Mutlu Cukurova is affiliated with the UCL Knowledge Lab at the Institute of Education, and the UCL Centre for Artificial Intelligence at the Faculty of Engineering. He manages large-scale research projects, supervises postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers, and leads the Design and Use of AI in Education module within the Education and Technology programme. In addition, he contributes to policy-making activities related to AI in Education as an external expert, including work with UNESCO, OECD, and EC external expert groups. He is also part of UCL's Grand Challenges on Transformative Technologies working group, an Editor of the British Journal of Educational Technology, and an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction.

In his research, Mutlu investigates human–AI complementarity in education. His work addresses the pressing socio-educational challenge of preparing people for a future with AI systems—one that demands far more than the routine cognitive skills currently emphasised by many education systems and traditional approaches to automation with AI. He is particularly interested in understanding, computationally modelling, and supporting people's ability to learn how to learn, and to solve complex problems collaboratively. His research is transdisciplinary, drawing on methodologies and theories from the Learning Sciences, Computer Science, and Human–Computer Interaction.