Is Using AI Cheating?

By Marlene Weaver  |  10/13/2026

Can a student use AI tools to brainstorm ideas, ask for ideas about a topic, or request a possible outline? Of course.

However, if a student asks an AI tool to write a paper and submits that paper as their own original work, then yes, that would be cheating, otherwise known as AI plagiarism. It is also considered cheating if a student asks AI to:

• Rewrite a paper with a different voice
• Refine a paper adding more details
• Find references that are not verified and reviewed
• Insert citations

AI-Generated Content Is A Big Problem in Education

With the onset of artificial intelligence ravaging educational systems throughout the world, I felt the need to put my many thoughts about it in writing. My fellow colleagues and superiors often think I reject AI tools and their benefits.

That is not true. I use AI every day and have quickly fixed household issues with directions from AI. I have created many wonderful images and diagrams for use in my classroom using AI tools, and I cite AI accordingly. 

I use AI tools to check facts before responding to my students. I also use it to inquire about medications and other medical situations.

What I reject is that many educators have taken the easy way out by ignoring improper AI use because evaluating and investigating improper use of AI in the classroom takes time. Checking whether students have plagiarized someone else's ideas or words took time 50 years ago, and it takes time now.

What I reject is that students are not learning how to run a business, how to create a solid strategic evaluation, or how to write an academic paper. What they are learning is how to use AI tools to do their work. In a course like Organizational Change or Strategic Management, the goal is not to learn how to use AI to move through the course.

Prior to the internet, there were indeed students who cheated and that plagiarism was much more difficult to detect without plagiarism detectors. However, professors used their own intuition, knowledge, and investigation to detect wrongdoing in their classrooms.

Professors were smart enough to see facts and data written without citation and know if a student paraphrased that information or copied it directly from a source. It is plagiarism and it is also academic dishonesty for which there are consequences, such as failing a course.

My friend, who taught at university level in the 1970s and 1980s, told me a story about an 18- year-old freshman in his class. This freshman submitted a gloriously written paper about the internal happenings at the Department of Energy. He said that this 18-year-old did not appear to be as refined a writer in her other written communications, so he questioned how she knew so much about the internal issues of this federal agency.

Her reply was that her father worked there. The next question the teacher asked was, “Did your father write the paper?” The student’s answer was “Yes.”  So, she received a zero and was given the opportunity to write a new paper. That was in 1975.

Now, students are creating AI-generated work and turning it in as their own work without the proper disclosures. It is still cheating, and it is still academic dishonesty.

Students Need to Learn When Using AI Is Cheating

That cheating incident involving the Department of Energy material occurred 50 years ago. Now, we appear to be doing the same thing, but just in a different way by using generative AI tools.

When I was a university student, I remember receiving a graded paper from my professor with a reduced grade for not citing some factual statements during the early part of my degree program. I remember vividly that the professor wrote on my paper, “How do you know this?”

Then, it clicked for me. Unless it is common knowledge and everyone knows it is true, you must cite the source of your information. I never made this mistake again and always cited material that came from other sources.

Later, we had the internet but didn’t have plagiarism detection tools. Professors still needed to use intuition, knowledge, and some investigation to identify the students who were cheaters. Effective professors always had to evaluate the quality of work and examine its credibility to avoid allowing those students who cheat to graduate with honors.

In 1998, Turnitin® – an online plagiarism detector – was launched by its inventors. When I began online teaching in 2010, Turnitin was a wonderful program that gave us a similarity report connected to each of my students’ papers and was useful in analyzing a writer's style for originality.

This similarity report told us what words, sentences, or paragraphs were identical to other sources. It also gave us the sources where the words matched, and we instructors could compare a student’s paper against this report to ensure that everything identified as similar to other work was cited properly.

Turnitin also serves as an AI detection tool. It can evaluate text and mark any text that appears AI-generated. Sometimes, however, Turnitin can provide false positives when students haven't used their own words, so the AI results from Turnitin need to be carefully double-checked.

Turnitin made our work a little easier in one way (a better way to evaluate a student’s work) but more difficult in another way (the work became more time-consuming). However, it was easier to find the students who were dishonest. As a result, those students either learned the lesson regarding academic integrity or failed the course.

In addition, we could address the issue of academic cheating with the student, determine what level of cheating was apparent, and then decide on the way forward. For instance, we had to decide:

• Should we have a teaching moment, explain the problem, and reduce the student’s grade?
• Do we reject the paper completely?
• Do we allow a rewrite? 

Then, sites like Course Hero® were created in 2006. Although founded to provide access to “course-specific study resources,” this website and others like it allow you to buy and sell academic papers and exams.

If students submit their paper (no matter how bad it was), then they can pick a paper for their own use. They get credits for submitting papers, exams, and discussion forums. However, this situation constitutes plagiarism and most definitely does not contribute to the learning process.

Sometimes, I would get exam answers that had the exact words from my feedback to other previous students. In other words, a previous student submitted their exam to Course Hero with my feedback and the correct answers. 

To discourage cheaters, my exams were set up to pull 10 questions from a pool of 30. As a result, every exam was a little different.

At times, I would find that a student purchased that exam from Course Hero. The student used the same 10 answers that were provided via Course Hero and didn’t even look at the exam questions, which were different from the purchased exam. 

