The university experience has profoundly changed since the proliferation of AI. Students use it to answer exam questions, do their coursework and even write their dissertation – and detection programs are struggling to catch up.

A 2026 survey by the Higher Education Policy Institute, interviewing 1,100 students, found that 95 per cent used an AI tool in their university studies.

Now, as youth unemployment reaches its highest level since 2013, academics and recent graduates worry that students’ AI use leaves them ill-equipped to find and keep a job.

‘AI has affected knowledge of my degree’

A student, who asked not to be named, described how ingrained AI use had become at their university, and how they feared that their reliance on it would affect their future job opportunities.

“It’s annoying to admit, but AI has affected my knowledge of my degree, especially the maths part,” said the student, who is preparing to start a master’s degree in aerospace engineering this autumn. They are on course to obtain a 1:1 in their bachelor’s degree in the same subject, with the final results coming at the end of the master’s.

“Maths was a very important part of my degree and that standard, because of AI, has dropped incredibly, including for myself. I wouldn’t feel confident going back to a lot of A-level and even GCSE principles now because AI could just do it for me.

“When it comes to applying for jobs, if there is any induction tests, I am worried that I won’t be able to pass them because of that reliance on AI.”

This concern appears to be increasingly widespread. A 2025 survey conducted by Jisc, an educational charity, found that students worried that AI was reducing their ability to think critically, develop original ideas and communicate in professional settings.

Teachers are also increasingly using AI, said David Andersen, an associate professor in US politics at Durham University.

Some of his colleagues “are using AI in the classroom and are telling their students to have a debate with AI where it counteracts all their arguments,” he said. “It is becoming an extension of the teacher and a tool for the students.”

‘If I don’t cheat, I’m going to be behind’

The student told The i Paper they tried to use AI in a “responsible” way, defining it as using it for research, checking answers and fleshing out their own ideas.

However, they said that because so many other students were using AI “irresponsibly” – including answering questions or coursework – there is “a level where not using it irresponsibly is just setting you back because there’s no way to regulate it”.

“I don’t want to go through my degree not having put any effort into it, but if I don’t cheat, I’m going to be behind a lot of other people who rely on AI,” they added.

The student also admitted using it in exams.

“I use it particularly with time-limited exams. If I’m behind on a few questions, my choice is either: don’t put anything in those boxes, or use AI and get an instant answer that will at least pick me up a couple of marks.

“With my dissertation, I wrote it myself, but then got AI to write its own dissertation to check it against mine and see if I missed anything out.

“It would’ve been easy to just use what AI wrote – it took half an hour.”

Ofqual’s chief regulator recently told The i Paper it was getting harder to detect AI use in A-level exams, and that subjects with the most written coursework were the most vulnerable to cheating.

Universities not adapting to AI fast enough

With AI, many test questions can now be answered with a simple prompt. The student said exams have not been adapted to counter this.

“You’ve still got the same recycled mock papers, and the majority of people I know with the use of AI are answering 70, 80, 90 per cent of those papers incredibly easily,” they said.

A Policy Exchange report this week found that universities have not adapted their assessment methods sufficiently to combat students using AI. It found that 78 per cent of UK universities use online, remote exams – of whom 70 per cent plan to carry on with this method, and only 10 per cent use online invigilation.

“AI has made most of our assessments irrelevant,” said Andersen. “When Covid hit, we closed our exams halls… and threw everything online.”

“We need to innovate and change in a system that has resisted rapid change for a millennia. We are not moving fast enough and honestly, I struggle to envision how we can.”