Research shows that artificial intelligence (AI) technology positively influences students' writing skills, but this area has yet to be touched by Indonesian researchers. This study aims to map perception, obstacles, and recommendations for optimizing use of AI in teaching academic writing in Indonesian. This article focuses on a case study of three senior high schools in Central Java, Indonesia. It employs quantitative and qualitative data. The researcher collected the data using questionnaires presented with Likert scale, followed by an in-depth interview through mobile instant messaging interview. Findings show that: (1) AI-based learning tools help students to do academic research, especially in the planning step, to identify and develop the topics, as well as in the drafting step, to develop a paper draft; (2) AI-based learning tools are deemed flexible in accessibility despite not being able to cover all necessities required by students in writing process; (3) students are interested in using AI technology in academic writing class so that learning process will not be boring. Although AI has been used in academic writing classes, tools have not positively impacted quality of students' academic papers in all indicators. There are several obstacles to using AI, namely: (1) need for more available feature, especially in editing Indonesian text; and (2) in contrast, the features still need to be optimized. These are the recommendations for the optimization of AI-based learning tools, which are: (1) adding features to edit Indonesian text, including spelling, diction, and sentence structure; and (2) enhancing AI literacy to be able to explore and leverage the existing features optimally. This research has yet to accommodate the possible coverage in checking the originality and accuracy of the written product assisted by AI-based learning tools, which could become a focus for future researchers.