Of the 900 million people who use ChatGPT each week, college-age adults are the biggest adopters among age groups. How they learn to use AI will increasingly shape their future opportunities, and education systems are uniquely positioned to help.
Much of modern education was built to help students get ready for existing systems of work. But those systems are changing fast. Studies(opens in a new window) predict nearly 40% of the core skills workers rely on will change, largely because of AI. To thrive in this Intelligence Age, students need to build agency: the ability to learn continuously, solve hard problems, and create new economic opportunities for themselves with AI.
Agency does not emerge from basic AI use alone. Students must progress from simple tasks to deeper applications such as studying, building, creating, coding, and managing agents. But among college-age users, we see a widening global “capability overhang,” defined as the gap between what AI tools can do and how people actually use them. Even advanced student users still operate roughly 90% to 99% below how power users of ChatGPT are engaging with our tools.
Educational institutions play a central role in closing that gap. Faculty and educators can help students harness AI’s full potential by embedding authentic AI use cases into coursework—assignments that use AI and mirror real professional work, such as analyzing a market, designing a product concept, evaluating a policy trade-off, or building a simple agent workflow. The institutions that help students move from basic use to this real capability can help drive broad distribution of the benefits of AI across learners. Supporting a wide range of institutions with the necessary tools to meet this moment is a core focus of our work in education.
## The next generation’s AI capability gap
One in three college-aged young adults in the U.S. use ChatGPT regularly, but few are using it to its full potential. Understanding how students move from basic use toward deeper capability development is a central focus of our learning research.
Based on a de-identified analysis of the capability gap among users, college-age individuals are some of the strongest mainstream users of ChatGPT, leading or tying for the lead in five of 11 major capabilities such as writing, analysis, creative work, coding, and learning. Yet even advanced student users still use roughly 90% to 99% less across capabilities than what we define as a power user, highlighting substantial opportunities to deepen their understanding of AI.
Structured access and institutional support show promise in helping students move from basic use toward more advanced applications. Across ChatGPT Edu deployments, we saw students developing more advanced patterns of use over time. ChatGPT Edu users outperform free users across nearly every capability we analyzed and are measurably closer to power-user behavior. In particular, the largest gains appear in analysis and calculation tasks and education and learning tasks.
## Tools and resources for educational institutions
Universities and education systems around the world are embracing their role in closing capability gaps. Hundreds of universities are working with OpenAI to give students AI access through ChatGPT Edu(opens in a new window). This includes entire campus-wide deployments across Arizona State University, Italy’s Bocconi University, the California State University system, Clemson University, ESCP Business School, Indiana University, Oxford University, University of California San Francisco, University of Colorado, University of South Carolina, University of Southern California, University of Utah, and others. Education systems in Greece, Estonia, the UAE, and many other markets are also evolving at an unprecedented pace, working through OpenAI’s Education for Countries initiative to bring AI tools, training, and research into their nation’s core learning infrastructure.
To continue supporting the ecosystem, our tools and resources are designed to encourage richer use of AI while helping institutions measure, build, and demonstrate impact. Recent offerings include:
Alongside these efforts to advance student capability, we are also supporting the literacy and training of educators, who play a critical role in shaping how AI is used in classrooms. Across K–12 and higher education, we are working with teachers and faculty to build confidence, training, and practical pathways for adoption. Our work to ensure they have AI tools and training includes products like ChatGPT for Teachers, which is being used across dozens of leading school districts representing more than 150,000 teachers and staff, and partnerships with organizations like the American Federation of Teachers to help support teacher-led training at scale. Through the OpenAI Academy(opens in a new window)’s work with organizations like the National Applied AI Consortium(opens in a new window) and collaborations with institutions including Miami Dade College, we also provide community college faculty with free training content and resources.
OpenAI’s mission is to ensure that advanced AI benefits everyone, and education plays a central role in realizing that vision. Helping students and educators cultivate powerful AI skills is one of the most important ways to ensure AI expands opportunity for all.
Contact us(opens in a new window) to learn more about working with our Education team.
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