OpenAI is launching Prism, a new AI workspace for scientists

OpenAI launched on Tuesday a new software for the scientific workplace called Prism which is available for free to anyone with a ChatGPT account. Designed as an AI-powered word processor and a research tool for scientific papers, Prism is closely linked to GPT-5.2, which can be used to test claims, revise claims, or research previous research.

Prism is not designed to conduct research independently and without human supervision. Administrators believe it will speed up the work of human scientists, comparing Prism to coding interfaces like Cursor and Windsurf.

“I think 2026 will be about AI and science what 2025 was about AI and software engineering,” Kevin Weil, Vice President of OpenAI for Science, said in a press call to announce the tool.

The new program, which is available through an online program, comes as OpenAI sees more scientific questions coming to its consumer products such as ChatGPT. The company says ChatGPT receives 8.4 million messages a week on top topics in hard science – although it’s hard to say how many are from researchers.

AI-assisted research is gaining popularity among academic researchers. In mathematics, AI models have been used for verification several problems of Erdos that have been around for a long time through a combination of literature review and new applications of existing methods. Although the validity of the evidence is still highly contested, the result has been an early success for proponents of AI models and legal systems.

Statistical paper published in December used GPT 5.2 Pro to establish new proofs of the central point of statistical theory, where human researchers only support and validate the model’s function. OpenAI praised the results in a blog postpresenting as an example of human-AI cooperation in research progress.

“In fields with an axiomatic theoretical foundation,” the post states, “boundary models can help explore evidence, test hypotheses, and identify connections that would otherwise require human effort to uncover.”

Much of the value of the new OpenAI system comes from the ease of design work on existing standards. Prism integrates with LaTeX, an open source system used to create and edit scientific papers, but it goes beyond most LaTeX software tools. The software also supports the GPT 5.2 format to allow researchers to collect images from white images on the Internet, which can be very painful with existing tools.

Perhaps the most powerful thing comes from combining the usual power of the AI ​​model with a more robust management system. When users open the ChatGPT window through Prism, the model can access all the data that is happening on the survey, making the responses smarter and smarter.

Much of this may be possible for a GPT-5.2 user, but OpenAI hopes that the cleaner interface will attract more scientific researchers. Weil described it as the same combination that made AI tools so powerful in software engineering.

“The software industry has soared because of the incredible variety,” he told reporters, “and in part because of the massive integration.”