From the moment OpenAI’s ChatGPT burst onto the scene in 2022, schools and universities have been playing catch‑up. Many educators banned AI tools at first, but quickly saw that large language models had become a fact of life.

Now the world’s top AI builders are entering the $6tn education market. Anthropic launched Claude for Teachers, a free K‑12 tool for US teachers; OpenAI offers ChatGPT for Teachers and the discounted ChatGPT Edu for universities; Google rolls out Gemini‑based tools for educators.

OpenAI’s Education for Countries programme has already placed ChatGPT Edu in the hands of over 30,000 students, teachers and researchers in Estonia, Greece, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Slovakia, Trinidad and Tobago, the UAE and Italy, aiming to personalise learning and prepare students for the workforce.

Both labs promote a Socratic tutoring approach, while edtech firms like Coursera and Instructure partner rather than compete. Yet adoption remains slow: over 40 % of higher‑education students report no AI integration, and many question whether schools will pay for premium models when free open‑weight alternatives exist.