The summer brought something the ELT debate on AI has often lacked: a larger body of evidence to examine.
A systematic review published in Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence looked at 103 studies dealing with artificial intelligence in EFL learning.
The number itself shows how quickly the field has grown. There is already enough published work to step beyond individual classroom experiments and start asking what patterns emerge across the research.
There is, however, an important limitation. Much of the research has been conducted in higher education. The evidence involving school-age learners is thinner.
That matters because schools are already dealing with generative AI. Children and teenagers use it outside school, teachers are experimenting with it in lessons and companies are developing products for younger learners. Yet evidence drawn from university students cannot automatically tell us what works with a 10-year-old or a 15-year-old.
Adoption, in other words, may be moving faster than the research base for some of the learners being asked to use the technology.
Source: Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence, systematic review of 103 studies on AI in EFL learning, 2026.
