OECD Global Study of 760,000 Students Finds Daily AI Chatbot Use Sets Learning Back a Full Year

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published its latest Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) report. Marking the first comprehensive global assessment since generative AI entered mainstream classrooms, the study evaluated more than 760,000 15-year-old students across 91 countries and economies, representing roughly 33 million teenagers worldwide. After controlling for socioeconomic background, the data revealed a clear pattern: students who rely on AI tools daily for homework consistently scored lower in science, math, and reading than peers who did not use AI shortcuts.

According to the assessment, 15-year-olds who frequently used AI chatbots to summarize assigned reading passages or draft written assignments suffered a nearly 30-point score penalty in science—a deficit equivalent to losing roughly one full year of academic learning. Across OECD nations, average reading performance has dropped 28 points since 2015 (representing 1.5 years of lost learning), while math fell 22 points. One in five 15-year-olds across the OECD is now classified as a low performer across all three core subjects, up from 16% in 2022.

Andreas Schleicher, the OECD's Director for Education and Skills, emphasized in the report: "In the same way that we do not become fit by watching sports but by doing sports, learning does not occur through the consumption of content, but as a productive cognitive struggle of the mind with new material. Where technology enables or enhances that cognitive struggle, students will advance. Where technology short-circuits the productive struggle of learning, it will undercut students' development."

Sources: OECD PISA Report, Bloomberg, The Verge, Fortune.

BenPig decided to read the assignment by itself.