New College Board Research: AP Teachers Push for Guardrails and Support as GenAI Reshapes the Classroom

New research from College Board finds that Advanced Placement^® (AP^®) teachers are navigating a fast-moving shift in how Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is appearing in their classrooms, and their feedback is now shaping how two AP courses are being redesigned for an increasingly GenAI-driven world.

From April 2025 through June 2026, College Board Research gathered input from thousands of AP teachers nationwide through multiple surveys and focus groups, including a close look at two courses most affected by GenAI: AP Computer Science Principles (AP CSP), due to computing's growing reliance on AI-related skills, and AP Seminar, due to AI's possible impact on writing and research. The findings, detailed in a new research brief, Teacher Perceptions of GenAI in AP Course Redesign, reveal AP teacher reactions ranging from enthusiasm to caution to outright opposition. Their reactions directly informed updates to both courses.

“AP teachers are at the forefront of one of the fastest shifts education has seen in decades,” said Jennifer Mulhern, vice president of AP Program Access at College Board. “Their feedback made clear that a one-size-fits-all approach to GenAI wouldn't serve students well. The redesigns of AP Computer Science Principles and AP Seminar reflect what teachers told us: Integrate GenAI where it deepens learning, protect learning where it doesn't, and give teachers real support either way.” 
 

Two Courses, Two Different Redesigns 

Three themes from the research directly informed the redesigns of AP CSP and AP Seminar, which will launch in the 2027-28 school year: 

1. GenAI integration works best when aligned to the discipline's learning needs. 
2. Teachers support guardrails that are enforceable at the point of assessment and that protect scoring of authentic student work. 
3. Teachers are building their own GenAI fluency at the same time they're expected to teach it, which requires real, sustained support.

For AP CSP, teacher interest in specific GenAI content was strong across experience levels and geographic regions. More than 80% of AP CSP teachers said such content would be very or somewhat useful to students. The redesigned course will embed GenAI concepts across core units, including GenAI and human decision making, machine learning, algorithm development, data ethics, and the societal impacts of GenAI. The course will also introduce a new culminating performance task, the AI Create Project, in which students apply what they've learned to build their own AI application. 

AP Seminar teachers viewed GenAI's role differently. They ranked ethical considerations as most helpful for students to learn (68%), followed by using GenAI to support research (62%). Using GenAI for academic writing itself rated notably lower (51%). Reflecting that feedback, the redesigned AP Seminar will keep responsible GenAI use as a formative part of the course, guided by the existing GenAI Acceptable Use Policy. At the same time, independent writing will remain for scored components: Students will draft and edit their AP essays in a secure writing environment, without GenAI access, with proctors. 
 

Openness to GenAI, With Real Concerns

At the end of the 2024-25 school year, AP teachers generally saw potential benefits of GenAI for students and teachers, though views on classroom use varied widely: 10% of AP teachers already actively encouraged appropriate GenAI use, while 16% believed it should not be used in educational settings at all. The rest fell somewhere in between as they explored tools and weighed how, or whether, to bring GenAI into their classrooms. 

Those concerns are substantial and widely shared. Across all AP teachers surveyed, 92% worry GenAI will leave students overly dependent on technology for basic tasks, and 90% worry students will be less likely to develop critical thinking skills as GenAI use grows. 

How AP Teachers Are Using GenAI Themselves

AP teachers' own reported GenAI use usually involves preparation, not student assessment. By September 2025, nearly two-thirds of AP teachers reported using GenAI to create or revise teaching materials, and over half used it to detect plagiarism and develop lesson plans. But fewer than 1 in 5 used GenAI to give student feedback or grade assessments, and more than 80% said they had never used it for either.

Teachers also stated that the tools for enforcing academic-integrity guardrails were insufficient. One teacher described stopping use of a commercial plagiarism detector after it estimated a student's original, GenAI-free essay to be 40% GenAI generated. Another described a student bypassing keystroke-monitoring tools by using browser extensions that mimic human keystroke patterns to feed GenAI-generated text into a document.
 

Teachers Are Asking for More Support

Nearly all (90%) of AP teachers agreed that schools have a responsibility to teach students to use GenAI responsibly. Yet as of September 2025, nearly half (46%) said they had some understanding of GenAI but still needed guidance themselves, 63% considered student GenAI use more of a challenge than an opportunity, and roughly a quarter were in a school or district with no GenAI policy at all. 

This support gap mirrors national research: A Gallup/Walton Family Foundation study found just 18% of public K–12 teachers receive any formal guidance on GenAI use at work, and an NPR/Ipsos poll found only about one-third say their school has formal guidelines for student GenAI use, even though roughly 3 in 4 think teaching responsible GenAI use should be part of the curriculum. To support its own teacher community, the AP Program is building updated professional learning for both redesigned courses, including AP Summer Institute training and partnerships with external resource providers for AP CSP, and supplemental and required summer training for AP Seminar.
 

About the Report

Teacher Perceptions of GenAI in AP Course Redesign is authored by Erin Grogan, PhD; Laura Ovcjak; Michael Iarrapino; and Emily Angehr of College Board Research. It draws on multiple surveys and focus groups of AP teachers conducted between April 2025 and June 2026, including dedicated data collection from AP Computer Science Principles and AP Seminar teachers.

This brief builds on College Board's ongoing research series examining GenAI use in education: 

1. U.S. High School Students’ Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence, October 2025  
2. Variation in High School Student, Parent, and Teacher Attitudes Toward the Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence, December 2025  
3. College Faculty Perceptions of Generative Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education, February 2026   

Since 2024, College Board's GenAI Studio, an internal incubator dedicated to accelerating generative-AI research and responsible use of AI across College Board programs, has supported this research. 

Contact 
College Board Communications 
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About College Board 
College Board reaches more than 7 million students a year, helping them navigate the path from high school to college and career. Our not-for-profit membership organization was founded more than 120 years ago. We pioneered programs like the SAT^® and AP^® to expand opportunities for students and help them develop the skills they need. Our BigFuture^® program helps students plan for college, pay for college, and explore careers. Learn more at cb.org. 

About College Board Research 
The Research Department generates data and evidence on the impact of educational programs, assessments, and initiatives on students and various education stakeholders. For further information and publications, visit research.collegeboard.org.