The shift to AI Learning Technologies has forever changed the way that students learn, study, and do their writing. With the ability to produce fully formed essays, homework answers or summaries, and creative writing in a matter of seconds through artificial intelligence (AI), tools like ChatGPT and Gemini and Claude have the capacity to support your learning through responsible use, as well as create new problems for schools with regards to academic integrity, assessment fairness, and skills development.
As it becomes harder to differentiate between AI-generated and non-AI generated text, the question that many educators have is How can the educator say that the student’s work is truly original? AI detectors fill an important gap in modern education by helping to determine the originality of student work when used responsibly and thoughtfully.
This article will look at the ways that AI detecors fit within the context of class instruction, provide information on what types of tools educators are likely to use, and discuss the importance of combining AI detection tools with a plagiarism detector for effective and fair assessment.
Table of Contents
The Rise of AI in Student Work
In recent years, generative AI tools have gone from being novelties to becoming standard tools for students across grade levels. Today’s students can easily gain access to AI tools that allow them to:
- Write essays and reports
- Do step by step calculations for math problems
- Rewrite or rephrase writing they have already done
- Write summaries and responses to class discussions
As such, for educators, this has created a different way of teaching, and traditional methods of identifying plagiarism (i.e. finding sections of writing that have been taken from a different source or have a similar format or bibliography) cannot be used to identify when a student uses an AI system to create a new piece of writing.
Through surveys of teachers and through articles written about education, many teachers now feel they cannot determine whether a student has written the assignment through conventional means and have very little evidence to confirm that suspicion. Therefore, relying on their instincts is no longer enough, and making accusations against students without any form of corroboration can harm the relationship of trust and fairness that exists in the classroom.
What Is an AI Checker for Teachers?
A teacher’s AI checker analyses your written work and offers an educated guess on whether there is a good possibility that the written material was created by a computer programme. In making this guess, it will look for specific language patterns typically associated with the type of writing that has been generated by a computer programme. It will check for: Known language patterns associated with AI writing; Predictable, predictable use of words; Similar types of sentence structure; and Word distribution percentages based on prior writing history.
Most current AI checker services do not offer 100% accuracy in their assessment of the work. Rather, they provide:
- A score indicating the frequency of AI usage in that work.
- Highlighted portions of the written material that are likely to have been produced with the use of an AI programme; and,
- Assistance in guiding additional research into the characteristics of the writing.
It is also important to note that a teacher’s AI checker should not be used to replace the teacher’s decision-making ability. Instead, these checkers assist the teacher in deciding
whether to follow up with an assignment or if it is necessary to spend additional time reviewing an assignment.
When a teacher uses a plagiarism checker (in addition to an AI checker), the teacher has deeper insights about the author’s intent in writing their paper. The teacher can evaluate whether the
author’s work was copied or improperly sourced, and which methods the author used to complete the assignment.
Why Teachers Still Need AI Detection Tools?
Despite apprehensions regarding the accuracy and potential for misuse of AI, most education professionals and researchers agree on the need for AI detection tools, even though they are imperfect.
Academic Integrity
Academic integrity has been a core principle of education for centuries. Allowing students to submit coursework created using AI without consequence undermines the following:
- Fairly earned grades.
- Opportunity to develop skills; and
- Trust between teacher and student relationships.
By assisting teachers in identifying an assignment that does not accurately represent a student’s level of understanding, AI detectors promote fair grading practices for all students who complete their assignments honestly.
Adapting to New Forms of Cheating
With the development of AI writing technologies, traditional tools for detecting plagiarism are becoming obsolete; however, as many as 90% of the assignments submitted to colleges today are of “original” content created using these technologies. This has created a need for schools to begin using a combination of AI detection and plagiarism detection technology as best
practice.
What AI Detectors Do Teachers Use?
There is no single AI detector used universally across schools. Instead, teachers and institutions rely on a mix of tools depending on accuracy, transparency, and ease of use.
GPTZero
GPTZero is one of the most widely recognized AI detection tools in education. It provides sentence-level analysis and probability indicators, helping teachers identify which portions of text may require closer review.
Pangram
Pangram focuses on professional-grade AI detection and emphasizes teacher control and transparency. It is often referenced in discussions around responsible AI detection use in schools.
Quetext AI Detector
Many teachers prefer tools that combine AI detection with plagiarism analysis. Quetext’s AI Detector, used alongside its plagiarism checker, allows educators to assess both AI involvement and originality in a single workflow-reducing guesswork and improving consistency.
Copyleaks and Similar Platforms
Some schools use tools that bundle AI detection into broader academic integrity platforms, offering both plagiarism checking and AI analysis for student submissions.
The key takeaway is that teachers don’t rely on AI detectors alone. They use them as part of a broader evaluation strategy that includes classroom context, prior student work, and
professional judgment.
