I tried this Google Gemini feature — it's a cheat code for learning any topic quickly

AI can be a fantastic learning tool. It has been since the early days of ChatGPT, and is only getting better. However, sometimes it can feel somewhat one-sided. It pumps out a huge amount of information and doesn’t actually require you to interact with it.

This is something that Google Gemini’s guided learning tool does really well. It attempts to teach you a subject, skill, or topic, but doesn’t just give you reams of information with no guidance.

Instead, Gemini will give you information and ask questions about it. In other words, it is similar to having a digital teacher, making sure you understand the content that you are interacting with.

This is something that has been criticized in AI in the past, removing the critical thinking abilities of its users. This tool attempts to give some of that back, asking the user to engage with the content themselves.

How does Guided Learning work?

Open the Gemini app or desktop website and click ‘tools’ on the chatbox. In here, you’ll find a guided learning option. When this is activated, you can simply ask Gemini to teach you about anything.

For example, I input the prompt “I want to learn about the way AI models are trained." Gemini asked me where I would like to start, with three options:

• How data is prepared
• The core learning process
• How it is evaluated and refined

In this instance, I chose to learn about the core learning process. Gemini responds by telling me about the first step in the process, known as forward propagation, before asking me what I think we need to do with its prediction to decide if it is right or wrong.

I give an answer and Gemini continues, explaining the next step in the process. This goes back and forth until the entire topic has been addressed. By asking questions throughout, it forces you to fully engage with what is being explained, and you have to understand each step to answer the question.

When you get the question wrong, Gemini will respond, normally telling you, “That’s an interesting idea! Before trying to explain the concept further, making it easier to understand."

If you keep getting it wrong, Gemini will continue to go deeper into the explanation until you’re able to answer the questions correctly and understand the topic.

What happens when it goes wrong?

This feature can be pretty hit and miss. Sometimes, when I got the answer wrong, Gemini would just tell me it was correct anyway. Or, it would misunderstand and assume I was trying to start a new conversation with it.

Once, when I tried to answer its question, it assumed I’d moved the conversation from talking about food science to football.

Equally, if you get the answer wrong too many times, Gemini had a tendency to get lost in its own feedback loop, not really seeming to know how to get back to the original topic.

These sorts of errors didn’t happen often, but they were frequent enough to be annoying, especially as it could be challenging to get Gemini back on track.

Is it worth using?

While this can be a messy feature at times, taking you on a strange detour of topics, for the most part it works great. The majority of times I tried it, Gemini made it all the way through a topic without any issues.

It paces topics in a way that allow you to learn step by step, and by asking questions, it helps you to actively learn.

More from Tom's Guide

• ChatGPT is getting some exciting new features — but only if you pay $200 a month
• Google Gemini Gems just got an upgrade — here are 3 I built and how to try them
• I switched from ChatGPT to Gemini for one week — and here’s why I’m going back to ChatGPT