There’s a noisy debate happening right now: will AI make maths irrelevant, or more valuable than ever? We believe we should be focusing on why maths is valuable because of what it does for young people, and we want to tell this story clearly.
What we found out
We and our partners* conducted a study to understand what motivates high-attaining KS3 pupils (Years 7–9). Through focus groups and message testing with 600+ young people aged 11–14, we examined how they talk about maths, what keeps them engaged, and what language resonates.
The result is our messaging guide, a practical resource for anyone talking to high-attaining young mathematicians. It’s designed to give adults the language to make a motivating and honest case for why maths matters now and in the future.
One message consistently performed strongly across year groups, gender and socioeconomic background:
Maths gives you the edge
To pupils, this communicated a real, competitive advantage that felt honest about what maths gives you. In a world where AI is changing all areas of life, naming that advantage and sharing the message feels important.
So what does it mean? There are really two types of ‘edge’.
The intrinsic edge = maths develops how you think.
The first strand is about cognitive development. Advances in AI are forcing us to think about what maths is actually for.
Oxford’s word of the year in 2024 was brain rot – the gradual decline in mental sharpness from consuming too much low-grade digital content. In 2025, Macquarie Dictionary’s was AI slop – the flood of machine-generated content clogging every artery of the internet. Digital technology is changing what we produce and consume, as well as how we think.
There is a risk that we will begin to outsource the difficult thinking that builds understanding.
Think about what GPS has done to our sense of direction. Since navigation apps became second nature, research shows that habitual use is associated with a measurable decline in spatial memory over time. We outsourced the thinking, so the muscle weakened. A frictionless world is appealing in many ways – nobody misses trawling through spreadsheets or manually spell checking an essay. But automating tedious tasks is one thing and automating the difficult is another. Over time, if we outsource hard thinking, we lose the capacity to do it for ourselves.
The best mathematical minds don’t stop when they find an answer. They explore different solutions to understand why something works. Getting the right answer in maths matters. So does the journey your mind goes on the way there; sitting with a problem, pushing through the discomfort and following a thought until a ‘eureka!’ moment.
Whilst answers are abundant in an AI world, judgement and understanding are not. Pupils with the edge have both. They have their own point of view, they can wrestle with a problem until they understand it, push back on conclusions and interrogate outputs. Maths builds this and independent thought is one of the few things that cannot be automated away.
The extrinsic edge = maths is a powerful tool
The second strand is about opportunity. Mathematical minds are in high demand across many industries – from designing the AI systems shaping our future and protecting companies against cyber-attacks, to managing millions in investments. Maths graduates earn, on average, £500,000** more over their lifetime than other graduates.
Calculators didn’t make mathematicians obsolete, they raised the bar for what mathematical reasoning was expected to deliver. In a world full of problems that need solving, the ability to think mathematically gives young people greater security, options and control over their future.
The intrinsic and extrinsic case work together to paint the full picture. Maths makes your mind sharper and your options bigger.
Why we have to say this clearly, and often
If pupils, or their families, absorb the message that “AI does the maths now,” motivation to pursue depth can erode quickly. We need to be sharing a compelling, honest story about why mathematical reasoning matters. The young mathematicians of the next generation can think for themselves and stay in control of their own reasoning in a world enveloped in the offer of doing it for them.
Our research tells us young people already sense that maths gives them something real. They just need adults around them to say it out loud and mean it.
The full messaging guide is available now. We’ll be sharing more from the research in blogs to follow.
*Purposeful Ventures
**Calculation for lifetime earnings premium can be found here: https://axiommaths.com/axiom-maths-research