Mostly looking things up, homework and fun. In Pew Research Center's February 2026 survey of US 13 to 17 year olds, the top three uses were finding information (57%), schoolwork (54%) and entertainment (47%). Chatting for company came near the bottom. Those are averages, though, and averages tell you nothing about your child. The platform's age rules and your school's policy still come first.
What teenagers say they use AI for
The best picture we have comes from the teenagers themselves. Pew Research Center surveyed 1,458 US teens aged 13 to 17 and their parents between 25 September and 9 October 2025, and published the findings on 24 February 2026. Asked what they use AI chatbots for, teens said:
- Looking up information: 57%
- Help with schoolwork: 54%
- Fun or entertainment: 47%
- Summarizing something: about 40%
- Making or editing images and video: about 40%
- Casual conversation: 16%
- Emotional support or advice: 12%
The British picture is close. Ofcom's Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes report, published on 21 May 2026, found that 66% of UK 13 to 17 year olds had used AI, that 51% of child users used it for schoolwork or homework, up from 34% in 2023, and that 43% used it simply for fun. One in ten used it as someone to talk to.
Read those two lists next to each other and the shape is the same in both countries. Most of what teenagers do with AI is ordinary: a search, a first draft, a joke, a picture of the dog as a Renaissance painting. That is not an argument for relaxing. It is an argument for aiming your attention at the right place.
The ladder, not the switch
Here is the number that changed how I talk to parents about this. Among US teen students in that Pew survey, 10% said they use chatbots for all or most of their schoolwork. Another 21% said some. Another 23% said a little. And 45% said they had not used them for schoolwork at all.
So "teenagers use AI for homework" is four different situations wearing one sentence. A child who has never opened ChatGPT for an assignment and a child who runs every assignment through it are both inside that headline, and they need opposite conversations. The first needs to be taught how to check an answer. The second needs their thinking handed back.
Teenage AI use is a ladder, not a switch. The useful question is not whether your child uses it. It is which rung they are standing on.
Parents are 13 points behind, and a third are not sure
In the same fieldwork, 64% of teens said they use AI chatbots. Only 51% of parents said their teen does. Another 18% said their teen does not, and 30% said they were not sure.
That last figure is the one I would sit with. Almost a third of parents of teenagers do not know. Pew also found that just over half of parents had talked to their teen about chatbots, and around 40% never had.
My reading of it, and this is interpretation rather than something Pew measured: the gap is not teenagers hiding something. It is that AI stopped being a destination. Nobody announces they used the search bar. When it is inside the phone keyboard, the homework site and the app they already had, using it does not feel like an event worth mentioning, so it does not get mentioned.
The use you worry about is not the use they do most
Pew asked parents how acceptable each use was. Around 80% were comfortable with their teen searching for information, about 60% with schoolwork help, under a third with casual conversation, and 18% with a chatbot giving emotional support or advice.
Now put that against what teens actually do. The two uses parents are least comfortable with, casual conversation and emotional support, are the two the fewest teens report. The uses almost every parent is fine with are the ones happening constantly.
I am not saying the worry is misplaced. If your teenager is leaning on a chatbot when they are low, that matters more than any homework question, and I have written separately about what to do when a teen talks to an AI about their feelings. If you are worried about your child's mental health right now, the route is a person, not a setting: your GP or pediatrician, the school's safeguarding lead or counselor, and in a crisis 988 in the US or Samaritans on 116 123 and Childline on 0800 1111 in the UK.
But the everyday risk sits somewhere quieter. Ofcom found that 78% of UK 8 to 17 year olds sometimes read the AI summary at the top of search results, and that 46% of them believe those summaries are always accurate. In the same research, 52% of teens who knew about AI felt confident they could spot AI-generated content, and 59% correctly identified an AI-generated image of a celebrity when they were shown one. A quarter were confident and wrong.
That is the gap I would spend the year on. Not the confessional chatbot, which is real but rarer. The confident wrong answer, read at speed, on a Tuesday, and copied into a piece of work without a second thought.
What I See in Schools
When I train teachers, the thing they raise most about older students is not cheating. It is flattening. Work comes in that is competent, tidy, correctly structured and says nothing that the student could not have been told. The voice has gone out of it.
The pattern I see most often in secondary schools is a child who is not trying to cheat at all. They are trying to get to "finished" faster, on a night with three deadlines and a shift at work, and the machine offers a version of finished that looks convincing. Nobody has ever shown them what they gave up to get it.
