AI tools not as popular on campus as the buzz suggests

What they found: The Salt Lake City-based education technology company tracked nearly 19.5 million users of the educational software Canvas across the 2025-26 school year.

• Not a single dedicated AI tool cracked the top 100 tools used in college classrooms.

By the numbers: Google Gemini was the most-used AI tool, reaching about 88,000 users at 211 schools.

• Fewer than 1 in 8 college instructors report getting real AI training.
• The average college measured by the report runs 28 different classroom tech tools. The average student uses five. The average instructor four.

State of play: Digital course content from textbook publishers and distributors remains the single largest category of tools in the ranking.

The bottom line: Formal AI adoption in higher ed is moving slower than the hype suggests. Legacy publishers and infrastructure tools still anchor the college system.