Microsoft Teams Lets Teachers Set AI Rules for Individual Assignments

Microsoft’s Student AI Guidelines allow teachers to set different expectations for AI use on individual assignments.

Microsoft Teams for Education now allows teachers to set clear expectations for how students may use AI on individual assignments.

The new Student AI Guidelines can be added when a teacher creates or edits an assignment. Teachers can choose from four levels: full AI use, AI for editing only, AI for brainstorming only, or no AI use. Students see the selected guidance alongside the assignment, making the expectations clear before they begin their work.

Schools can also customise the wording of the guidelines to better match their own AI policies. Importantly, Microsoft says the guidelines communicate expectations rather than technically preventing students from accessing other AI tools.

Why this matters for teachers and schools

As schools move beyond simple debates about whether students should or should not use AI, the more useful question is increasingly when and how AI use is appropriate.

A brainstorming task, an essay draft and an assessment of independent writing may reasonably have three different expectations. Putting those expectations directly into an assignment gives teachers a practical way to communicate that distinction to students.

For school leaders, it also provides one example of how an institution-wide AI policy can translate into everyday classroom practice rather than remaining a broad set of principles.

Read Microsoft’s announcement and feature details →