OpenAI on Tuesday launched Prism, a new scientific workspace available for free to anyone with a ChatGPT account. Prism is designed as an AI-enhanced word processor and research environment for scientific papers, with deep integration into GPT-5.2. Researchers can use the model to evaluate claims, refine prose, and search for relevant prior work.

 

Prism is not intended to conduct research autonomously or replace human scientists. Instead, OpenAI executives say it is meant to accelerate human-led research, likening it to developer tools such as Cursor and Windsurf that augment — rather than automate — complex work.

 

“I think 2026 will be for AI and science what 2025 was for AI and software engineering,” said Kevin Weil, OpenAI’s VP of Science, during a press call announcing the product.

 

The web-based software arrives as OpenAI reports a surge in scientific use of its consumer products. According to the company, ChatGPT now receives an average of 8.4 million weekly messages related to advanced topics in the hard sciences, though it remains unclear how many originate from professional researchers.

 

AI-assisted research is already gaining traction in academia. In mathematics, models have been used to help resolve several long-standing Erdős problems by combining literature review with novel applications of existing techniques. While the importance of some of these proofs remains debated, they have been cited as early successes for AI-driven reasoning and formal verification.

 

More recently, a statistics paper published in December used GPT-5.2 Pro to derive new proofs related to a foundational axiom of statistical theory, with human researchers primarily guiding prompts and verifying results. OpenAI highlighted the work in a blog post as an example of productive human–AI collaboration.

 

“In domains with axiomatic theoretical foundations,” the post stated, “frontier models can help explore proofs, test hypotheses, and identify connections that might otherwise take substantial human effort to uncover.”

 

Much of Prism’s value lies in its integration with existing scientific workflows. The tool supports LaTeX, the open-source typesetting system widely used for academic papers, while extending beyond typical LaTeX editors. Prism also leverages GPT-5.2’s visual capabilities, allowing researchers to turn rough whiteboard sketches into structured diagrams — a common pain point in scientific publishing.

 

One of Prism’s most significant features is its approach to context management. When users open a ChatGPT session within Prism, the model has access to the full research project, enabling more relevant and informed responses.

 

While experienced users could replicate some of this functionality using GPT-5.2 alone, OpenAI believes Prism’s streamlined interface will make advanced AI assistance more accessible to researchers. Weil compared the approach to the forces that drove rapid adoption of AI in software development.

 

“Software engineering accelerated in part because of amazing models,” he said, “and in part because of deep workflow integration.”