AI Leap 2025: Estonia's Free National ChatGPT/Gemini Rollout to All High Schools

Announced by Estonia's president in February 2025, AI Leap (Estonian: 'AI-hüpe') is a state-and-private-sector-funded national programme, coordinated by the Ministry of Education and Research through a dedicated AI Leap Foundation, that gives every public high school teacher and student free access to leading generative AI tools - the paid tiers of ChatGPT and Google Gemini - together with structured training in how to use them for learning. The design deliberately sequences teacher training before student access: in its first phase (autumn 2025) roughly 3,000 teachers across grades 10-11 were trained ahead of 20,000 students gaining access to the tools. A second phase beginning September 2026 extends the programme to vocational schools and new incoming students, adding a further 38,000 students and 2,000 teachers, with the programme's own projections putting total reach at close to 58,000-60,000 students and over 5,000 teachers by spring 2027, when the first cohort that started under the programme graduates. OpenAI and Anthropic are named technology partners in the public-private partnership, alongside Google's Gemini.

As of the most recent public reporting (autumn 2026), no independent learning-outcome evaluation has been published: the programme is still in its rollout and teacher-training phase, and its own materials state that success will be measured against key performance indicators that are 'still being developed', covering teacher onboarding, skill improvement and educational efficiency, rather than against any results collected so far. Programme documentation does acknowledge a digital-divide risk and states an intent to 'provide opportunities for everyone', but no data-protection or student-data-governance policy specific to the use of third-party commercial chatbots with minors has been published in the sources reviewed. AI Leap is nonetheless a rare example of a national government committing public funds and a phased, teacher-first implementation plan to universal AI access in secondary education, rather than leaving adoption to individual schools or teachers.

Read the full analysis: https://www.hm.ee/en/news/estonia-announces-groundbreaking-national-initiative-ai-leap-programme-bring-ai-tools-all