Does AI make tutors better?
Yes, on the best evidence so far, and it helps weaker tutors most. Stanford researchers gave an AI helper called Tutor CoPilot to some of 900 virtual math tutors working with 1,800 students in grades 3 to 8, from the end of March 2024 for two months. Their students passed more exit tickets.
The figures come from the Tutor CoPilot paper by Rose Wang, Susanna Loeb, Dora Demszky and colleagues, a preregistered randomized trial run with the tutoring company FEV Tutor in Title I schools. Students whose tutors had access were "4 percentage points (p.p.) more likely to master topics". The tool cost about $20 per tutor a year. The last row counts only tutors who actually opened it, so read it as the ceiling, not the average.
What changed was how the tutors talked. The authors found tutors with the helper were more likely to ask guiding questions and less likely to give the answer away. That's the habit the prompts further down are built to copy, whatever tool you use.
Which free AI tools can a private tutor actually use?
A private tutor can sign up for Khanmigo for Teachers, MagicSchool and Brisk free as of 25 October 2026, but not ChatGPT for Teachers unless a school employs them. None of the three asks for a school employer on its page. OpenAI's eligibility rule says you must "work for an accredited U.S. K-12 school or district". We read each page that day.
| Offer, as of 25 October 2026 | Who qualifies | Price | What it means for a tutor |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT for Teachers (OpenAI) | "Work for an accredited U.S. K-12 school or district" | Free through June 2028 | Only if you also work for a school; it isn't for students |
| Claude for Teachers (Anthropic) | "Verified K-12 educators in the US", 18 and over | Free for a year if you sign up by 30 June 2027 | Anthropic doesn't name tutors; expect to verify a K-12 role |
| Khanmigo for Teachers (Khan Academy) | "An educator who is 18 years or older" in a listed country | Free | No school employer asked for; you can't give students access |
| MagicSchool Free | "For individual teachers exploring AI" | $0; Plus is $8.33 a month billed yearly | No school employer asked for; 80+ teacher tools |
| Brisk Free | "For teachers", as a browser extension | $0 | No school employer asked for; a Chrome and Edge extension for Docs, Slides and the web |
| ChatGPT Plus | Anyone 13 or older, with parent permission under 18 | $19.99 a month (App Store) | Paid; no teacher terms |
| Claude Pro | Anyone 18 or older | $20 a month, $17 billed yearly | Paid; no teacher terms |
So the tutor's free kit is Khanmigo, MagicSchool and Brisk, and the paid step is one $20 chat seat. Khan Academy says Khanmigo keeps "your work and your student data private and secure", but its teacher accounts can't bring students in: "classroom access for Khanmigo is only available through school or district" partners. A tutor who wants a student to practice on Khanmigo needs the parent to buy it, at $4 a month or $44 a year, in the US only.
Tutors who also teach in a US school should take the school version. Our AI for teachers page compares those seven offers on their student data terms.
Eight AI prompts tutors can copy
Each prompt asks the model to plan around one student without naming them. Use initials or [Student], and paste your own notes, the syllabus or past paper in place of the brackets.
| Job | Prompt to paste | Check before you use it |
|---|---|---|
| Session plan | "Plan a 60 minute session for a Grade 9 student on [topic]. Last session notes: [paste]. Start with a 5 minute recall of last week, then one worked example, three practice problems that get harder, and a 2 question check at the end." | That the recall matches what you actually covered |
| Find the misconception | "Here is a student's working on [problem]: [paste]. Name the most likely misconception in one line, then write two short questions that would show whether I'm right." | That the questions test the idea, not the arithmetic |
| Hints, not answers | "I'm tutoring [topic]. For the problem below, write three hints that get more specific, then the full solution last. Each hint asks a question instead of giving a step." Then paste the problem. | That hint one gives nothing away |
| Practice set | "Write eight practice problems on [skill] for a student who can do [easier skill] but not [harder skill]. Put them in order of difficulty, with worked answers at the end." | Every worked answer, line by line |
| Exam timeline | "My student sits [exam] on [date] and we meet [X] times a week. Their weak topics are [list]. Build a week by week plan to the exam date, with one timed past paper every [X] weeks." | That the dates land on your real sessions |
| Parent update | "Write a 120 word update to a parent. Covered: [topics]. Going well: [one thing]. Still hard: [one thing]. Next two weeks: [plan]. Warm, specific, no jargon. Use [Parent] and [Student]." | Fill in the names in your own email |
| Session summary | "Turn these rough notes into a five line summary for my records: what we covered, what clicked, what didn't, homework set, and the plan for next time. Notes: [paste]." | Nothing in it you didn't write down |
| Profile bio | "Write a 100 word tutoring profile for [subject] and [levels]. Facts: [years], [results you can show], [how a first session works]. No claims I haven't listed." | That every claim is one you can prove |
Keep the hints row. It's the Tutor CoPilot lesson in a prompt: ask the model for questions first and the answer last, so you don't hand the student a finished step.
