Danish students face first exams as AI ban tests a generation raised on chatbots

Denmark’s graduating high school class sits its first written exams this week without access to the artificial intelligence tools many have relied on throughout their entire secondary education, raising widespread concern among teachers and school leaders about the results. DR reports.

This year’s cohort of third-year gymnasium students, known as “Årgang AI,” are the first to have had access to AI tools for the entirety of their time in upper secondary school. ChatGPT launched in November 2022, just as many of them began their studies. According to a 2026 report from the Danish Evaluation Institute, around nine in ten gymnasium students use AI tools in connection with schoolwork, with seven in ten doing so at least once a week. Only about one in ten never use the technology for school-related tasks.

AI is prohibited during exams, with one exception: 15 schools are running a trial scheme allowing students to use AI during preparation for oral English exams.

“I fear that we will be facing exam results this summer that will shock many people,” said Anders Frikke, chair of Danske Gymnasielærere, the association representing Danish upper secondary school teachers. He said teachers have observed students increasingly outsourcing their thinking and learning to machines. “Then they suddenly find themselves without the AI tools they are used to having available, and they cannot answer the tasks properly.”

Maja Bødtcher-Hansen, chair of Danske Gymnasier, the association for upper secondary schools, and principal of Frederiksberg Gymnasium, described the exam period as a reckoning. “It is a kind of judgment day over what has happened in the last three years,” she said. “For the first time we have young people who have had this tool in their hands throughout their entire time at gymnasium, and we simply do not know what has stuck. What have they immersed themselves in? So it is an experiment for all of us.”

Asked whether schools had done enough to prepare students, Bødtcher-Hansen said: “I think we have done everything we can, but we have a framework that is problematic. The gymnasium is structured so that students read and write assignments at home. But that is not quite what is happening, because now they have AI to help them.”

Freja Sinclair, chair of Danske Gymnasieelevers Sammenslutning, the national organisation for upper secondary students, said AI use has affected students’ academic self-confidence. “I think there are a great many who are worried,” she said. She described a culture in which students feel compelled to use AI to keep up with peers and maintain good grades. “It is of course important that we have our own abilities, but it is also difficult when we have not practised them during the year, because there is a culture where everyone at gymnasium uses AI.” Despite sharing the concern, Sinclair expressed cautious optimism: “I still believe there are a great, great many students who are capable of going to their exams and doing well.”