When educational technology, often abbreviated as EdTech, was born it was a considerably low-profile compared to today. Students who struggled with their homework could count on numerous sources – and Chegg was right there at the epicenter of that shift. However, this was not the case until the beginning of 2022 when ChatGPT emerged. The tale of how the EdTech behemoth ended up in a shootout with a fledgling AI upstart is the subject of this blog post: Chegg vs ChatGPT.

What is Chegg?

Chegg’s Beginnings and Evolution 

This company started in 2000 as an online student bulletin board resulting from the combination of the words meaning chicken and egg. Chegg originally created itself in 2005 as an exclusively textbook rental company before it later became one of the leading homework help services with a subscription-based model. The platform marked high levels of success as a college study buddy, providing professional assistance together with sample answers to the potential questions posed by textbooks.

Chegg’s Rise During the Pandemic 

It is in the time of the pandemic that Chegg recorded its high point. Having gone back to school during the Covid 19 pandemic, students relied mostly on platforms such as Chegg for assistance in online classes. The number of subscribers increased, and the company’s shares grew three sizes too big. Students developed a sense of shame by Chegging answers which became an essential help for many classes during remote learning.

Credit: Chegg

What is ChatGPT?

The Emergence of AI Chatbots 

AI chatbots indeed became familiar to learners for quite some time now, but to date nothing has enthused the learners as much as OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Equipped with massive databases of internet data, ChatGPT offers answers to the questions in a talking-to fashion and takes the experience of using educational applications to a new level.

Introduction to ChatGPT and Its Capabilities 

ChatGPT is an open language model that creates and consumes text much like a human, and it was released in the late of the year 2022. While Chegg recycles answers directly off the internet, ChatGPT allows for dynamic and unique answers in real time which has everyone’s favorite resource once more in students who want assistance immediately.

Credit: OpenAI

Chegg vs ChatGPT: A Comparative Analysis

Subscription Models and Cost Considerations 

For the case of Chegg, its study assistance attracts a monthly subscription fee of between $15 and $20. On the other hand, the simplest version of ChatGPT is free, which will explain why students will likely choose this tool. Although ChatGPT also offers a paid version, it provides incredibly detailed help without requiring a subscription.

Ease of Use and User Experience 

Chegg’s concept is relatively diverse and has a variety of further services such as tutoring and solving the problems progressively. Still, the given model of AI assistance differs significantly from ChatGPT and offers more versatile and complex usage because it allows natural, continuous, and ever-evolving dialogues with users.

Availability of Answers 

Chegg makes use of canned answers, which though useful lacks the flexibility that ChatGPT has. Unlike Chegg, ChatGPT can answer questions that no student has asked before—something that Chegg struggles with when it doesn’t already have a specific answer in its system.

Accuracy and Depth of Responses 

Both Chegg and ChatGPT come with their limitations. ChatGPT is very strong but sophisticated and can at times create wrong or so-called ‘hallucinated’ responses. While using Chegg one will get vetted responses but the immediacy that is offered by ChatGPT is not present.

The Disruption: How ChatGPT Impacted Chegg’s Business Model

The Student Perspective: Instant Gratification with ChatGPT 

In the case of students, ChatGPT’s strength is on speed and usability. Answering doesn’t require waiting for someone to reply to you; you receive answers within seconds at times. This change in user behavior began to affect Chegg’s subscribers as estimated above.

The Decline of Chegg’s Subscriber Base 

In the period after the release of ChatGPT, Chegg’s subscribers declined by more than half a million. According to a poll, more than 60% of college students said they now use ChatGPT for study purposes, and only around 20-30% claimed they will still use Chegg as before.

Chegg’s Response to ChatGPT’s Threat

Introducing Cheggmate: A Step in the Wrong Direction? 

In response to the great threat that ChatGPT represents, Chegg joined OpenAI to develop “Cheggmate”, which combines Chegg’s library with GPT-4. However, the product did not have much success and Chegg later decided to detach from the Cheggmate product after some time.

Restructuring and Leadership Changes at Chegg 

To try and give the company some stability, CEO Dan Rosensweig retired and more changes to the leadership occurred. The prior Chegg CEO was replaced by Nathan Schultz and during his tenure several rounds of layoffs were carried out, in an attempt to segment themselves from chatbots Chegg aimed to target ‘serious learners’.

Can Chegg Survive the AI Revolution?

New Strategies for Chegg’s Future 

Therefore, Chegg is looking at territories outside America and is in the process of creating new AI tools. Their focus now include on more two-way communication services and advises for the serious learners – an attempt to move beyond what AI chatbots can do.

Students’ Changing Expectations from Educational Tools 

Today’s learners are fickle, impatient and more demanding as they expect one on one help right away. Therefore, responding to these rapidly changing expectations, Chegg has adjusted the values of quality, customization, and unique selling proposition which only human skills can offer in the fields where ChatGPT succeeds.

What Makes ChatGPT So Popular Among Students?

Free, Instant, and Accessible Solutions 

The students appreciate this tool because it is fast, it is easy to use, and using it does not require a lot of money. The setup of the tutoring is simple, and learners only require internet access to get the one-on-one help they need, without being concerned with any subscription cost.

The Allure of Personalized Study Assistance 

That’s a plus for ChatGPT because learners are searching for more than just textbook responses with recurrent patterns. This aspect, particularly, helped me feel like I am in contact with my tutor rather than just in an immediate chat Q&A.

The Future of Education with AI

AI’s Potential in Shaping Learning Experiences 

Artificial Intelligence stands to bring about great change in the way that learning is conducted. More so, with the integration of AI in chatbots, students get a flexible approach to learning which time and again gives them a chance to get help on what they are learning.

Implications for Traditional EdTech Platforms 

New_accumulation EdTech like Chegg may need to adapt to survive in the current environment. AI has now become a reality and traditional models need to incorporate value addition which the generative AI tools can offer.

Conclusion: Can Chegg Adapt and Thrive in a Changing Landscape? 

Often, Chegg’s fight against ChatGPT reminds me about the general transition in education. A few will be next-generational giving distinct, superior, and uncopyable experiences which traditional AI platforms will fail to deliver. Chegg is not yet done forit has a future, but it is now the time to focus on innovation, quality and the services which create more values for students.