Released last month, the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) questioned 280,000 educators from 55 countries. A key area of feedback and insight was the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in teaching. Here’s what was reported – and how New Zealand teachers compared to the rest of the world.
AI usage varies tremendously
On average, one in three teachers report having used AI in their work. However, there is variation across countries. Around 75 per cent of teachers in Singapore and the United Arab Emirates but fewer than 20 per cent of teachers in France and Japan report doing so.
Reasons for using AI
- Out of teachers who use AI, 68 per cent say they use it to efficiently learn about and summarise a topic.
- 64 per cent use AI to generate lesson plans.
- 25 per cent report using AI to review data on student participation or performance.
- 26 per cent indicate that they use it to assess or grade student work.
- 40 per cent of teachers ‘agree’ or ‘strongly agree’ that AI helps them support students individually.
Half agree that AI assists in creating or improving lesson plans, though agreement ranges from as low as 18 per cent in France and 31 per cent in Denmark and Finland to as high as 87 per cent in the United Arab Emirates and 91 per cent in Vietnam.
Challenges with AI
- Seven in 10 teachers believe AI could enable students to misrepresent others’ work as their own.
- 40 per cent agree that AI may amplify biases, reinforce student misconceptions, or compromise data privacy and security.
- Approximately 33 per cent of teachers that have not used AI report feeling overwhelmed by the new technology, as well as the overall expectation to integrate new technologies.
- Three-quarters of teachers report that they lack the knowledge or skills to teach using AI.
- About half of teachers do not believe AI should be used in teaching.
- In terms of school policy, 10 per cent report that their school does not allow AI in teaching.
Training in AI
- Almost 40 per cent of teachers report being trained in the use of AI tools for teaching and learning.
- Rates of participation in training focused on AI exceeded 60 per cent in four countries (Kazakhstan, South Korea, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates). However, they were particularly low in France (9 per cent).
- AI is also one of the topics where differences between novice and more experienced teachers are more pronounced, likely reflecting the higher sensitivity of new teachers to the use of modern tools.
Primary v Secondary
- Fewer primary teachers report using AI as compared to their secondary peers. The biggest difference was observed in Australia (19 percentage points less)
- For teachers who do use AI, a bigger proportion of primary teachers use AI to support students with special education needs. More primary teachers also report using AI for practices such as generating text for student feedback and parent/guardian communications, as well as reviewing data on student participation and performance.
- In general, primary school teachers reported fewer challenges with using AI compared to their secondary peers, including enabling students to misrepresent others’ work as their own and making recommendations that may not be appropriate or correct.
AI usage by Kiwi teachers
- 69 per cent of New Zealand teachers report having used AI in their work (significantly higher than the OECD average of 36 per cent).
- Kiwi teachers tend to use AI to generate lesson plans or activities (75 per cent), efficiently learn about and summarise a topic (74 per cent), and generate text for student feedback or parent/guardian communications (52 per cent).
- The least frequent use of AI is to help students practise new skills in real-life scenarios (30 per cent), assess or mark student work (14 per cent), and review data on student participation or performance (10 per cent).
- Among New Zealand teachers who report that they have not used AI in their teaching in the 12 months prior to the survey, 71 per cent say that they do not have the knowledge and skills to teach using AI (similar to the OECD average of 75 per cent) and 14 per cent say that their schools lack the infrastructure to use AI (lower than the OECD average of 37 per cent).
Source: TALIS 2024, The State of Teaching
Download the report at oecd.org/en/publications/results-from-talis-2024_90df6235-en.html
INTERFACE November 2025