So long, study guides? The AI industry is going after students : NPR

Students are using ChatGPT more than ever — and ChatGPT knows it.

Last week, OpenAI launched “study mode” in its chatbot, aimed directly at the student market. It’s meant to behave more like a tutor than a machine that spits out answers; it uses the Socratic method, builds quizzes and creates study plans. The same day, Google announced a suite of study-oriented tools.

So, how does generative AI compare to old-school tools like textbooks and online homework helpers like Chegg and Quizlet? Do they still have a place?

I first asked ChatGPT: “Would you recommend I use you as a study tool? How do you compare to textbooks and edtech companies?” The answer: “Yes, I can absolutely be a useful study tool, but the best results come from knowing how and when to use me alongside textbooks and edtech platforms.”

Then I talked to people running some of those platforms and some students who use (or once used) them. As generative AI plants its stake in education, they’re all doing what they can to acclimate.

How companies are adapting 

Chegg sells textbooks and offers a slate of digital services, such as generating flash cards and practice questions. In May, the company laid off about 250 employees, or 22% of its workforce, partly due to students turning to generative AI, it confirmed to NPR. But rather than trying to expand its reach, it’s zooming in.

“We were trying to be everything to every student in a pre-AI world,” Chegg CEO Nathan Schultz says.

Several generative AI platforms, including ChatGPT, have free plans. Chegg hopes to reach students who will pay $19.99 a month for tools that encourage long-term use and goal setting.

“If you think about the fitness world, those apps and those services tend to be much more guided to getting you to your goal,” Schultz says. “They’re giving you, ‘Every week we’re going to do this many miles or this many rides or this much work,’ and that’s how we’ve been designing our service.”

Chegg is also wrapping AI models into its platform. A new feature shows subscribers side-by-side panels with Chegg’s answer to a question next to answers from other platforms, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Claude.

Macmillan Learning sells textbooks and e-books, and it offers quizzes and study guides. Like Chegg, it has incorporated an AI tool into its paid plan and began rolling it out late last year.

Macmillan’s tool doesn’t give students straight-up answers; instead, it guides them to the solution through open-ended questions that expose flawed thinking (aka the Socratic method).

“It Socratically supports them so that they have that learning experience that they can use … when they have to do it themselves on the exam,” says Tim Flem, Macmillan Learning’s chief product officer.

Flem claims Macmillan’s AI tutor is more accurate than AI chatbots, as it draws from the company’s textbooks. The platform also reduces “content switching,” he says.

“If you’re switching between that tab and that tab, you notice how you’re always kind of like, ‘Wait a minute, what did it say over here?'” Flem says. “So our AI tutor is right there next to the problem that the student is working on.”

How students are adapting

Some students are mixing and matching AI and traditional tools. Bryan Wheatley combined ChatGPT with Quizlet and Socratic (another AI tool) to study. A recent graduate of Prairie View A&M University in Texas, he initially approached ChatGPT with trepidation.

Bryan Wheatley graduated from Prairie View A&M University last year with a degree in sociology.

Grace Raver/NPR

hide caption

toggle caption

Grace Raver/NPR

“Something that’s really adaptive is kind of crazy in a sense,” he says, though he went on to use it to outline essays and for other tasks. He says ChatGPT is correct about half the time, and he had to do a lot of cross-referencing.

He was one of the 66% of students in bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral programs using ChatGPT regularly, according to July 2024 research from the Digital Education Council.

The survey also found that over 50% of students believed too much reliance on AI would negatively impact their academic performance.

Sally Simpson is trying to hold the line. The Georgetown University student, who’s working on a Ph.D. in German literature, does not use generative AI. In her undergrad days, she used websites like Quizlet and SparkNotes to reinforce information she processed.

Now, she sees undergraduates use generative AI to complete homework assignments and summarize bodies of work they didn’t read. “It cheapens people’s education,” she says. “I think it’s an important skill to be able to read an article, or read a text, and not only be able to summarize it, but think about it critically.”

Sally Simpson is studying for a doctorate in German literature at Georgetown University.

Grace Raver/NPR

hide caption

toggle caption

Grace Raver/NPR

Dontrell Shoulders, a senior studying social work at Kentucky State University, was an avid Quizlet user and still uses it to study for tests. With Quizlet, he has to seek out answers. Generative AI doesn’t provide much of a challenge, he says.

“You’re just putting something in a computer, having to type it up, and just like, ‘Here you go,’ ” he says. “Are you going to remember it after you just typed it in? You’re not.”

How professors are adapting

Amy Lawyer, the department chair of equine administration at the University of Louisville’s business school, says some students still use online study guides like Chegg and SparkNotes. “Students are to a point where they’re going to use any resources available to them,” she says.

Of those resources, ChatGPT has had the most significant impact on her classroom. She uses it herself for editing and encourages her students to do the same. To stop them from plagiarizing or overusing AI chatbots, however, she’s now issuing more assignments that must be handwritten or completed in class.

Ayelet Fishbach, a marketing and behavioral science professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, says students will always find shortcuts, no matter how the technology evolves. “Cheating has not been invented recently,” she says.

“What is different now is that the line seems, to many people, more blurry,” she says. “If before you knew you were cheating, now you feel, ‘Maybe I’m still doing what I’m supposed to do, only I’m being more efficient.’ This is confusing for students, and we do try to support them.”