0 comments
We came together with Next-Gen Media (NGM) to explore how young people are using AI and what they really think about its growing influence.
Most of us are using AI in our working lives in some way, whether it be to plan workflows, manage projects, schedule meetings, or even generate images and press releases.
With AI tools evolving rapidly, we’ve seen a media frenzy about its usage and consequences over the past few years, ranging from abstract warnings of an impending apocalypse to concerns over cognitive thinking. As Gen Z comes of age amidst the rise of tools like ChatGPT and Gemini, older generations are worried about how their approach to work and personal struggles might be negatively affected.
How justified are these fears? Should young people be more intentional with their AI usage? To find out, we headed to Chapter Spitalfields in London, one of NGM’s partner student accommodation sites, to hear directly from 18-24-year-olds studying at King’s College London, University College London, and Northeastern University about how they felt and what they use AI tools for.
View this post on Instagram
What do Gen Z use AI for?
Research shows that Gen Z implements AI into a wide range of tasks and life admin. According to Pew Research Center’s February 2026 report, 57% of teenagers in the US use AI to search for information, while 54% get help with schoolwork. 46% also said they use AI to summarise and make content, including images and videos, with 16% ‘talking’ to chatbots in casual conversation or for emotional support.
Some of the Gen Zers we spoke to at Chapter Spitalfields mirrored this data. They mentioned using AI for a ‘variety of tasks,’ referencing productivity as one of the most obvious, immediate areas where it’s most helpful. ‘I use it mostly academically to solve problems,’ said Annie, one of the students we spoke to.
‘For me, I use AI generally for convenience tasks, and sometimes that’ll be research for assignments, sometimes that’ll be simple questions I’m too lazy to ask in a normal way,’ answered another Gen Zer, Luk. Research shows that young people consistently use AI tools and chatbots to speed up data curation, collecting processes, creating essay plans, generating ideas, and building frameworks for more complex work.
‘I use AI for a lot of things; it’s actually [part of my] job,’ explained eighteen-year-old student John. ‘They told me to only talk to my AI and that it will do my coding for me,’ he added. This is partly a new phenomenon known as ‘vibe coding,’ whereby software engineers interact with AI tools rather than directly create code themselves. It’s a prime example of how Gen Z is entering a fundamentally shifting workforce, where new skills are speeding up processes at unprecedented rates.
View this post on Instagram
Is AI making people lazy?
Of course, with these types of changes comes criticism. There has been frequent discussion in the media this year as to whether AI is making us lazy and diminishing our cognitive thinking skills.
A major study by Microsoft in 2025 called ‘The Impact of Generative AI on Critical Thinking’ found that workers who had more confidence in AI tools tended to shift their efforts toward error checking and curating information, rather than using their own material or ideas. Similarly, The Washington Post examined concerns across academic institutions as to the abilities of students, noting that AI allows Gen Z to submit impressive-sounding work without actually understanding what they’ve produced.
‘I think it comes down to how people apply AI,’ argued Luk. ‘I feel like where people can become lazier is if they use it to streamline entire tasks. As long as you’re putting in your own creativity and having AI build off of that, it’s constructive.’
Sana, another Gen Zer we spoke to, argued that there were ‘two sides to this question,’ adding that she leaned toward AI making people lazier. ‘It has reached the hands of so many young people, and I feel like our brains aren’t being used as a result. Keeping AI out of the hands of Gen Z and Gen Alpha is really, really important.’
‘It has the potential to make people smarter if they choose to,’ said student Sarah. ‘At the moment, it’s being used for AI slop fruit videos, things like that. The way people are irresponsibly [automating content] now is not helping.’
AI’s capabilities are wide and extremely varied, beyond just nonsensical visual content, as John exemplified.
‘I’ll have it analyse all of my resources and then create interactive practice tests for me,’ he explained. This is extremely helpful and allows far more to be achieved in a short amount of time, but comes with its own caveats. ‘It definitely makes people lazier,’ John said, ‘because I don’t think I know any one thing as deeply as I would if I just dove into that one topic.’
View this post on Instagram
