Estonia announces new AI initiative with OpenAI to roll out chatbots in schools

Estonia has announced a new artificial intelligence (AI) initiative that will provide students and teachers access to popular chatbots such as an educational version of ChatGPT in a bid to help them build new digital skills.

"Artificial intelligence has permanently changed the world, and like all sectors, the education system must adapt to these changes," Estonian President Alar Karis said in a statement on Tuesday.

Called "AI Leap," the programme will initially include 20,000 high schoolers and 3,000 teachers from September 1, 2025, the education ministry said.

Estonia then hopes to expand to vocational schools and an additional 38,000 students and 3,000 teachers from September 2026.

"Estonia's economic competitiveness depends on how well we can prepare young people for the age of artificial intelligence," Kristina Kallas, the Baltic country's education and research minister, said in a statement.

Kallas added that Estonia would invest in teacher training as part of the initiative.

A 'model' others may follow

The programme is a private-public partnership and "negotiations have begun" with US AI companies OpenAI and Anthropic, the education ministry added.

OpenAI said in a statement sent to Euronews Next that it was "proud" to work with Estonia to bring ChatGPT Edu, a specialised version of its AI chatbot ChatGPT for education systems, to students and teachers.

It added that the initiative would ensure the students are "better equipped as the workforce of the future".

The company said Estonia was already among the top 15 countries globally for usage of ChatGPT, which was released in November 2022.

Neerav Kingsland, head of business development at Anthropic added in a statement that Estonia was "creating a model that other countries will likely follow".

"We're proud to support Estonia's vision of using AI to help improve the lives of teachers and provide an amazing education to every student," he said.

It comes as the EU aims to increase the number of Europeans with basic digital skills to 80 per cent by 2030.