Is ChatGPT good for GCSE revision?
ChatGPT can explain things quickly, but it waits for students to ask the right questions and can do the work for them. A 2026 study of 26,811 pupils (Strömberg, Lei & Wu) found students using general-purpose AI did their homework faster, then scored 20% worse in exams. An AI tutor like Inkling works differently: it leads the session and asks the questions, and in Inkling’s own study its users scored 7% higher at GCSE.
Chatbot vs tutor
General AI chatbot
Inkling
Who leads
Waits for a prompt
Leads the session
What it does
Answers your questions
Asks the questions
Effort
Offloads effort
Makes students do the thinking
Adults in the loop
No
Teachers set focus; parents see progress
Safeguarding
General
Built for UK schools, with alerts to safeguarding leads
What the research says
The Strömberg study and Inkling’s study are separate, with different pupils, countries and subjects, and neither is a randomised trial, so they aren’t a head-to-head test. But together they suggest the way AI is used matters: tools that do the work can hurt results, while tutoring that makes students think can help.
If your child uses ChatGPT anyway
Ask it to quiz them, not to give them the answer.
Have them explain each answer back in their own words.
Never paste in an essay question and copy what comes back.
Frequently asked questions
Is ChatGPT bad for GCSE students?
Not in itself, but research suggests using it to do the work can hurt exam results. How it is used matters.
What’s the difference between Inkling and ChatGPT?
ChatGPT answers questions; Inkling leads a tutoring session, asks questions and adapts to what the student understands.
Do students need to know how to prompt Inkling?
No. The tutor guides the conversation, so students don’t need to be good at prompting AI.