Half of parents are worried their kids are too hooked on AI

Half of parents surveyed by Deloitte are concerned their children rely too heavily on AI, even as usage outpaces school-provided tools and guidelines. Nearly 30% of parents report their children already use generative AI for schoolwork, while over a third worry schools aren't teaching enough AI skills. The findings highlight growing parental anxiety over AI's role in education.

Artificial intelligence really is everywhere these days. Beyond shaking up workplaces and college classrooms, the tech is gaining ground among grade school students — and it's making some parents nervous. Among 1,150 parents of school-aged children surveyed in Deloitte's annual back-to-school https://www.businessinsider.com/back-to-school-season-more-stressful-for-mom-than-kids-2025-8 survey, half said they were concerned their child "relies on AI too much." That usage is outpacing the number of parents who said their child's school provides approved generative AI tools 22% or has established guidelines for using the tech 33% . Nearly 30% of respondents also said their children were already using generative AI tools in their schoolwork. At the same time, more than a third of parents said they are concerned schools aren't preparing kids enough with AI skills, with one in eight parents planning to pay for AI tutoring or camps. The numbers add a new wrinkle to the growing debate over tech tools in schools https://www.businessinsider.com/how-apple-lost-the-k-12-education-market-to-google-2023-8 . Business Insider's Katie Notopolous wrote in May about how her third grader and his friends "had been using Google's Gemini on their school-provided Chromebooks to make funny pictures of poop https://www.businessinsider.com/school-chromebook-students-parents-classroom-ai-backlash-2026-5 and dinosaurs." Several school districts are also balancing a backlash against the widespread use of video resources like YouTube against a yearslong decline in math and reading scores. One physics teacher in Canada told Business Insider last year that students' use of AI tools had prompted him to include more analog classwork https://www.businessinsider.com/teachers-change-curriculum-assignments-student-ai-cheating-2025-6 . "I've tried to sort of shift back toward some handwritten assignments, instead of having them do it on the computer," Ward said. "That way, I can tell this is how they're writing. I know it's theirs."