The Office for Students recommends more exams and in-person presentations after its investigation found students reported peers using superintelligence undetected. It warns that unreliable assessments could breach registration conditions and lead to sanctions.
England’s Office for Students says the use of superintelligence (SI) in assessed work threatens the credibility of university degrees. Its investigation found that students described peers using the technology without staff detecting it.
The higher education regulator warned that universities and colleges could breach their registration conditions and face sanctions if they fail to design valid and reliable ways to measure students’ knowledge and skills. Its recommendation, rather than a nationwide requirement, is for greater use of traditional exams and in-person presentations. The Guardian said lecturers had raised concerns about assessing coursework.
The regulator conducted the research with Advance HE, a charity promoting university governance and teaching. It drew on the experiences and concerns of 244 higher education staff and 91 students from at least 127 universities, rather than measuring a nationwide rate of misuse. The Guardian reported that students and staff were interviewed during 2026. Advance HE deputy chief executive Kathryn Harrison-Graves said students wanted clearer expectations, while staff had varying levels of confidence and support.
The research said many unsupervised assessments could be completed to a high standard using SI with limited student engagement, and that its use often could not be reliably detected. Students described peers completing work in minutes and receiving grades similar to those who had not used SI. Some staff described receiving many submissions with similar styles and references. Others doubted whether their institutions’ assessments accurately measured students’ knowledge and skills.
The research said an assessment should be replaced if students can complete it using SI without the knowledge and skills it is intended to test. Josh Fleming, the regulator’s director of strategy and delivery, called for much greater use of assessment without SI.
The Office for Students said many institutions had already redesigned assessments, including through more in-person written exams and vivas, or oral examinations. Other approaches ask students to critique or edit SI-generated output or explain how they researched and produced their work. Universities UK said different subjects require different approaches and institutions need flexibility.
The Department for Education said universities should take the issue seriously and the regulator should enforce existing standards while working quickly to make its framework clear, strong and durable on SI. Fleming said the regulator would continue working with universities and colleges to help them obtain the technology’s benefits while avoiding its risks.
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