An AI homework helper that helps you understand, not copy

In a study of nearly 1,000 high school maths students in Turkey, researchers gave some students a standard GPT-4 chat assistant for practice and others a version designed as a tutor, which gave hints and guided students instead of supplying answers (Bastani et al., 2025).

• With the AI available, both groups did better on practice problems than students with only textbooks and notes.
• On the exam afterwards, without the AI, students who'd had the standard chat assistant scored about 17% lower than students who never had it. The researchers concluded many had used it as a crutch.
• Students who'd had the tutor version did about as well as the students without AI: the guardrails avoided the harm.

The lesson is simple: an AI homework helper is only useful if it makes you do the thinking. That's the design TutorAura follows.

1. Tell it the question. Type it, paste it, or write it on the whiteboard (handy for maths and science working).
2. It checks what you understand. It starts with what the question is asking and what you already know, instead of jumping to the method.
3. One step at a time. It explains the next step briefly, then asks you to do it, with a short Your turn question.
4. Feedback on your step. If your step is right, you move on. If not, it points to exactly what went wrong and explains it another way.
5. Try a similar one. Ask for a similar question to check you can now do it alone.

If you're completely stuck, ask for a hint. If you need to see the whole method, ask for the full solution: you'll get it, clearly labelled, with the key idea summarised.

See the subject pages for more: maths, chemistry, physics, biology, English, essay writing and coding.

• It won't write graded work for you. For essays and written answers it helps you plan, gives feedback on your draft and suggests improvements, but doesn't produce text for you to hand in.
• It won't pretend to read something it can't. If your handwriting or a photo of your working is unclear, it says which part it can't read and asks you to type it.
• It isn't always right. AI can make mistakes, especially in long calculations. It shows its reasoning so you can follow it, and you can ask it to check again. For anything that counts, compare with your textbook or teacher.

If your school has rules about using AI for homework, follow them. Using TutorAura to understand a topic and check your own working is the kind of use most teachers encourage, but your teacher decides.

Homework help is more useful when the helper knows you. TutorAura keeps short notes on your goals and the topics you find tricky (you can see and delete them in Settings), so next time it can say "this is like the fractions question from Tuesday" and start where you left off. It also offers a short daily lesson that revisits what you struggled with.

If you're tired of evening homework battles, an AI tutor can take some of the pressure off, as long as it teaches rather than answers. You can sit in on a session to see how it works, and younger students (grade 7 and below) set up their account with a parent or guardian. Our guide on helping your child with maths at home covers the parent side, and AI tutor for kids explains how it works for younger children.

Free for 3 days, no card needed. Then $15 a month for every subject: less than an hour with most private tutors. See pricing.