The 2026 census
State of AI in International Education
Every agency owner says they use AI. Almost none will tell you what that means, what it costs, or whether it works. So we are asking all of them, precisely, at once.
Can you answer any of these?
Neither can anyone else, which is the entire reason this census exists. Every one of them is a question the industry argues about at conferences with no evidence on the table.
Is the agency — or the school — down the road automating with AI?
Or do they have one person who pastes things into ChatGPT on Tuesdays? Everybody claims the first. Nobody has ever asked precisely enough to tell them apart.
Are you overpaying for it, or badly underspending?
Some organisations here spend nothing at all. Some spend more per month than they pay a junior counsellor. Nobody knows which side of that line they are on.
In three years, is your role worth more or less?
The argument every panel has and none of them settle. Your peers are about to answer it in writing, and you can read what they said.
Ten minutes buys you a number nobody else has
Your AI Adoption Score lands the moment you finish the first section. The rest arrives when the census closes — respondents read it before the industry does.
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Practitioner
Where you sit among agencies, once the census closes
- A score and an archetype, immediatelyPioneer, Practitioner, Explorer or Observer. Most people are surprised by which one they get.
- Agencies measured against agenciesUniversities against universities. Never the industry average, which describes nobody in particular.
- The findings before your competitorsRespondents get the report ahead of publication, and can quote it while everyone else waits.
- Numbers you can put in a board packAnonymous, aggregated and sourced — the first figures on this that came from practitioners rather than a vendor.
Four short sections
Each one stands alone. Answer what you can and stop whenever — whatever you finish still counts, and still puts you on the list that reads the findings first.
Section 1
AI in your work
How far you have personally taken it, what you use, what you pay, what stops you.
Your score, on the spotSection 2
Connected AI
Whether your AI acts or only answers, what it plugs into, what you have asked vendors for.
Nobody has this dataSection 3
Business conditions
Volumes, revenue, commission timing, payment friction, hiring — and what AI has replaced.
How long commissions really takeSection 4
Policy pulse
Destination by destination: where students are going and what policy did to you.
The destination table
Payment automation for schools and education agents. Qualy publishes The Brief and runs the census.
International student payments, built for education. NexPay funds the research.
Published as aggregates only, and never below a minimum number of respondents, so a finding can never be narrowed to one organisation. Sponsors and partners see exactly what everyone else sees — never an individual answer.
Bring your members in
Associations, agency networks, school and university groups, conferences, communities, software vendors — if you have a list of people in this industry, you can put the census in front of them and get back something you cannot produce yourself: what your own people said, measured against the rest of the industry.
Talk to us about partnering- A page with your name on itYour logo, your words, your link — members arrive somewhere that looks like you invited them, because you did.
- Your own invite links, and who used themOne link per member. A board shows who responded and who has not, so you know where to nudge. Never what anyone answered.
- A private members-vs-industry reportOnce enough of your members finish, you get a cut nobody else has — anonymised, above a minimum sample, yours to present.
- The participation raceYour name on the census page beside the other organisations taking part. Participation is the only thing ever compared publicly.
Before you start
- Who is behind this?
- The Brief: International Education Edition, the five-minute podcast, published by Qualy. The census is ours; the findings belong to the industry.
- Is it anonymous?
- Yes, and specifically so: results are published as aggregates only, never below a minimum number of respondents, so a finding cannot be narrowed to one organisation. If a partner invited you, they see that you responded. Never what you said.
- Do I have to finish it?
- No, and that is not a polite fiction. Each section stands on its own — finish one and your answers count. Walk away at any point and nothing is lost.
- When do I see the results?
- Your AI Adoption Score is yours the moment you finish the first section. Everything else comes when the census closes, and goes to respondents first. Nothing is published while people are still answering: early numbers would steer the later ones.
The report will describe your market either way
The only question is whether you are in it, and whether you find out where you stand before the people you compete with do.
Start with question oneTen minutes. Anonymous. Four short sections.