Teachers spot this quickly, and usually not through detection software, which they trust less than the headlines suggest. They spot it because they know how that particular child writes.
The question that gets you a real answer
If you ask a teenager "do you use AI?", you will get a shrug and a yes, and you will learn nothing. Try this instead.
The Last Three Question: do not ask "do you use AI?" That gets a shrug. Ask "what were the last three things you asked it?" A general question gets a general answer. A specific one usually gets a phone held up.
It works because it is not an accusation and it is easy to answer honestly. The last three things are almost always mundane, which lowers the temperature, and the mundane answer is exactly the information you wanted.
Some sentences that work, said in the car or over the washing up rather than across a table:
"What were the last three things you asked it?"
"Show me one where it got something wrong."
"What does it do better than you, and what do you do better than it?"
"If you handed that in and your teacher asked you to explain the second paragraph, could you?"
That last one is the whole thing in a sentence. Let AI help with the doing; keep the thinking with your child.
What changes between 13 and 15, and 16 and 18
The band matters more than people expect, because the pressure changes.
At 13 to 15, the honest job is teaching the check. This is the age when the summary at the top of the search results becomes the answer, so make disagreement normal: ask the same question twice, in two tools, and look at where they differ. Keep AI use in shared rooms rather than behind a bedroom door, not because you are policing it but because a machine that is always agreeable is easier to lean on in private. Agree that first drafts can be theirs and edits can be shared, and be specific about which subjects that applies to.
At 16 to 18, monitoring stops working and the real risk becomes coursework, personal statements and applications. Two things are worth saying plainly. First, an admissions essay or personal statement written by a chatbot reads like one, and the people reading them have now read thousands. Second, exam boards and universities have their own rules about AI in assessed work, and those rules override anything agreed at home, so the sensible move is to read your child's school or college policy together rather than guess at it.
For younger siblings watching all this: under 13 is below the minimum age on most of these services anyway, and the guidance there is different. That is a separate conversation, and our guide for parents new to AI is the better place to start.
What the settings can and cannot do
Start with the rule, because it is the one thing that is not a matter of opinion. OpenAI's terms of use, effective 1 January 2026, say you must be at least 13, or the minimum age in your country, and that anyone under 18 must have a parent or guardian's permission. Other companies set their own ages, and those limits are self-declared, which means they stop an honest child and not a determined one.
ChatGPT's own parent resources, as published in September 2026, describe a teen experience that is applied by default when OpenAI's systems estimate from account information and other signals that a user is likely under 18. Linked parents can turn features off, set quiet hours when ChatGPT cannot be used, and make Study Mode the default.
Here is the limit, in OpenAI's own words: parents do not have access to their teen's conversations. They may be notified in rare cases where the company's systems and trained reviewers detect possible signs of serious safety risk. That is a deliberate design choice and I think it is the right one, but it means no control you switch on tonight will tell you what your child is talking about. Only your child will. If you want the full walkthrough of what those settings do, we have a guide to ChatGPT's parental controls and one for Google Gemini.
Character and companion apps are a different category with different risks, and we look at those separately.
What to ask the school
Three questions, in this order, at parents' evening or by email to your child's head of year. They are short on purpose.
- Which AI tools are my child expected or allowed to use, and who decided? A good answer names tools and a person. A vague one tells you the policy has not reached the classroom.
- How does this subject expect AI to be used in coursework, and how is that checked? Rules differ between English and computer science, and your child needs the subject answer, not the school answer.
- What are you teaching students about checking what AI tells them? If the answer is nothing, that is worth knowing, and it is the gap you can fill at home this week.
What teachers are actually doing with AI is often more sensible than parents expect, and knowing it makes these conversations easier.
Where to start tonight
Ask the last three things. Do not correct what you hear. Then pick one of them and look at it together, and ask how you would check it if it mattered.
If your child's school has not yet spoken to parents about AI, that gap is worth naming, and it is the work I do with schools: training staff, setting a strategy and making the policy mean something in the classroom. It is worth sending them. I also write a newsletter that keeps teachers and parents up to date without the panic, and parents are very welcome.
Dan Fitzpatrick is a former secondary teacher and assistant headteacher who has trained more than 150,000 educators in over 30 countries. More about Dan.
## Tags
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## Meta title
What Do Teens Actually Use AI For? A Parent's Guide
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## Meta description
Pew and Ofcom data on what 13 to 18 year olds really use AI for, how far parents underestimate it, and the one question that gets you an honest answer tonight.
