Last year HEPI reported 95% of students were using gen AI, but recent research from Stephen Gow and Sam Illingworth cast doubt on this figure. Today I’m joined by Stephen to talk through some of the key finding of his Leverhume Trust funded study that draws data from over 7,000 participants. What do students really think about gen AI in higher education, and how should this shape the way we treat it in the curriculum?

Dr Stephen Gow was the Leverhulme Research Fellow at the Department of Learning and Teaching Enhancement (DLTE) at Edinburgh Napier University. During this role he led the Student Experiences on Generative AI Project (StudentXGenAI), this project carried out the StudentXGenAI Survey with a response rate of over 7000 students at UK institutions and interviews with students across the UK in addition to integrating GenAI into the research process. He is an expert on academic integrity, assessment and GenAI, and the Chair of the Northern Academic Integrity Forum. He is now associate staff with Department of Education, University of York and available for consultation and research projects related to GenAI in education. He can be contacted at [email protected] or via Linkedin: Stephen Gow | LinkedIn 

Chung, J., Henderson, M., Slade, C., Liang, Y., Pepperell, N., Corbin, T., Walton, J., Yu, AS., Bearman, M., Buckingham Shum, S., Fawns, T., McCluskey, T., McLean, J., Oberg, G., Seligmann, A., Shibani, A., Bakharia, A., Lim, LA., Matthews, KE. (2026). The use and usefulness of GenAI in higher education: Student experience and perspectives. Computers and Education Open, Available at: doi:  10.1016/j.caeo.2026.100347.

Gow S, Illingworth S (2026), "Dynamic tensions: an AI-assisted critical scoping review of university students' qualitative experiences of GenAI". Artificial Intelligence in Education, Vol. 2 No. 1 pp. 67–89, Available at: doi: 10.1108/AIIE-06-2025-0151 

Gow, S. and Illingworth, S. (2026) “It is a temptation to get it to do the work…” – student experiences of GenAI in UK universities. 09 Apr 2026. Advance HE. [Online]. Available at: https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/news-and-views/it-temptation-get-it-do-work-student-experiences-genai-uk-universities [Accessed 20 April 2026].

The Castlereagh Statement is available at: https://castlereagh.ai/

00:00 Welcome and guest intro

01:12 Duolingo streak talk

06:20 Tech backlash and attention

10:46 Generative AI literacy risks

19:23 Introducing StudentXGenAI

22:31 Survey design and access

24:54 Who uses GenAI and why

27:23 Productivity versus learning

31:42 Massification and student pressures

34:26 Research goals and policy impact

34:48 Survey design choices

35:52 UK vs Australia findings

36:47 Why usage rates differ

38:15 Regulation and risk

39:07 Learning tool doubts

41:11 Assessment scales explained

45:42 Trust and honesty data

49:44 Fairness and incentives

56:55 Exams after COVID

01:03:59 Data privacy and costs

01:07:31 Future research