Khanmigo is the AI tutor and teaching assistant built by Khan Academy, a nonprofit, and it is designed to guide learners with questions instead of handing over answers. Teachers in eligible countries can sign up for free, learners under 18 in the United States need a parent or school access, and Khan Academy's own 2026 data show that only about 15 percent of students who have access to the tool engage with it.
Key takeaways
- Khanmigo for Teachers became free for U.S. educators on May 21, 2024, with Microsoft donating the computing infrastructure.
- For families, Khan Academy lists USD 4 per month or USD 44 per year, and classroom access for students runs only through school or district agreements.
- Khan Academy reported over 108 million interactions since the 2023 launch, but only around 15 percent of students with access engage with the tool.
- The organization's own tests from October 2025 to April 2026 reported small gains in whether students solved the next problem alone; no independent trial of Khanmigo was found.
What Khanmigo is and who can use it
Khan Academy describes Khanmigo as an AI tutor for learners and an assistant for teachers. On its learner page, the organization says the tool "never gives you the answer" and instead prompts students to work through problems. Features listed there include tutoring on Khan Academy exercises, videos, and articles, writing and debate practice with feedback, coding feedback in JavaScript, HTML, Python, and SQL, speech input and output, and access to chat history.
Eligibility has several layers. Adults must be at least 18 and have a U.S. address and billing address to buy a family or learner plan. A parent account can enable access for up to 10 children under 18. Teachers must be at least 18 and live in an eligible country or territory, and Khan Academy points to a separate list for those locations. Teachers cannot switch Khanmigo on for their own students; classroom access exists only through a school or district implementation.
Cost, as listed on October 27, 2026
| Audience | Access | Listed cost |
|---|---|---|
| Teachers | Khanmigo for Teachers, in eligible countries | Free sign-up |
| Families and learners | Parent or guardian creates the account | USD 4 per month or USD 44 per year, sales tax not included |
| Schools and districts | Student access through a district agreement | Quoted separately; no figure was found on the pages checked |
Khanmigo for Teachers became free for U.S. educators on May 21, 2024, when Microsoft and Khan Academy announced a partnership. Microsoft's education blog says the arrangement moved Khanmigo for Teachers onto Azure OpenAI Service and that an editor's note dated August 13, 2024 describes availability in dozens of additional English-language markets. Prices and eligible countries change, so the current Khan Academy pages are the authority.
What usage data show
In an April 2026 post, Khan Academy wrote that over 108 million interactions have taken place since the 2023 launch and that Khanmigo averages 269,000 interactions on weekdays this school year. The same post says "only around 15% of students who have access to Khanmigo engage with it." The organization added that practice, not any single feature including AI, remains the foundation of learning gains.
That finding changes how large totals should be read. A figure of 108 million interactions says how much the tool has been used, not how many students used it or whether they learned more. The 15 percent share points to a gap between access and use, and Khan Academy said a redesigned version that guides students through assignments would reach its district partners in summer 2026.
What the organization's own tests measured
A May 2026 Khan Academy post on its AI tutor tests describes roughly 20 A/B product tests run between October 2025 and April 2026 across more than 15 million tutoring threads. Its main learning measure is "next-item correctness": whether a student answers the next problem on the same skill correctly, in the same session, without Khanmigo's help.
Two changes showed gains on that measure. Giving the tutor a summary of a student's recent problem-solving history raised it by 3.4 percent, and surfacing prerequisite skills with a brief review raised it by 2.7 percent. The post reports 6.1 percent as the combined figure, which adds two separate tests rather than measuring one combined experiment. Several other changes, including examples of different problem types, showed no meaningful effect. The post says no single change produced a dramatic leap, and a full paper is planned for the AIED 2026 conference.
Two limits apply. The developer evaluated its own product, and the results are about incremental design changes to the tutor, not about whether using Khanmigo beats not using it. No independent randomized trial of Khanmigo was located for this article.
Questions to ask before relying on it
- Is access through a teacher account, a family plan, or a district agreement, and who pays?
- Does the district receive usage reports, and what counts as "using" the tool?
- Are results quoted from a randomized trial or from the developer's product tests?
- Who decides what student chat data is kept, and for how long?
This article is general information about a product and does not recommend buying or using it.
FAQ
Is Khanmigo free?
For teachers in eligible countries, sign-up is free. Families and learners pay USD 4 per month or USD 44 per year as listed on the Khanmigo learner page, and district pricing is quoted separately.
Can a teacher give a class access to Khanmigo?
Not directly. Khan Academy states that classroom access is available only through school or district implementations, and a child in an active Khan Academy classroom may not be activated through a family plan.
Does Khanmigo just give the answers?
Khan Academy says it does not. The tool is built to ask guiding questions, and the organization measures whether students then solve the next problem without help. One of its own tests also tracked how often answers were given away before a student responded.
Is there proof that it improves learning?
Khan Academy reports small gains on its own next-item measure for specific design changes. An independent randomized trial of the tool itself was not found, so the evidence is limited.
Related reading
- Where AI helps and where evidence is thin
- How authors have defined education
- AI adoption across countries
- The role of vectors in AI
More in AI Basics.
Last verified: October 2026
Sources
- Khanmigo for learners and families, Khanmigo by Khan Academy, 2026
- Khanmigo overview and eligibility, Khanmigo by Khan Academy, 2026
- Khanmigo for Teachers now free for all U.S. teachers, Khan Academy blog, 2024
- Enhancing the future of education with Khan Academy, Microsoft Education Blog, May 21, 2024
- Learning in the Open: What AI Is (and Isn't) Changing, Khan Academy blog, April 2026
- How Khan Academy Is Building a Better AI Tutor (most recent learnings), Khan Academy blog, May 2026