Most of Us Are Still Stuck at Hello

article provided by Matthew Esterman, founder and CEO at The Next Word. The Next Word works with schools and organisations on AI strategy, professional learning, and implementation.

AI has arrived in schools. It is already shaping how students engage with class and assessment, how teachers plan units of work, and how leaders think about strategy and operations. Even if they aren’t conscious of it. That much is settled. What is not settled is whether schools are actually prepared for what that means.

Most people have not gone beyond basic prompting. They have typed a question, received an answer, and called it AI literacy. This is still where most schools sit right now, including some that believe they are ahead of the curve.

AI is affecting young peoples’ wellbeing as much – if not more – than their learning. It is affecting workplace expectations. If we can do X in 5 minutes instead of 5 hours, we tend to fill that gap quickly with more work.

79% of Australian children aged 10–17 have used an AI assistant or companion. Among those users, more than half — 54% — have used them for companion-type purposes, including chatting about their feelings or seeking mental health and wellbeing advice.

eSafety Commissioner, AI Companion App Transparency Report, October 2025

The adults in the room are being outpaced by young people with a smartphone. They just wait until the end of the school day to hit the accelerator.

58% of Australian young people have taught themselves how to use generative AI — compared to 47% who received any formal instruction. Among those aged 14 and over, 9 in 10 are already active AI users. Australian Youth Digital Index, Telstra Foundation, 2025.

What are schools doing?

Across independent and Catholic schools in Australia, a recognisable pattern has emerged. A handful of early adopters are experimenting with AI in their classrooms and workflows. A larger group is watching, waiting, and managing risk by instinct rather than policy. And a third group has, in effect, made a decision by making no decision at all.

On the policy front, most schools have produced a document. Some are thoughtful. Many are thin. A common failure is the governance-only trap: schools that have spent their energy defining acceptable use without asking the more difficult question of what staff and students are doing right now, and what they actually need to do well with AI tools. Policy without capability is compliance theatre.

The Castlereagh Statement — a 2026 cross-sector call to action shaped by more than 80 Australian educators, leaders, and students from over 30 organisations — describes the national picture as ‘fragmented and uncoordinated,’ creating risks for learners, employers, and national productivity.

The Castlereagh Statement, castlereagh.ai, 2026

On the challenge side, the issues that come up most often in school conversations are not the ones that make headlines. They are not about deepfakes or chatbots doing assessments. The real friction points are quieter: teachers who feel underprepared and unsupported, leaders who are uncertain how to evaluate AI tools before adoption, and a growing divide between staff who are building genuine capability and those who are falling further behind. And, worryingly, the way students are quietly moving away from trusted adults to chatbots for deeply private and significant conversations.

1 in 5 Australian children who use AI companions are engaging with them daily or more. The eSafety Commissioner has warned that excessive use ‘may contribute to loneliness, low self-esteem and social withdrawal’ — and that some services have failed to redirect vulnerable users to proper support.

eSafety Commissioner, 2025–26

One issue that surfaces consistently is data privacy. Most staff have not checked whether their AI tool defaults to training on user data. Most schools have not established a clear position on which tools are approved for student use and under what conditions. This is one of many new skills we need to explicitly teach. To the adults.

Two-thirds (66%) of Australian lower secondary teachers used AI in the past year — ranking Australia 4th among 55 education systems, well above the OECD average of 36%. Yet among those who have not adopted AI, 75% cite a lack of knowledge and skills, not infrastructure, as the main barrier.

TALIS 2024, OECD / Australian Council for Educational Research

What readiness actually looks like

Schools that are moving well have a few things in common. They have framed AI as a capability challenge, not just a compliance issue. They are investing in staff confidence before they invest in tools. They are asking questions about workflows and learning outcomes rather than leading with product selection. They are treating privacy and data governance as a foundation, not an afterthought.

The strongest schools are also beginning to explore AI beyond the obvious entry points. Summaries, explanations, and draft generation are the starting point, not the destination. Schools building genuine capability are helping staff understand how to use AI for personalised feedback, for reducing administrative load, for identifying patterns in student performance data, and for designing learning experiences that still demand human judgment at the centre.

That last part matters. Once we understand these tools and the effects they have, we can leverage them strategically, operationally, and for the goals of our organisations (not the companies who own the tools). AI must be a tool in service of our goals, in line with our values. Schools that get this right are the ones that started with the human question first.

If any of this resonates with you, we would love to introduce you to Educator Intelligence, or EI for short. After four years of ChatGPT, it’s about time we level up our learning and begin to rethink what’s possible.

Our students already are.

Matthew Esterman is founder and CEO at The Next Word. The Next Word works with schools and organisations on AI strategy, professional learning, and implementation.

Start human. Use AI. Stay human.

The author used AI in the drafting and editing process of this article. All content remains the responsibility of the author.