Trial finds Oak’s Aila AI tool cut teachers’ lesson-planning time by 24%

A randomised trial found that primary teachers using Oak National Academy’s Aila AI lesson assistant spent 24% less time preparing lessons, without a drop in the quality of their materials. The saving was about 49 minutes a week, though teachers used the tool for only a small share of lessons and their views were mixed.

Watch Desk analysis

What happened

The Education Endowment Foundation commissioned the trial, which NFER carried out among 464 Years 3 to 6 teachers in 108 schools during the autumn term of 2025. Teachers assigned to use Aila spent around two and a half hours a week preparing lessons and resources, compared with three hours and 19 minutes in the comparison group. Independent assessors judged the Aila group’s resources no worse in quality. Resultsense reports that the EEF gave the finding a high security rating.

Use was limited: 81% of teachers in the Aila group opened it at least once, but in a typical week it supported about 7% of lessons. Use fell over the ten weeks, and fewer than one in five teachers said it had meaningfully changed how they taught or planned. Many preferred other AI tools. Researchers suggested a mismatch between Aila’s focus on planning lessons from scratch and teachers’ tendency to adapt existing material; its outputs also often needed editing.

Why it matters

The trial offers a concrete measure of what an AI teaching tool can change in practice: planning time, not just a polished demonstration. But the results also show why a promising time saving does not settle whether a tool fits teachers’ everyday work. Aila’s strongest reported gains were among early-career teachers, those less confident in their subject or teaching knowledge, and those comfortable with technology.

Our read

Saving nearly an hour a week is no small thing, especially if lesson quality holds up. The awkward wrinkle is that teachers used Aila sparingly and often preferred other tools. Schools weighing AI planning support should look beyond whether a tool can generate a lesson: does it fit how staff actually prepare one, and does the time saved survive the editing?

What to watch

• Whether Oak changes Aila to better support adapting existing teaching materials.
• Whether further evaluation finds similar time savings in other schools and subjects.
• Whether schools target the tool towards teachers who appear to benefit most.

Discussion spark: Should schools invest in purpose-built AI tools such as Aila when teachers use them sparingly, or let staff choose the general-purpose tools they already prefer?

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