Should AI Help With Your Homework?

Your English teacher has assigned an essay on The Giver. Not sure what to write about, you turn to a chatbot for ideas. It churns out a list of themes almost instantly. You pick one and start drafting. The writing feels easier now—but should you have asked artificial intelligence (AI) for help in the first place?

More than half of U.S. teens use AI tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, and Google Gemini for help with assignments, according to the Pew Research Center. Meanwhile, schools are trying to figure out how to navigate the technology. Many have added policies that limit or even prohibit the use of chatbots.

Some people argue that AI makes a great study buddy when it is used responsibly. They point out that if students don’t understand an assignment, the technology can explain it to them.

But other people worry that students who use chatbots may go too far and end up turning in AI’s work rather than their own. 

What do you think? Should AI help with your assignments? Read both sides, then decide for yourself.

Many people point out that using AI for homework—if your school allows it—gives you 24/7 access to help. For example, students working on homework over the weekend can have a conversation with a chatbot if they get stuck, explains Sarah Cooper. She is a middle school teacher from California. “It’s such a good tutor for kids when the teacher is not there,” she notes.

Some people argue that AI helps students be more efficient. Among other abilities, chatbots can summarize long texts. That helps students review research material faster, supporters explain. Pew researchers found that nearly half of teens use chatbots in this way.

Violet Hans, a 14-year-old from Florida, saves time on homework by uploading her lessons and asking AI to make practice tests. She takes the tests to focus her studying. “I can see what I know and what I still need to work on,” she says.

Other people say that practicing how to accomplish tasks with AI now can benefit students later in life. A 2025 World Economic Forum survey found that almost 90 percent of employers identify working with AI as a core skill that will become even more important in the future. So mastering how to use chatbots now could lead to “you’re hired” as an adult, supporters explain.

Turning to AI for assignments can be a slippery slope. Many people worry that what might start out as asking the technology one question could quickly turn into full-blown cheating. For example, students might copy a chatbot’s answers rather than doing the work themselves. Nearly 60 percent of teens say students at their school use chatbots to cheat, according to Pew data.

Relying too much on AI can hurt your ability to think critically, other people warn, because it does the problem-solving for you. Figuring out a hard question on your own might be frustrating, but it teaches you how to think through the process, says Carter Tu, 12, from New York. “With AI, you’re just getting the answer,” he explains. “It’s like focusing too much on the destination and not the journey.”

The technology also can make it harder for teachers to know what teens don’t understand, says Katie Durkin, a middle school teacher from Connecticut. “If you’re only pulling thoughts from AI, then I really can’t figure out what skills you . . . need to build,” she notes.

Others point out that chatbots can give wrong answers. The errors can be hard to catch because AI responds confidently, researchers say. That means you might not know you got an answer wrong—until you see your grade.