Beyond efficiency: Empirical insights on generative AI's impact on cognition, metacognition and epistemic agency in learning

Generative AI (GenAI) promises to reshape education, yet, beyond gains in efficiency and scalability, crucial questions remain regarding its deeper cognitive, epistemic, socio-emotional and ethical implications for learners. This special section collects emerging empirical evidence from diverse educational settings to examine how interactions with advanced GenAI systems—ranging from intelligent tutors and conversational agents to AI-generated feedback providers—shape learners' cognitive engagement, epistemic agency, metacognitive regulation and emotional relationships with technology. While studies reveal evidence of positive effects in personalised guidance, collaborative inquiry and enhanced self-reflection, findings also highlight risks such as diminished epistemic vigilance, superficial learning and emotional dependence on AI interlocutors. These insights advocate for an educational re-imagining that actively experiments with novel AI technologies while continuously gathering and critically evaluating evidence—envisioning education not merely as a spectrum ranging from fully human- or AI-led activities but also as genuinely collaborative endeavours that balance human intelligence and AI capabilities in meaningful and ethically grounded partnerships. Looking ahead, in this editorial, we propose an interdisciplinary research roadmap that urges deeper examination of the cognitive and neural consequences associated with sustained AI exposure, together with the development of comprehensive frameworks to cultivate AI literacy and evaluative judgement. It also encourages rigorous assessment of the long-term ethical implications of increasingly blurred human-AI boundaries. Ultimately, advancing education in GenAI-infused contexts requires proactive engagement with these emerging complexities, so that teachers and learners not only survive in an AI-infused future but also creatively, critically and ethically co-author it.