So, several of the questions weren’t what I asked in the exam and the answers were wrong. That was indeed cheating and most definitely considered academic dishonesty.

We instructors did not have Turnitin associated with these exams or discussion forums, but our basic knowledge, intuition, and investigation allowed us to weed out the cheaters. It was time-consuming but worth it to ensure academic integrity. Instructors who don’t even take the time to review suspicious student material are not doing their jobs.

At times, students were blatant enough to pick a paper from Course Hero and use the entire paper as their own. The similarity report of 100% was the red flag to indicate academic dishonesty. Once the paper was reviewed, it was evident that the student retrieved the paper from Course Hero. 

The result would even give you the student’s name from the purchased paper. Sometimes, those people were my previous students.

Now, here we are in the age of AI software. Students are still cheating, and it is easier than ever.

Colleges and universities have AI policies explaining the “ethical use” of AI and what is considered plagiarism, but “ethical use” in no way means that AI can write your paper or make your paper perfect in every way. AI tools can certainly help you brainstorm ideas and gather information. 

However, it’s equally important to know where the use of AI crosses the line into academic dishonesty when a student writes a paper and doesn't evaluate the research results provided by AI tools. Outsourcing this work to AI bypasses the learning process for students.

Technology has also made it easier for instructors to find the cheaters. For example, we instructors have many tools at our fingertips to know when AI is interfering with the critical thinking process of our students.

How many instructors review the reports and do the necessary investigations to weed out the cheaters using AI sources? I would love to know the answer to that question, but probably never will. 

I only know that to me, part of the role of a college professor (or any teacher anywhere) is to deal with the problematic students, however necessary, to ensure that the school’s integrity is intact. It is also necessary to ensure that students have learned what their degree program expects them to learn and the skills they are expected to develop.

I think instructors have had this role all along. Instructors have used different tools, different approaches, and different methods. We always had to investigate if we were doing justice to the standards of the university.

Using AI for Cheating Has Consequences in Professional Settings

The consequences of using AI for cheating and creating unoriginal material extend beyond the classroom. As we continue to teach our students to use AI appropriately and to cite their facts correctly, I think it is also important for them to know that people are fired for not doing so. 

There have been numerous faculty members from various universities who have been fired for misuse of AI or for plagiarism. There have been newscasters and reporters fired for plagiarism. There have been books removed from the shelves after it became known that parts were plagiarized. Are we teaching our students about this AI problem?

Teaching AI Literacy and Using AI Responsibly

I hear professionals all the time say, “We have to teach our students how to use AI. They must be proficient for future employment.” 

I agree with this statement, but I propose that there should be a course called “AI Proficiency.” In this course, we should teach students all the ways to use AI ethically for their assignments.

But at the same time, we need to teach students how not to use AI, the same as when we had to teach students how not to plagiarize from other sources. The responsible use of AI should be encouraged and supported.

Academic Dishonesty Must Be Discouraged and Reported

The situation hasn’t changed from 50 years ago. Some students still need to learn that there will be disciplinary action or poor grades associated with the unethical use of AI. In some cases, they may even be expelled from the university if they have not learned the lesson about academic dishonesty. Colleges and universities have had to update their policies to address AI-generated content, but those policies are of no value unless they are strongly enforced.

Students 50 years ago or even 10 years ago knew that cheating would involve punishment of some kind but cheated anyway. Students now need to know that cheating – using generative AI to write papers, plagiarize resources, and provide invalid references – will indeed involve punishment.

Professors have always had to investigate students’ work. It is no different now, just a different process.

There is no one right or wrong answer to the question “Is using AI cheating?” However, using AI inappropriately to write papers or to list invalid references cited in a paper is most definitely cheating.

Using AI to find references is one thing, but using those AI-generated references without reading the material or validating an author and title is cheating. Allowing these practices to continue without correction and disciplinary action is an injustice to our students and affects the integrity of our schools. 

Instructors who don’t even look at the detection reports are not doing their jobs. They are responding to a robot, not a student.

Universities need to be more concerned with the integrity of the student degree by ensuring that all instructors evaluate the detection reports and take appropriate action when necessary, rather than focusing on changing the way we teach.

Why Have An Academic Integrity Policy If It Is Not Followed?

Students must be aware of plagiarism and misconduct from the start of their degree program, and all educators, regardless of the subject they teach, should comply with any policies about academic dishonesty in their faculty handbook.

This responsibility includes teachers helping students learn what ethical use of generative AI entails and how to use AI responsibly. Sometimes, this lesson is a tough one for students when disciplinary action is necessary to make the lesson stick, but it is an essential lesson for any student to learn.

The Bachelor of Science in Artificial Intelligence at AMU

For students interested in studying artificial intelligence and its capabilities, American Military University part of American Public University System (“AMU”) offers an online Bachelor of Science in Artificial Intelligence. Students enrolling in this degree program can take courses in the fundamentals of artificial intelligence, prompt engineering, and user experience design. Other courses include machine learning, collaborative tools, artificial intelligence applications, and artificial intelligence impacts, risks, and ethics.

Students who are particularly interested in the ethics of using AI may also want to enroll in philosophy courses such as introduction to ethics and thinking and acting ethically. These courses are offered as a part of AMU’s general education courses.

For more information, visit AMU’s information technology degree program page.

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