AI in Canadian Admissions Statistics 2026: Sourced Data

The numbers worth quoting, with publisher, sample and date

Canada has one recent, open, national-level survey on student AI use, and little on admissions. This roundup keeps what we could open at the primary source, uses foreign studies as labelled context, and drops the rest. None of the numbers comes from Skolbot.

A note on method: no paid keyword-volume tool was available for this piece. The topic was scoped from public search results and primary sources.

Students: three in four already use generative AI

KPMG Canada released a survey on September 4, 2026 reporting that 75% of students use generative AI tools for schoolwork. The sample is 1,009 Canadians aged 18 and over who attend or work at a university, college, vocational school or high school, surveyed between July 22 and August 5, 2026.

Two cautions. The sample mixes students and staff of institutions, and it is not a survey of applicants. Canadian education is provincial, so a national figure hides differences between, say, Ontario and Quebec. Still, it sets the baseline: applicants arrive used to asking an assistant before they ask you.

For a point of comparison, HEPI's 2026 survey of UK undergraduates found 95% using AI in some form, with 36% feeling encouraged by their institution to do so.

The search stage: evidence from the US and UK

We did not find an open Canadian survey on how applicants use AI to choose a program. Two studies abroad show the direction.

EAB surveyed 5,000+ US high school students in fall 2025: 46% use AI in the college search (26% in spring 2025), and 18% dropped a college because of AI-surfaced information.

The UCAS research reported on Wonkhe found that 43% of 4,485 UK respondents begin with a university website and 13% with a chatbot; 48% would drop a university after a bad open day, 8% after a negative AI review.

Application routes differ: Ontario applicants use OUAC, other provinces have their own centres, and Quebec applicants pass through a CEGEP before university. The comparison is directional, not predictive.

Institutions: little open data

The only institution-side figure we could verify is about applicant rules. Kaplan (press release, 3 November 2025) polled US admissions officers in July-August 2025: 2% allow generative AI to write the essay, 30% ban it, 68% have no policy.

That is a US sample. Many Canadian universities rely on grades and, for some programs, supplementary applications or profiles, so the essay question is less central. We found no verified data on AI use inside Canadian admissions offices and do not quote any. Percentages about universities "screening applications with AI" come from polls mixing K-12 and higher education.

The legal frame: PIPEDA, provincial laws and Quebec's Law 25

At federal level, PIPEDA governs personal information in commercial activities, overseen by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. Provincial private-sector laws apply in Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec, and public universities are often covered by provincial public-sector or freedom-of-information statutes instead. Check which regime covers your institution.

Quebec's Law 25 adds obligations, including informing people when a decision about them is based exclusively on automated processing. The Commission d'accès à l'information supervises it.

We know of no federal AI statute in force; the proposed federal AI bill (part of C-27) was not adopted. The EU AI Act classes admission systems as high-risk (Annex III) from December 2, 2027, according to the European Commission. It does not bind Canadian institutions as such, but it matters if you recruit in the EU.

For program quality, provincial quality-assurance bodies and Universities Canada set the context; the U15 group of research universities is the closest parallel to the UK's Russell Group.

How to vet an AI statistic before you quote it

Ask four questions before a figure goes into a board paper, a deck or a press release. Who ran the survey, and who paid for it? How large was the sample and whom does it represent: applicants, current students, staff? When was it fielded? What exactly was asked, "do you use AI every day" or "have you ever used AI"?

The KPMG number is a good example of why this matters. It comes from a sample of 1,009 people, drawn from those who attend or work at several types of institution, across the whole country. It is valid for what it measures, but it is not a statement about applicants to Ontario universities or to Quebec CEGEPs. Always cite the publisher, the year, the sample and the link, and say what the figure does not cover.

Many percentages about Canadian youth and AI circulate on social media without a link to a report. If you cannot open the report, do not publish the number.

What the figures do not show

They do not show that a chatbot increases enrolment: none measures conversion. They cannot be compared directly, since students, staff, applicants and officers answered different questions in different countries. And they say nothing about college versus university applicants.

For published conversion references, see our article on school website conversion rate benchmarks.

What an admissions team can do with this

• Make program pages the best answer to the questions applicants already put to an assistant: admission averages, prerequisites, tuition, deadlines, co-op, scholarships.
• Publish your position on AI in applications.
• Keep people in admission decisions and disclose any automated processing where Law 25 or your provincial law requires it.
• Measure your own inquiry data: top questions, response time, open-house registrations.

Further reading: AI agents for student recruitment, the definition of an AI admissions agent and the AI chatbot student recruitment guide.