85.6% of Chinese Students Use AI for Homework, Survey Reveals
A landmark nationwide survey has revealed that 85.6% of primary and secondary school students in China have used artificial intelligence to complete homework assignments, with the vast majority doing so without any adult supervision or guidance. The findings, published by Guangming Daily, have ignited a fierce national debate about what skills education should cultivate in the AI era and how to responsibly integrate these powerful tools into learning environments.
The Scope of the Discovery
Conducted in summer 2025 by the Chinese Academy of Educational Sciences, the survey covered all 31 provinces and involved an unprecedented 320,000 students, 280,000 parents, and 50,000 teachers. The results paint a stark picture: while 99.7% of students in central and western China have been exposed to AI, only 13.8% of teachers and 17.8% of parents believed that students were widely using the technology, revealing what researchers describe as a significant “cognitive blind spot” among adults.
Li Yongzhi, Party Secretary and President of the Chinese Academy of Educational Sciences, who presented the findings, warned that without proper oversight, students are effectively operating in an unsupervised AI environment. “If people lack reflective ability,” he said, “they will unknowingly surrender their cognitive sovereignty.”
Polarization and Intrinsic Motivation
Perhaps the most significant finding concerns how students actually use AI. The research identified a clear polarization: self-disciplined students leverage AI as a cognitive extension tool to deepen their understanding, while less disciplined students use it as a shortcut to perfunctorily complete assignments.
Li emphasized that the decisive factor is not family background or school resources but intrinsic motivation. “The core variable causing polarization has never been family or school resources, but intrinsic motivation,” he told Guangming Daily. “AI will never actively think about ‘what is meaningful to do,’ but humans can.”
This finding challenges deterministic narratives about technology, suggesting that AI itself is neither inherently beneficial nor harmful — the outcome depends on the human context in which it is used.
Broader Context: A National Trend
The Chinese Academy of Sciences survey is not an isolated data point. A separate study by the China Youth Research Center, published in March 2026 and reported by China Youth Daily, surveyed 8,563 students across seven provinces and found that over 60% of primary and secondary students had used AI, with 71% using it specifically for homework assistance. The center’s researcher, Sun Hongyan, noted that rural students were more likely to use AI for homework completion (73.2%) than their urban counterparts (68.4%), suggesting different usage patterns driven by unequal access to other educational resources.
Expert Voices: What Skills Matter Now?
The findings have prompted leading Chinese education scholars to rethink the fundamental purpose of schooling. Zhou Haitao, Dean of the Higher Education Research Institute at Beijing Normal University, struck a cautionary note: “What most needs vigilance is humans voluntarily abandoning thinking and ceding cognitive ability. This problem needs to be addressed through educational reform.”
Education scholar Zhao Yong argued that the most essential skill in the AI era is the ability to discover and solve problems. “AI can give countless standard answers,” he said, “but it can never raise warm, valuable true questions.” He emphasized that judging the value of a problem requires asking three core questions: Why is this meaningful? Why am I qualified to solve it? Why must it be done now? “Thinking through these,” he concluded, “is far more important than solving a preset problem.”
The Rural-Urban Dimension
The survey reveals a nuanced digital divide that defies simple narratives. While AI access is nearly universal — 99.7% in central and western regions — the quality of usage varies dramatically. Rural students use AI for homework completion at higher rates (73.2% vs. 68.4%), possibly reflecting less access to tutors or other resources. However, they also show higher rates of AI dependency, with 22.8% of rural students expressing a desire to rely on AI rather than think independently, compared to 17.7% of urban students.
Experts at the China Youth Research Center warn that without targeted interventions, AI could widen rather than narrow existing educational gaps, creating a new dimension of inequality.
Policy Responses and the Road Ahead
China has already begun developing policy frameworks to address these challenges. The Ministry of Education has issued the “Guidelines for the Use of Generative AI by Primary and Secondary School Students (2025 Edition),” and some pioneering schools have developed student-led AI usage conventions based on the principle of “think independently first, then use AI to expand thinking.”
Sun Hongyan emphasized the critical role of parents in this transition. “Parents must first break down cognitive barriers and face squarely the trend of AI technology popularization,” she told China News Service. She called for a family-school-society collaborative governance model to ensure that AI serves as a tool for empowerment rather than a crutch that weakens independent thought.
As China grapples with these questions, the global education community watches closely. The country’s experience — combining near-universal AI access with a deeply exam-oriented education system — offers both cautionary lessons and innovative models for how societies might navigate the complex intersection of artificial intelligence and human learning.