Browse help docs
Using the AI copilots safely
What the copilots draft, what they can read, and the single rule underneath all of it: every output is a draft with a named approver.
For Teachers, coordinators and anybody setting AI policy · reviewed 23 August 2026
The 1 points where someone must decide
Everything else can be worked on in any order. These cannot move without a person.
- ApprovalPending → Approved or rejected
Know what they draft
/teacher/ai
Mrs. Johnson
Teacher
What they draft
From your records, not from general knowledge
Unit plan · Migration stories
Built from your POI and concepts
Rubric · criterion B
Aligned to your definitions
Report comment · Ayaan
From released grades and reflections
Unit plans, criteria-aligned rubrics, feedback, report comments and gap fixes. Each is generated from your school's own records rather than from general knowledge about the IB, which is why the output is specific enough to edit rather than start again.
Understand what they can reach
/teacher/ai
Mrs. Johnson
Teacher
What they may reach
The same permission checks as you
Your students
Permitted
Students outside your programmes
Refused and recorded
Model and prompt version
gemini-flash · grading-v1
A copilot reads through the same permission checks as the person using it. It cannot see students you cannot see, and a refused lookup is recorded as a refusal.
Drafts record the model and the prompt version that produced them, so a change in behaviour after an upgrade is traceable rather than mysterious.
Review before anything is used
/teacher/ai
Mrs. Johnson
Teacher
Approve or reject
Recorded against the person who did it
Report comment · Ayaan
Edited then approved by A. Iyer
Rubric · criterion B
Rejected — wrong command terms
Unit plan · Migration stories
Waiting
Every output waits at pending. Approving is an act by a named person and the approval is recorded against them.
Gate · Approval
Pending → Approved or rejected
Nothing an AI produced reaches a student, a family or a report card without a person approving it. High-stakes drafts are held rather than published optimistically, because an incorrect report comment is not fixable after a family has read it.
Watch cost and disagreement
/admin/ai-governance
Mrs. Johnson
Teacher
Usage and cost
Failures recorded too, so it is not survivorship-biased
Grading · 142 calls
118 succeeded, 24 failed
Cost this month
$1.36
Unpriced model
Cost reads unknown, not zero
Usage, cost and failures are recorded — including failures, so the figures are not survivorship-biased. Where a model is unpriced the cost reads as unknown rather than as zero.
Feedback keeps wrong separate from unhelpful. They are different problems: unhelpful is a prompt to improve, wrong is a reason to stop.
Set the policy your school can defend
/teacher/ai · /admin/ai-governance
Mrs. Johnson
Teacher
Feedback
Wrong and unhelpful are different problems
Unhelpful
14 reports · a prompt to improve
Wrong
2 reports · a reason to stop
Approval rate
96% approved unchanged
The platform can enforce that somebody approved, not that they read it.
The platform enforces that a person approves. What it cannot enforce is whether that person read it. An approval rate near one hundred per cent is the number to watch, and it is visible for that reason.
Who can approve what
Designations are assigned in IB roles and are separate from the account role somebody signs in with.
| Designation | Sees | Approves |
|---|---|---|
| Teacher | Drafts for their own students | Accepting, editing or rejecting drafts |
| Coordinator | Drafts across the programme, plus usage and cost | The same as a teacher |
| Student and family | Only approved output, and only where it was published to them | Nothing |
If something looks empty
A copilot says it cannot answer
Usually no records behind the question, or a lookup it was not permitted to make. Both are reported rather than worked around.
Cost reads as unknown
The model is unpriced in the rate card. Unknown is honest; zero would not be.
Everything is being approved unchanged
Worth investigating rather than celebrating. The platform can enforce that somebody approved, not that they read it.
Still stuck?
Bring the unit you are working on. Thirty minutes with someone who has taught the programme.