OpenAI Plans Custom Chatbot Tutors for Online Courses
OpenAI intends to let educators build custom GPTs integrated directly into online curriculums to act as lifelong learning companions.
OpenAI envisions a future where online courses feature custom chatbot tutors tailored to specific curriculums. Siya Raj Purohit from OpenAI's education go-to-market team reveals that the company explores ways to let professors create custom GPTs for the public, allowing learners to engage with educational content in a lifelong manner. Although this specific integration remains on the roadmap rather than in current development, educators already upload a semester's worth of material to build custom GPTs for their students using existing OpenAI tools.
The company aggressively pursues the education market as a major growth area, highlighted by the hiring of former Coursera executive Leah Belsky as its first education general manager. With the AI in education market projected to reach $88.2 billion in the next decade, OpenAI launches targeted products like ChatGPT Edu to secure a foothold in universities. These custom GPTs function similarly to Khanmigo, the AI tutor Khan Academy develops in collaboration with OpenAI to guide students through homework and test prep.
Despite this ambitious push, widespread adoption faces significant hurdles due to lingering skepticism among educators. AI tutors still struggle with accuracy, as demonstrated when Khanmigo failed to solve basic math problems during third-party testing. Purohit asserts that OpenAI's models continuously improve to better serve learning and teaching environments, but a recent Pew Research Center survey shows that many K-12 teachers remain unconvinced about the reliability of AI in the classroom.