Access was nearly universal, engagement was thin - a study of middle-schoolers and an AI tutor

Chalkbeat, 25 August 2026, on a new study of Khan Academy’s Khanmigo in middle-school classrooms: students had near-universal access to the AI tutor and rarely opened it, which the study summarises as access being nearly universal while engagement stayed thin. It backs Khan Academy founder Sal Khan’s own earlier assessment that the tutor was a "non-event" for most students. It is the second study this year to hit the same wall - a June attempt could not measure whether AI tutoring works because too few students used it to measure.

What it means Anyone shipping an AI learning product is measuring the wrong thing if the metric is capability: the binding constraint is getting the learner to open it at all.