As competition in the AI education market intensifies, the San Francisco-based AI startup Anthropic has announced that it will fully launch a "learning mode" on its general version Claude.ai and the coding assistant Claude Code, aiming to transform chatbots from "answer providers" into guided teaching partners.
The core of this update is the introduction of the Socratic teaching method—guiding users to think through exploratory questions rather than providing direct answers. This mode was initially tested in a limited scope for Claude for Education in April this year and is now available for all users via a dropdown menu.
In Claude Code, the learning mode is divided into two: "Explanation" mode: detailing coding decisions and trade-offs; "Learning" mode: pausing during tasks and asking users to complete the "#TODO" section themselves, creating a space for collaboration and thinking.
Anthropic states that this design addresses industry pain points—beginner programmers often cannot understand or debug code generated by AI. The company emphasizes that sacrificing short-term productivity leads to long-term skill development and career growth.
The implementation of the learning mode relies on modified system prompts rather than model fine-tuning, making it easier to iterate quickly based on user feedback. Anthropic also plans to explore more complex concepts with visualizations, cross-conversation goal setting and progress tracking, as well as personalized instruction based on individual skill levels.
The global edtech market has reached 340 billion dollars, with tech giants entering the field: OpenAI launched ChatGPT's learning mode in July, Google added guided learning to Gemini in August and promised to invest 1 billion dollars over three years. Back-to-school season has become a key promotional window.
Educational institutions are also exploring the balance between AI and academic integrity. Universities such as Northeastern University and the London School of Economics have partnered with Anthropic to open up Claude, while Google has established partnerships with hundreds of universities.
Anthropic stated that its philosophy is "enhancing rather than replacing human capabilities," and will continue to optimize Claude's teaching interactions, ensuring that AI's role in education is to enhance, not undermine learners' critical thinking and curiosity.