OpenAI today launched Study Mode, a new feature in ChatGPT designed to walk students through problems step-by-step instead of simply handing over the answer. Available immediately to Free, Plus, Pro, and Team users, with ChatGPT Edu support arriving in the coming weeks, the move is timed to the upcoming academic year and positions the company as a partner to educators rather than a cheating engine.

Study Mode uses Socratic questioning and scaffolding techniques, developed with pedagogy experts from over 40 institutions. Ask it a question and, instead of answering, it opens by asking what you already understand, then builds an exchange step by step toward the answer. OpenAI casts it as an early step toward building more learning tools into ChatGPT. One in three college-age people already use ChatGPT, the company says.

But beneath the tutorial veneer, Study Mode is not a model trained exclusively on vetted textbooks. It is standard ChatGPT with a conversation filter that encourages explanations over answers, meaning the same hallucination and misinformation risks apply. OpenAI acknowledges that frustrated students can always revert to regular ChatGPT for direct answers. Leah Belsky, OpenAI’s head of education, said: “If someone wants to subvert learning, and sort of get answers and take the easier route, that is possible.”

Student testers from Princeton, Wharton, and the University of Minnesota gave positive reviews, praising the tool’s ability to check understanding and adapt to pace. But educators warn that the AI cannot reliably distinguish right from wrong. The tension is plain: a tool that promises to democratize tutoring may also entrench the very behaviors teachers are trying to prevent.