Horne says Arizona students lead AI use. It's for a specific tutoring program the state partners with

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne claimed in a statement Thursday that Arizona is “first in the nation for percentage of students using AI as a learning tool. We’re actually just the Number 1 user of a specific AI tutoring tool called Khanmigo which the state is partnering with."

Arizona is one of a handful of states paying to use Khanmigo.

Horne touts it as a “tremendous accomplishment” for Arizona which will not replace teachers but will affordably replace tutors.

“Research shows that tutoring is the most effective way to teach, but I can't afford 1,200,000 tutors for 1,200,000 students,” Horne said.

Horne used $1.5 million of federal pandemic relief funds to pay for two years of Khanmigo in certain school districts. Now, he wants to expand it “as much as possible.”

So far, about 16% of Arizona charter and traditional public school students are signed up for Khanmigo, but it’s not clear how many are utilizing it regularly.

He called it a “great” service” with “no competition,” which serves as an “invaluable resource.” Horne said he has no concerns about the growing use of AI in schools.

“I’m very much in favor of it, and I often say we’re bringing the tools of tomorrow to the schools today. This is definitely going to be the future,” he said.

As for how Khanmigo works, it’s not an “open source program” like ChatGPT. Only users who have signed up can access it, and it’s designed for students specifically. It also doesn’t simply answer questions about assignments. It responds to questions with more questions, meaning it isn’t designed to do a student’s work for them.

Horne said teachers aren’t required to use Khanmigo, but he’s urging them to.