The International Baccalaureate's Global Academic-Integrity Guidance on AI Use

In February 2026 the International Baccalaureate Organization, headquartered in Geneva, published an update to its Academic Integrity Policy adding a dedicated appendix on the use of artificial intelligence tools by students and teachers, alongside a companion document evaluating specific AI-use scenarios in coursework.
The guidance distinguishes acceptable uses of AI — such as gathering ideas, understanding assignment structure, or using AI outputs comparably to reading a journal article — from unacceptable uses, where AI substitutes for a student's own thinking or completes graded work directly. For borderline cases, teachers are told they do not need to 'prove' AI was used; instead the IB recommends a short oral viva or quiz to check the student's own understanding of submitted work, allowing resubmission without penalty if understanding is demonstrated, or treating the case as academic misconduct if it is not.
Because the IB curriculum is delivered through more than 6,200 IB World Schools in roughly 163 countries, this guidance applies as a single global standard rather than a local pilot, giving schools with very different resources a common reference framework. The IB has also said it intends to use AI internally as a 'quality control' check on human exam markers, though that use is not yet independently evaluated.
As policy guidance rather than a classroom intervention, there is no measured effect on learning outcomes or academic-misconduct rates; the evidence here is the published policy text itself, contemporaneous school-level reporting on how teachers are applying it, and the scale of the IB network to which it applies.

Read the full analysis: https://theaerial.org/4525/news/international-baccalaureate-announces-new-guidlines-for-ai-usage/