A Genetic Algorithm-Optimized MLPNN to Analyze the Impact of Generative Artificial Intelligence Tools on Academic Performance—A Case Study

The recent emergence of conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents has profoundly transformed learning and teaching practices in higher education. These tools offer multiple advantages, ranging from cognitive assistance to enhanced student autonomy and efficiency. However, their actual impact on academic performance remains understudied, and the existing research often presents contradictory findings. To address this gap, the present study is the first to employ a Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Multi-Layer Perceptron Neural Networks (MLPNNs) to evaluate the influence of Generative AI Tools (GAITs) on students’ academic outcomes. A structured questionnaire was administered to 294 students from three Moroccan engineering schools in order to collect data on their use of these tools. An initial attempt to predict their grades using a statistical approach showed that familiarity with GAITs contributed positively to academic performance but had limited accuracy (39%), highlighting the need for more robust methods. Therefore, a hybrid model based on neural networks optimized with a GA was developed to better capture the complex relationships between the explanatory variables and academic performance. The results indicate that the GAIT-related variables considered in this study, taken in isolation, have a limited predictive capacity for students’ academic outcomes. This finding suggests that the available data does not capture the full complexity of the factors shaping academic success in contexts involving GAITs use.