According to Ethan Mollick on X, Wharton-affiliated researchers including Hamsa Bastani found that giving high school students unrestricted ChatGPT access improved practice accuracy but led to worse exam performance without AI, while AI prompted to act as a tutor improved learning in controlled settings (as reported by Bastani et al., SSRN working paper and PNAS preprint references). According to Anand Sanwal citing the study, students using basic ChatGPT scored 17% lower on no-AI exams than those practicing without technology, indicating overreliance on answer-giving rather than reasoning. According to the SSRN paper by Bastani et al., a separate randomized controlled trial showed that structured tutor prompts increased learning outcomes, suggesting that guardrailed, step-by-step tutoring mitigates shortcutting. As reported by the authors, business opportunities include AI tutoring systems with scaffolded prompts, process feedback, and exam-transfer alignment for K–12 math, as well as district-level deployments focusing on formative assessment and metacognitive coaching.