Students have been caught cheating with AI at all these Russell Group unis

AI has many uses – summarising academic articles, generating creepily bad images, writing songs in the style of Harry Styles with your name in (which I have definitely never tried). Since ChatGPT dropped in November 2022, several students at Russell Group unis have found themselves in a state of pure desperation and asked AI software to do their uni assignments – aka cheating.

The AI platform AIPRM found that 2,952 UK uni students had been penalised for using AI during the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 academic years. 83 per cent of universities had investigated students for cheating with AI.

Here is the list of all the Russell Group unis that have penalised students for using AI to cheat in their assignments. Let it be a lesson to you would-be cheaters (or at least, a guide to where you’re least likely to get caught?)

9. University of Cambridge – 0 students

The University of Cambridge reported that none of their students had been punished for using AI – or perhaps Cambridge students are clever enough to avoid getting caught?

8. Newcastle University – 6 students

The Times Higher Education University Rankings in 2024 gave this uni a score of 37.3 for its teaching – quite low for a Russell Group uni. Maybe that’s why 6 of them turned to AI’s tuition instead.

7. University of Leeds – 7 students

90 per cent of Leeds grads are in employment or further study within 15 months of graduating. It looks like a career in the artificial intelligence sector might have been of interest to at least seven of them.

=5. King’s College London – 19 students

King’s College London had the fifth most students enrolled in 2022, so it stands to reason that a big number would have been found cheating there.

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=5. University of Edinburgh – 19 students

Perhaps all the Edinburgh students spent their summers handing out leaflets and failing to spot celebrities at the Edinburgh Fringe, so they had to get AI to do their dissertations for them?

4. University of Sheffield – 40 students

The uni was ranked 18 in the Complete University Guide’s 2025 league table, yet 40 of them used AI to cheat.

Anyone using AI in here?

3. University of York – 45 students

This uni is the smallest on the list, with just 23,420 students in 2022. However, a whopping 45 people were discovered to have used AI to cheat.

2. University of Glasgow – 51 students

The University of Glasgow is one of the largest in the UK – 42,980 undergrad and postgrad students were enrolled in the academic year 2021/2022 – which might explain why a high number of students was caught cheating.

1. Queen Mary University of London – 52 students

What happened, Queen Mary? Maybe the students are all too busy going out in the East End to study, and had to delegate their coursework to ChatGPT instead?

Other articles recommended by this author: 

• The Russell Group unis with the fewest Clearing courses left in 2024
• The UK’s most in-demand universities right now, according to Google Trends
• A professor at the University of Oxford has told students to use ChatGPT for essays