Can students use ChatGPT or Claude between tutoring sessions?
Students can use ChatGPT from 13 with a parent's permission, and Claude from 18, so most school-age tutees can only use ChatGPT. OpenAI's terms of use say "You must be at least 13 years old" and "If you are under 18 you must have your parent or legal guardian's permission". Anthropic describes Claude as having an "18-and-over policy".
The bigger risk is what open access does to practice. In a 2025 PNAS trial with nearly 1,000 high school math students, Hamsa Bastani and colleagues found GPT-4 access raised practice grades 48%. When access was taken away, students who had used plain GPT-4 did 17% worse than students who never had it. A version built to give hints instead of answers raised practice grades 127% and "largely mitigated" the drop.
If your student will use a chatbot at home, give them the guardrail in writing. Ask them to start each chat with this line, and check one transcript a week.
```
You are helping me practice [topic] for [exam]. Don't give me the answer or the next step. Ask me one question at a time that helps me find it. If I'm stuck after three tries, give me a hint, not the solution. When I get it right, ask me to explain why in my own words.
```
Will AI replace tutors?
Not on the evidence so far, though an AI tutor can beat a good class on a single lesson. Harvard researchers Gregory Kestin, Kelly Miller and colleagues ran a crossover trial with 194 students over two consecutive weeks, published in Scientific Reports on 3 June 2025. Median learning gains with their custom AI tutor were "over double" those in an active learning class. The median student spent 49 minutes on it, against a 60 minute lesson.
That tutor was built by teachers, on their own course, with the answers held back. The Bastani trial shows what a plain chatbot does without that design, and the Tutor CoPilot trial shows the best gains came from a person with an AI helper. Tutoring companies are building the second model. Preply says in an OpenAI case study from 12 June 2026 that "70%+" of its tutors actively use AI Lesson Insights, which summarizes each lesson for the tutor and the student.
The jobs AI takes first are the ones around the session: the plan, the practice set, the summary and the parent email. The hour with the student is still the part people pay for. Parents pay for that hour.
Should a tutor pay for ChatGPT, Claude or a multi-model app?
Start free with Khanmigo, MagicSchool or Brisk, and pay for one chat seat only when you need long documents or your own prompts saved. ChatGPT Plus is $19.99 a month on the App Store and Claude Pro is $20, or $17 billed yearly. Either one runs every prompt on this page.
Whizi, which publishes this page, is a prep seat for the tutor, not an app for the student: its privacy policy says the service is not directed to children under 13. Pro is $29.99 a month, or $19.99 billed yearly, with Claude Sonnet, Gemini and a Math Tutor agent in one seat. A project per exam or subject holds the syllabus and past papers as pinned files, plus up to 32,000 characters of instructions, so every new chat starts from them. It loses to the free tools above on price, and it has nothing a student logs in to.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best AI for tutors?
The best free AI for a private tutor is Khanmigo for Teachers or MagicSchool, because neither asks for a school employer as of October 2026. For a paid seat, ChatGPT Plus at $19.99 a month or Claude Pro at $20 runs every prompt here. For math, the best AI for math compares the models on the subject itself.
Is ChatGPT for Teachers free for tutors?
Only for tutors who also work for a school. OpenAI says ChatGPT for Teachers is free through June 2028 for teachers, staff and administrators who "work for an accredited U.S. K-12 school or district", and a private tutor doesn't meet that. The regular plans are open to anyone, and ChatGPT free vs paid covers what Plus adds.
Can AI replace a human tutor?
Not yet. A Harvard AI tutor more than doubled median gains over one active learning class in a two week 2025 trial, but it was built by the course's own teachers. Plain GPT-4 access left high school students 17% worse once it was removed. More numbers are in our AI in education statistics.
Is it safe to put student work into AI?
It's safe with the name and anything identifying taken out. Paste the working, not the student: use initials or [Student], and keep grades, school names, diagnoses and contact details out of every chat. Ask the parent before you share anything more, and see what never to paste into AI for the full list.
