RAND; EdWeek (March 2026). Dashed line = overall average (67%, Dec 2025).

Chart 4 — Teachers vs. Students: Views on AI and Learning (Multivariate)

Teachers and students largely agree that AI is changing how thinking works in classrooms — but there are telling gaps, especially on whether AI is mostly a shortcut and whether schools are ready to guide its use.

Source: NPR/Ipsos poll, June 2026 (n = 545 K-12 teachers); Schwartz & Diliberti (2026), RAND (n = 1,214 students).

Chart 5 — The Readiness Gap: Students vs. Schools (Multivariate)

While 62% of students use AI for homework, fewer than one in three schools has a formal policy — and barely one in four teachers has received any training. The gap between student practice and institutional guidance has never been wider.

3x more students use AI than schools have policies to guide them

Source: NPR/Ipsos poll, June 2026 (teachers/institutions); Schwartz & Diliberti (2026), RAND (students).

References
Schwartz, H. L., and Diliberti, M. K. (2026). More students use AI for homework, and more believe it harms critical thinking (RR-A4742-1). RAND Corporation. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA4742-1.html
NPR/Ipsos. (2026, June 5). Teachers concerned about the impact of AI on students critical thinking. Ipsos. https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/teachers-concerned-about-impact-ai-students-critical-thinking
Rintel, S., Banks, R., and Wilson, N. (2025). The impact of generative AI on critical thinking. Microsoft Research / CHI 2025.
EdWeek. (2026, March 23). Students are worried that AI will hurt their critical thinking skills. Education Week. https://www.edweek.org/technology/students-are-worried-that-ai-will-hurt-their-critical-thinking-skills/2026/03