A new Brookings Institution study warns that the widespread use of AI in education is actively weakening how students think, learn and engage cognitively, raising the risk of long-term intellectual decline.
The findings come from a global premortem conducted by Brookings researchers, who examined how AI tools are reshaping learning behavior across classrooms, homes and education systems. The study draws on interviews, focus groups, and consultations with 505 students, teachers, parents, education leaders and technologists spanning 50 countries.
Researchers describe the trend as a “great unwiring” of students’ cognitive capacities, driven not only by overuse of AI tools but by their routine integration into everyday learning tasks.
“57% of all responses discussing potential harms focused on threats to students’ ‘cognitive development.’ This concern resonates across cohorts, appearing in 65% of student responses, 46% of parent responses, and 44% of teacher responses, addressing AI’s potential harms.”
Brookings defines cognitive development as “the growth and maturation of thinking processes of all kinds, including perceiving, remembering, concept formation, problem solving, imagining, and reasoning.”
As students increasingly offload cognitive tasks to AI systems, they often see short-term gains such as improved grades, faster completion times, and reduced effort. Those rewards reinforce dependence, leading to further cognitive offloading and, ultimately, diminished independent thinking.
Researchers say the dynamic risks hollowing out foundational learning skills, even as surface-level performance appears to improve. Over time, the study notes, students may lose the ability to reason, imagine and solve problems without machine assistance.
Brookings concludes that the risks of AI in education now outweigh its benefits at this stage of adoption, largely because those risks strike at children’s core intellectual development rather than offering additive improvements. The study also warns that AI use can erode trust between students and teachers, further undermining learning outcomes and limiting the effectiveness of AI-enhanced educational materials.
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