ChatGPT Study Mode vs Gemini Guided Learning vs Claude vs NotebookLM

A note before we start: we make Leren, a study app, so we have a stake in this topic. Everything below comes from each company’s own announcements and documentation, checked in September 2026. Features change often, so confirm the details before you rely on them.

The short answer: use NotebookLM when you are revising from your own lecture notes. Use Gemini Guided Learning when you need to see an idea in a picture or a video. Use ChatGPT Study Mode or Claude’s Learning style when you are working through problems and want to be questioned as you go. Whichever you choose, leave it switched on. A study mode only helps while it is on.

For a few years, asking an AI for homework help meant getting the answer fast. That turned out to be a problem. In a 2025 study published in PNAS, nearly 1,000 high school students in Turkey practiced math with AI help. The group using a plain ChatGPT-style assistant did better on the practice problems and 17% worse on the exam. The group given hints instead of answers did not lose ground. The study modes below are the industry’s response.

What a study mode actually changes

A study mode does not give you a smarter model. It changes how the model behaves. Instead of solving the whole problem in one reply, it asks what you already know. It breaks the idea into steps. It gives hints. It checks your understanding with a question or a quiz before it moves on.

That matters for two reasons. The explanations are still only as accurate as the model underneath, so mistakes can happen. And because a study mode is a setting, you can leave it whenever you like.

ChatGPT Study Mode

OpenAI launched Study Mode in July 2025 for users on the Free, Plus, Pro and Team plans. You turn it on by choosing Study and learn from the tools menu.

What it does well. It starts by asking what you already know and what you are trying to do, then pitches the explanation to your level. It breaks long answers into short sections so you are not buried in text. It checks your understanding with quick quizzes and open questions and explains why an answer is right or wrong. You can upload a past exam or a photo of a problem and work through it together.

Where it falls short. It is a toggle inside a general chatbot. When you are tired, getting plain answers back takes one click. It also depends on you to bring the problem to it. On a laptop that usually means screenshots, uploads or typing out equations by hand.

Best for: working through problem sets in almost any subject with a patient questioner.

Gemini Guided Learning

Google added Guided Learning to the Gemini app on August 6, 2025. It runs on LearnLM, a family of models Google tuned for teaching.

What it does well. It is the most visual of the four. Answers can include images, diagrams, videos and interactive quizzes. You can upload course files and ask it to turn them into flashcards or a study guide. It suits subjects where seeing the idea does most of the work, like biology, chemistry and physics.

Where it falls short. The same toggle problem applies. Visuals only help when they match what your course actually teaches, so check diagrams against your lecture slides.

Best for: ideas you need to see, and turning course files into review material.

Claude’s Learning style

Anthropic first built a learning mode for Claude for Education in April 2025. In August 2025 it opened the Learning style to every Claude.ai user. You switch it on from the style menu.

What it does well. It is the most Socratic of the four. Ask it to solve a calculus problem and it will ask which approach you would try first. Share an argument and it will ask what evidence supports it. That makes you do the thinking, which is exactly what the research rewards.

Where it falls short. The questioning can feel slow when you only need a quick fact or a sanity check. And like the others, it lives in a text chat. It cannot see the lecture or problem in front of you unless you paste or upload it.

Best for: being pushed to reason through problems and arguments yourself.

NotebookLM

NotebookLM works differently from the other three. It is not a chatbot with a learning setting. It is a notebook that answers only from sources you upload, like lecture slides, readings and your own notes. Its answers cite those sources, so you can check every claim.

What it does well. In September 2025 Google added flashcards and quizzes built from your sources, with adjustable difficulty. A Learning Guide chat style asks open questions and breaks problems down step by step. It can also turn your notes into a podcast-style Audio Overview or a narrated Video Overview. At universities that use Google Classroom, students aged 18 and over can create notebooks from their course materials inside Classroom since April 2026.

Where it falls short. It only knows what you give it. That is its strength for revision and its weakness when you are stuck on a problem your sources do not cover.

Best for: revising for exams from your own course materials.

Side by side

Swipe sideways to compare all four.

The problem none of them can solve for you

All four share the same weakness. They are optional. The guardrail that protected students in the Bastani study was built into the tool itself. Here it is a switch, and the moment you are most tempted to flip it is the night before a deadline.

The second weakness is friction. Each study mode lives in a chat window. To get help you have to describe the problem, screenshot it or upload the file, then explain which part confuses you. That is a lot of steps at the exact moment you are stuck. It is one reason so many students skip the study mode and paste the question into a normal chat instead.

How to test a study mode in ten minutes

Before you commit to one, run this test with a problem from your own course.

1. Pick a problem you recently got wrong.
2. Ask for help without saying what you tried. A good tutor should ask you first.
3. Give a wrong step on purpose. A good tutor should catch it and let you fix it before moving on.
4. Ask for the answer outright and notice what it does.
5. The next day, solve a similar problem with no help at all. That is the only score that matters.

Which one should you use?

If your exam is based on a specific set of slides and readings, start with NotebookLM. It keeps every answer tied to what your professor actually taught.

If you cannot picture the idea, try Gemini Guided Learning. A diagram or a short video often does what three paragraphs cannot.

If you are grinding through a problem set, ChatGPT Study Mode and Claude’s Learning style are both strong. Choose Claude if you want to be pushed harder. Choose ChatGPT if you want more structure and more quizzes.

Plenty of students use two: NotebookLM for revision and one of the chat modes for problems. Whatever you pick, the habits matter more than the tool. We cover those in what the research says about studying with AI.

Where Leren fits

We are building Leren for a different moment. You are at your Mac with the lecture slides or problem set open, and you are stuck. Instead of opening a chat and retyping the problem, you ask out loud. Leren looks at the window you choose to share and talks you through it one step at a time. It runs on macOS.

Frequently asked questions