Want smarter insights in your inbox? Sign up for our weekly newsletters to get only what matters to enterprise AI, data, and security leaders. Subscribe Now

How OpenAI’s Study Mode Uses Socratic Method to Replace Direct Answers

Study Mode employs what OpenAI calls “custom system instructions” developed in collaboration with pedagogy experts from over 40 institutions worldwide. When students ask questions, the AI responds with guided prompts rather than direct answers.

During a demonstration, Abhi Muchhal, an OpenAI product manager, showed how asking ChatGPT to “teach me about game theory” in regular mode produces a comprehensive, textbook-like response. In Study Mode, however, the AI instead asks: “What’s your current level? What are you optimizing for?” before providing tailored, bite-sized explanations.

“We want this to be learner-led,” Muchhal explained. “At each step, there’s a question that is asking students to try to build on top. What we’re doing here is scaffolding learning and teaching one topic, asking a question, and building on top of that.”

The system even resists students’ attempts to obtain quick answers. When prompted with “just give me the answer,” Study Mode responds that “the point of this is to learn, not just to give you the answer.”

College Students Report Dramatic Learning Confidence Boost with AI Tutoring

Three college students who tested Study Mode early provided compelling testimonials about its impact on their learning confidence and outcomes.

Maggie Wang, a Princeton computer science senior, described how the tool helped her finally understand sinusoidal positional encodings, a concept she had struggled with despite taking NLP courses and attending office hours.

“I truly think that there’s nothing I can’t learn,” Wang said. “It’s given me a confidence that has absolutely changed my experience as a student. ChatGPT has really enabled me to think critically about being a researcher, reading papers, brainstorming research directions.”

Praja Tickoo, a Wharton student studying economics, noted the stark difference between regular ChatGPT and Study Mode when reviewing accounting materials: “It felt like it really understood where to start… it made sure that I was ready to move on at each step. The biggest difference between regular ChatGPT and ChatGPT with study mode is kind of feels like a tool to me. ChatGPT with study mode felt like a learning partner.”

AI Education Battle Heats Up as Google, Anthropic Race to Capture $80 Billion Market

The Study Mode launch comes as major AI companies race to capture the lucrative education market. Anthropic recently announced Claude for Education with its own “Learning Mode” that similarly emphasizes Socratic questioning over direct answers. Google has tested “Guided Learning for Gemini,” while making its $20 Gemini AI Pro subscription free for students.

This competitive landscape reflects the sector’s recognition that educational applications represent both a massive market opportunity and a chance to demonstrate AI’s beneficial societal impact. Unlike consumer applications focused on convenience, educational AI tools must balance accessibility with pedagogical principles that promote genuine learning.

“The research landscape is still taking shape on the best ways to apply AI in education,” OpenAI noted in its announcement, signaling that Study Mode represents an early experiment rather than a definitive solution.

Behind the Scenes: How OpenAI Built Study Mode and What Comes Next

OpenAI built Study Mode using custom system instructions rather than training the behavior directly into its underlying models. This approach allows for rapid iteration based on student feedback, though it may result in some inconsistent behavior across conversations.

The company plans to eventually integrate these behaviors directly into its main models once it has gathered sufficient data on what works best. Future enhancements under consideration include clearer visualizations for complex concepts, goal setting and progress tracking across conversations, and deeper personalization.

Study Mode launched Tuesday for ChatGPT’s Free, Plus, Pro, and Team users, with availability for ChatGPT Edu coming in the following weeks. The company has not yet implemented admin-level controls that would allow educational institutions to mandate Study Mode usage, though Belsky indicated this is “definitely something that we’re seeing our early customers ask for.”

GPT-5 Launch and AI Agent Breakthroughs Signal New Era for Educational Technology

The educational AI push comes amid rapid advancement in AI capabilities that both excite and concern educators. Last week, OpenAI’s ChatGPT Agent demonstrated it could pass through “I am not a robot” verification tests, highlighting how AI systems increasingly navigate digital environments designed to exclude them.

Meanwhile, reports suggest OpenAI is preparing to launch GPT-5 in early August, which would unify the company’s reasoning and multi-modal capabilities into a single, more powerful model. Such advances raise the stakes for educational applications, as more capable AI could either enhance learning outcomes or make academic integrity challenges more acute.

The timing also coincides with ongoing contract negotiations between Microsoft and OpenAI regarding access to future AI technologies, underscoring the commercial importance of maintaining competitive advantages in key markets like education.

What Study Mode Means for the Future of AI-Powered Learning

OpenAI emphasized that Study Mode represents “a first step in a longer journey to improve learning in ChatGPT.” The company is collaborating with Stanford University’s SCALE Initiative to conduct longer-term studies on how students learn best with AI, with plans to publish findings on the links between model design and cognitive outcomes.

For educational institutions weighing AI adoption, Study Mode offers a middle path between outright bans and unrestricted access. By building pedagogical principles directly into the AI interface, OpenAI has created a tool that could satisfy both educators’ concerns about learning integrity and students’ desire for AI assistance.

As Caleb Masi, a University of Minnesota student in the testing program, noted: “We’re really just scratching the surface of what AI tools can do to support students. The more we lean into these tools thoughtfully as a community, the more empowered we can become, not just as students, but as lifelong learners.”

The ultimate test won’t be whether AI can provide the right answers, but whether it can teach students to ask better questions.