Character count: 159.
## Focus keyword
what do teens use ai for
## Canonical URL (record only, not sent)
https://parents.theaieducator.io/posts/what-do-teens-use-ai-for
## TL;DR
Teenagers mostly use AI for looking things up, schoolwork and fun. In Pew Research Center's February 2026 survey of US 13 to 17 year olds, 57% used it for information, 54% for schoolwork and 47% for entertainment, while 12% used it for emotional support. Parents underestimate use by 13 percentage points and 30% are not sure either way. The most useful thing you can do tonight is ask what the last three things they asked it were, then look at one of them together. No parental control will show you your child's conversations, and your school's policy on AI in assessed work overrides anything agreed at home.
## Key takeaways
- Most teenage AI use is ordinary: information, schoolwork and fun, with emotional support the least common use in Pew's February 2026 survey of US 13 to 17 year olds.
- Ask "what were the last three things you asked it?" instead of "do you use AI?", because a specific question gets a specific answer.
- Aim your attention at the confident wrong answer, not just the companion chatbot: Ofcom found 46% of UK 8 to 17 year olds who read AI search summaries believe they are always accurate.
- At 13 to 15 teach the check; at 16 to 18 read the school or exam board policy on AI in coursework and applications together.
- No parental control shows you your teen's conversations, so the setting is the floor and the conversation is the work.
## FAQ
Q: How old does my child have to be to use ChatGPT? A: Thirteen, or the minimum age in your country, and under 18s must have a parent or guardian's permission, according to OpenAI's terms of use effective 1 January 2026. Other AI companies set their own ages. All of these limits are self-declared at sign-up, so they stop an honest child rather than a determined one, and your child's school may set a stricter rule than the platform does.
Q: Can I read my teenager's AI conversations? A: No. OpenAI states plainly in its parent resources that linked parents do not have access to their teen's conversations, and that they may only be notified in rare cases where its systems and trained reviewers detect possible signs of serious safety risk. Controls can limit features, set quiet hours and default to Study Mode, but the content of the chats stays private.
Q: Is it cheating if my teenager uses AI for homework? A: It depends on what the machine did, not whether it was used at all. The line most teachers apply is whether the thinking still belongs to the student, and school and exam board policies differ by subject, so the school's rule is the one that counts. We look at the test teachers actually use in our post on whether using AI for homework is cheating.
Q: My teenager uses AI far more than their friends seem to. Should I be worried? A: Not automatically, but it is worth knowing which kind of use it is. In Pew's February 2026 survey, 10% of US teen students said they use chatbots for all or most of their schoolwork while 45% had not used them for schoolwork at all, so heavy use is real but not the norm. The signal to watch is whether they can still explain their own work without the tool.
Q: Does it make a difference that my child uses AI at secondary school as well as at home? A: Yes, and the two sets of rules are often different. Schools set their own policy on AI in classwork and assessed work, and it can vary between subjects, so ask which tools your child is expected or allowed to use and how each subject expects AI to be used in coursework. Where the school's rule and your home rule differ, the school's rule applies to school work.
Q: What should I say if my teenager tells me they talk to a chatbot when they are upset? A: Thank them for telling you, and do not make the app the villain, because that usually closes the conversation. Then find out what makes the chatbot easier to talk to than a person, and involve someone who can actually help: your GP or pediatrician, the school's safeguarding lead or counselor, and 988 in the US or Samaritans on 116 123 and Childline on 0800 1111 in the UK if things are more serious.
## Named entities
Dan Fitzpatrick, The AI Educator, Pew Research Center, Ofcom, OpenAI, ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Character.AI, Study Mode, Samaritans, Childline
## Last updated
9 September 2026
## OG title
What Do Teens Actually Use AI For?
## OG description
The research says information, homework and fun, and it says parents are 13 points behind on how many teens use it at all. Here is what to ask tonight.
## OG image URL
(the 1200x630 upload URL, recorded after publishing)
## Featured image alt
A cut-paper green ladder with four thick black rungs and a fifth rung filled in green and marked with a single white line, standing for the different levels of AI use a teenager might be at.
## Primary main-site link
https://theaieducator.io/ai-training-for-schools
Sentence used: "If your child's school has not yet spoken to parents about AI, that gap is worth naming, and it is the work I do with schools: training staff, setting a strategy and making the policy mean something in the classroom."
## Secondary main-site links
https://theaieducator.io/#newsletter (closing section) https://theaieducator.io/about (bio line)
