Student Adoption of AI is Universal, But Educators Worry About Critical Thinking And Fluency, According to New DataCamp Report

• Educators worry more about AI’s impact on thinking than cheating: 81% of educators worry about its impact on critical thinking, while 54% worry about academic dishonesty.
• 89% of educators surveyed by DataCamp said AI will be essential to their students’ careers, but only 3% believe their students are currently AI-fluent.
• ChatGPT’s monopoly among educators is over, falling by 20% year-over-year while Claude adoption doubled.

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--DataCamp, the leading platform for AI and data upskilling offering the world’s #1 AI tutor, today announced the release of its 2026 AI in Education report, which surveyed more than 150 teachers and 150 students to look at their AI adoption and attitudes toward how the new technology is changing education. DataCamp’s findings show that despite the first AI-native class having graduated in 2026, massive gaps remain between AI adoption and fluency, with lingering concerns about AI’s impact on critical thinking skills and uncertain protocols and guidelines around its use.

Both students and educators surveyed expressed broad concern that AI was eroding critical thinking skills. This was more universal among educators, with 81% saying that an over-reliance on AI eroding critical thinking skills concerned them, while 48% of students said they worried AI was doing the work for them, instead of helping them learn. This impact on critical thinking easily outstripped concerns around academic dishonesty among educators, which 54% of educators listed as a major concern. Fitting in with a broader adoption of AI usage disclaimers, 83% of educators said they have redesigned their assessments for the AI era. Open and clear boundaries between AI and learning were popular with students: more than two-thirds (68%) said they got the most use out of assessments where AI use can be used openly and explained, as well as process-based work that shows drafts and reasoning. Only 5% of educators surveyed wanted to return to a word of AI-free assessments.

Unsurprisingly, AI use among students and educators is ubiquitous: 93% of educators and 90% of students use it at least weekly. But while adoption is no longer a question the space is becoming increasingly fractured, and while the importance of AI to a student’s future was not up for debate, there is broad concern that student AI skills aren’t where they should be:

• 89% of educators say AI fluency will be essential to their student’s future careers but only 3% believe their students are currently AI-fluent. [Students have a rosier view of this, with 27% self-describing themselves as fluent.]
• Only 29% of students said they had received substantial AI instruction, with 86% saying they would join institutional AI fluency programs if offered and 60% saying they are teaching themselves AI.
• Claude use had doubled year-over-year, from 30% to 63%. In DataCamp’s 2025 report, ChatGPT had a near monopoly, used by 92% of educators. One year later, only 72% of educators said they used ChatGPT, with Google Gemini (67%) close behind.
• DataCamp’s own platform data shows that 40% of enterprise course starts are AI courses, while only 9% of academic course starts are AI.

Both students and educators called out a lack of clear, well-documented AI policies. 43% of students don’t know if their institution has an AI policy and 44% worry about being wrongly accused of cheating. Close to half (44%) of educators said that their institution did not have a clear, well-communicated AI policy, with just 19% having an established, active AI governance structure.

“When AI is thrown into a classroom without strategy, what you’re left with is confusion. Our 2026 AI in Education report shows just how far reality is falling short of possibility. People aren’t sure of the rules, and push boundaries, and you've got experimentation with AI without a deeper sense of how best to use it,” said Jonathan Cornelissen, CEO and co-founder of DataCamp. “We know the impact AI can have here, for the better. At DataCamp we see everyday that AI can make education richer, and more personalized and adaptive, versus static learning.”

DataCamp’s free initiative for educators, DataCamp Classrooms, allows educators to create virtual classrooms, assign AI and data learning, and track learner progress. In January, DataCamp announced a pledge to provide free access to AI tools and education to 1 million educators and students in 2026.

About DataCamp

DataCamp is the learning platform offering the world’s #1 AI tutor. Built with AI at its core, it makes learning AI, data, and engineering topics uniquely personal, the way a great tutor would. Whether upskilling a small business or transforming a workforce, DataCamp's curriculum delivers comprehensive coverage of every AI and data skill, equipping organizations to lead in an AI-powered future, supporting over 6,000 organizations and 20 million learners worldwide. To learn more, visit datacamp.com.