AI for teachers: lesson preparation, feedback, data protection and state licences

What teachers use AI for today

Most teachers have tried AI, but only some use it regularly. According to the Deutsche Telekom Stiftung's trend monitor from January 2026, reported by the Deutsches Schulportal, 19 per cent of teachers use AI applications at work almost daily or several times a week, and a further 26 per cent several times a month. The biggest uncertainty, according to the survey, is what is legally allowed.

In its recommendation from October 2024, the Standing Conference of Education Ministers (KMK) sees three main areas: preparing and following up lessons, designing learning situations and supporting pupils more individually. In practice that means, for example, drafting worksheets at several difficulty levels, rewriting a factual text in plain language, collecting tasks for a revision lesson or drafting a letter to parents.

Our assessment: AI saves time mainly on the first draft. You still have to check subject accuracy and fit with the curriculum and the class yourself.

Work-approved AI: AIS.chat and state licences

All German federal states now provide AI tools to public schools free of charge through state licences, reports the Deutsches Schulportal. The most widespread is AIS.chat, the chatbot developed jointly by the states, which was called telli until May 2026 and was renamed for trademark reasons. It is run by FWU, the states' media institute, as part of the DigitalPakt Schule programme. According to FWU, it is available to teachers in 12 states, costs them nothing and runs exclusively in the EU. Sign-in is pseudonymous via the school login service VIDIS, and each person has a monthly usage allowance.

AIS.chat can do more than an ordinary chat: according to the North Rhine-Westphalia school ministry, you can choose between language models, upload documents, set up your own assistants for lesson preparation and share learning scenarios with your class via a link or QR code. Since February 2026, according to the Schulportal, it can also generate images.

Not every state uses it. According to the Schulportal, Rhineland-Palatinate is not using telli for now and has instead extended its state licence for fobizz. According to the Schulportal, Saxony plans to introduce AIS.chat during 2026; according to fobizz, schools in Saxony can fund a fobizz school licence from their global budget. Saxony-Anhalt uses the feedback tool FelloFish. According to its education ministry, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has a state licence for fobizz and is trialling FelloFish in a pilot project. Some states also have their own assistants, such as F13 in Baden-Württemberg or ByLKI in Bavaria. Berlin has also enabled Microsoft Copilot for its teachers on work devices.

Feedback and marking: what AI may and may not do

Feedback tools such as FelloFish give pupils comments and suggestions for improving their texts. According to its own pricing page, schulKI also advertises automatic assessment of free-text tasks.

The KMK states: AI can support pre-marking and marking and enable faster, personal feedback. The final assessment of performance, however, remains the teacher's task. It refers to Article 22 GDPR, under which a final human decision must be guaranteed. As risks it names data protection, lack of transparency and bias in the AI.

Then there is the AI Act: AI systems that evaluate learning outcomes are in principle high-risk systems under Annex III of the AI Regulation, as the Baden-Württemberg data protection commissioner points out. Article 6 of the Regulation does, however, allow exceptions, for example for preparatory tasks that pose no significant risk and do not materially influence the decision. A pure feedback tool is therefore not automatically a high-risk system. After an amendment in July 2026, the obligations for such systems only apply from 2 December 2027, according to law firm White & Case.

Our assessment: AI feedback as an additional comment during the writing process is less problematic than AI suggestions for grades. Read every AI comment before it reaches the class.

Data protection: what is allowed with pupils' data

The Baden-Württemberg data protection commissioner sets clear limits for AI in schools: pupils' data must not be used to train an AI, particularly sensitive data such as health information must not be processed, and emotion recognition systems are banned in educational institutions. In addition, since February 2025 the AI Act has obliged schools that use AI to promote AI literacy among teachers and pupils.

This speaks in favour of the work-approved tools: the KMK wants to give schools data-protection-compliant access to language models through a joint solution of the states, so that not every school has to check for itself whether a tool is permissible.

In a private ChatGPT account, by contrast, OpenAI may use content for training by default; according to OpenAI, this can be switched off in the settings under data controls. For pupils' data that is not enough. Our assessment: do not enter names, grades, special educational needs or whole pupil texts with personal details into private accounts. For pure preparation without reference to pupils, such as a draft task, the risk is low.

Commercial school tools and what they cost (as of October 2026)

If your state or school has no licence, you can book commercial school platforms yourself. fobizz combines AI chat, image and text recognition, marking support and training courses. According to its pricing page, there is a free Basic licence for trying it out, the combined flat rate for individuals costs 239 euros a year including VAT, and the tools-only flat rate 119 euros. According to the provider, fobizz is free during teacher training at university and during the teaching traineeship.

According to its pricing page, FelloFish Pro for feedback on pupils' texts costs 79.90 euros a year or 9.90 euros a month including VAT; the free version includes 100 feedbacks. According to its website, schulKI offers a personal plan from 7.99 euros a month; it does not say whether VAT is included.

ChatGPT for Teachers, OpenAI's free offer for teachers, is only available to teachers at schools in the USA, according to OpenAI. It is not available in Germany.