Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education: a systematic review across academic disciplines

This systematic review examines how higher education students use artificial intelligence (AI) across academic disciplines, including its benefits and concerns. Following PRISMA guidelines, 100 Scopus-indexed studies were analyzed. Findings show disciplinary differences in AI adoption, with Linguistics and Language-related Studies and Medical and Health Sciences reporting the highest use. Benefits include personalized feedback, increased engagement, self-regulated learning, and improved academic performance. However, concerns such as academic integrity risks, over-reliance on AI, ethical and privacy issues, uneven AI literacy, and limited pedagogical alignment persist. The review highlights the need for coherent frameworks, institutional policies, and discipline-specific AI training in higher education.