OpenAI unveiled a new scientific workspace application named Prism on Tuesday, available for free to anyone with a ChatGPT account. Designed as an AI-enhanced word processor and research tool for scientific papers, Prism is deeply integrated with GPT-5.2. It can be used to evaluate arguments, revise manuscripts, or search through prior research.
Prism is not intended for independent research and still requires human guidance. Executives believe it will accelerate the work of human scientists, comparing Prism to coding interfaces like Cursor and Windsurf.
"I think 2026 for AI and science will be what 2025 was for AI and software engineering," stated Kevin Weill, OpenAI's Vice President of Science, during a phone call announcing the tool.
The launch of this new web-accessible software comes as OpenAI observes a high volume of scientific queries directed at its consumer products like ChatGPT. The company reports that ChatGPT receives an average of 8.4 million messages per week on advanced topics in hard sciences—though it's difficult to ascertain how many originate from professional researchers.
AI-assisted research is also becoming increasingly common in academia. In mathematics, AI models have been employed to prove several long-standing Erdős problems by combining literature reviews with novel applications of existing techniques. While the significance of these proofs remains hotly debated, the results represent early victories for proponents of AI models and formal verification systems.
A statistics paper published in December utilized GPT-5.2 Pro to establish a new proof for a core axiom in statistical theory, with human researchers responsible only for prompting and verifying the model's work. OpenAI praised this outcome in a blog post, viewing it as a template for future collaborative research between humans and AI.
"In fields with an axiomatic theoretical foundation," the post noted, "frontier models can aid in exploring proofs, testing hypotheses, and identifying connections that might require substantial human effort to discover."
Much of the value of OpenAI's new system stems from straightforward product work on existing standards. Prism integrates with LaTeX, an open-source system for formatting and typesetting scientific papers, but it extends far beyond most existing LaTeX software tools. The program also leverages GPT-5.2's visual capabilities, allowing researchers to assemble diagrams from online whiteboard sketches—a significant pain point in current tools.
Perhaps the most powerful feature comes from combining the AI model's general capabilities with more rigorous context management. When users open a ChatGPT window through Prism, the model gains access to the full context of the research project, enabling more relevant and intelligent responses.
While many of these functionalities are possible for power users of GPT-5.2, OpenAI hopes its more streamlined interface will attract scientific researchers more rapidly. Weill described it as the same combination of factors that made AI tools so powerful in software engineering.
"The acceleration in software engineering was partly due to excellent models," he told reporters, "and partly due to deep workflow integration."
