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ChatGPT use is picking up again, just as students head back to school

Students are returning to AI chatbots in swaths after a summer lull.

9/1/25 10:41AM

Pencil case? Check. Textbooks? Check. Large language model with multistep reasoning capabilities? Check.

With the long weekend signaling the final dregs of summer, students across the country are gearing up for the new term. And, in 2025, back to school for many high school and college students means reconnecting with their study buddy: ChatGPT.

Bot lull summer

As reported by Futurism in August, daily usage of OpenAI’s flagship chatbot plummeted in early June, when summer semesters wrapped up, according to data from AI platform OpenRouter. Based on a 2.5 million-strong user base, peak usage coincided with the middle of finals season on May 27, as users generated 97.4 billion tokens (a unit for data processing equivalent to roughly four English characters).

Soon after, average monthly usage more than halved from May to June, when summer vacation began, to 36.7 billion tokens per day, and remained low throughout July. Now, as a new school year looms, ChatGPT usage is picking back up again.

Chat, eat my homework

Per Futurism, other drops in ChatGPT usage throughout the school year coincided with weekends; a Google report on shopping trends also outlined that searches for “AI laptops” more than quadrupled from mid-April to the end of May, during exam season; and a Pew Research survey from January found that the share of teens who said they use ChatGPT for schoolwork doubled to 26% from 2023 to 2025.

Though even the most esteemed institutes for learning advocate for supporting education with AI tools, the impact that overreliance on the tech could have on skill development, intellectual standards, and research integrity — particularly at the college level — is yet to be seen.

Jon Keegan9m

OpenAI’s new GPT-5.3 Instant: Less “cringe” tone, no more “over-caveating” responses

OpenAI has released GPT-5.3 Instant, a conversational model that the company says will have smoother, more-to-the-point conversations.

It seems OpenAI is walking back from its cautious guardrails, allowing a more permissive AI chatbot.

In a video describing the new model, a researcher explained, “People are noticing that our models can sometimes seem like a bit of a nanny.” The company describes this over-cautious behavior as “over-caveating,” and this new model aims to relax a bit and let more things slide.

An example showed a question about calculations for “a really long-distance archery scenario.” The previous version of the model included caveats that the AI could not help with calculations that could be harmful. The new model’s response just went ahead and answered the question, without assuming any bad intent.

The researcher in the video said that these changes did not loosen safety controls, but rather just improved contextual understanding of the user’s query.

The model also features more useful web searches, which attempt to infer the context of why the user is asking the question, and then tailor a more useful response. The company says results won’t just appear to be a list of links, but rather a more direct response with the information the user was looking for.

The company said the new model is available today for all users of ChatGPT.

GPT-5.3 Instant: Smoother, more useful everyday conversations

The researcher in the video said that these changes did not loosen safety controls, but rather just improved contextual understanding of the user’s query.

The company said the new model is available today for all users of ChatGPT.

Jon Keegan

OpenAI’s Altman: Our rushed deal with the Pentagon “looked opportunistic and sloppy”

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shared an internal memo in which he expressed some regrets for the bad optics of the company’s hasty deal with the Pentagon, and outlined new additions that were made to the agreement.

Jerome Powell and Sam Altman Speak At Federal Reserve's Regulatory Capital Framework Conference

Rani Molla

The vast majority of Tesla Robotaxi rides in Austin still have a safety driver

In January, Tesla announced its Robotaxis would begin operating without safety monitors. It doesn’t appear to have scaled up much.

Rani Molla4h

Apple updates Mac chips and amps up AI claims

Apple’s new M5 Pro and M5 Max chips are the latest step in its steady silicon march: faster CPUs, stronger graphics, more memory bandwidth. The 30% CPU performance increase is meaningful but incremental — not the kind of leap that accompanied the original M1 transition from Intel.

What’s more notable is how aggressively Apple is framing this around AI. The company is touting up to 4x higher peak GPU compute for AI workloads and the ability to run larger models locally, leaning hard into the on-device AI narrative as it positions the MacBook Pro as a more capable personal AI development machine.

It may be paying off in unexpected ways, as the explosion of interest in roll-your-own AI agents like Moltbot have made low-cost Macs like the MacMini a hot item.

Apple debuts M5 Pro and M5 Max to supercharge the most demanding pro workflows

It may be paying off in unexpected ways, as the explosion of interest in roll-your-own AI agents like Moltbot have made low-cost Macs like the MacMini a hot item.

Millie Giles4h

Claude is still top of the US free App Store, as users defect from ChatGPT following Pentagon deal

Last Friday, President Trump directed federal agencies to cease using all Anthropic products owing to its very messy, very public dispute with the Department of War (née Defense), which had centered around the potential US military use of its AI. Just a day later, OpenAI announced that it had made an agreement to supply artificial intelligence to the Pentagon.

It didn’t take long for consumers to respond to news of the deal, which OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has now conceded looked “opportunistic and sloppy” in a post on X. Uninstalls of the ChatGPT mobile app jumped 295% on Saturday from the day before, according to figures from Sensor Tower reported by TechCrunch, as fears around the since-amended agreement’s privacy implications grew.

Claude ChatGPT downloads Feb chart — Sherwood News