World History Encyclopedia has launched a new History AI Chat to guide inquiry-based engagement with the Encyclopedia’s corpus of history materials. With the Chat tool, students and teachers can more easily sift through the over 23,000 peer-reviewed and unbiased resources and primary sources in the Encyclopedia’s database, as well as Open University’s CORE Index of 420M academic papers.
Access to the Encyclopedia and the History AI Chat is free.
When asked a question, the History AI Chat returns a brief answer, usually in a list, along with the links to each cited source and additional sources that present a more complete picture about what happened. Answers are brief so that students need to investigate all the sources to get the full answer. They can explore and learn, not simply focus on the shortest path to an answer.
“Inquiry-based learning is a powerful way to learn history but it is being lost in the quick-answer world of AI. We worked very closely with teachers and college-level faculty to make sure that the History AI Chat is a learning tool, not an answer tool. Its purpose is to guide investigation and the study of multiple viewpoints to questions about history,” said Jan van der Crabben, Founder & CEO of World History Encyclopedia.
For example, when given the question “What caused the War of 1812?” the History AI Chat replies with a paragraph and an abbreviated list of causes along with several other resources where more information can be found.
The chatbot does not pull in information from the open web, nor does it write answers like generative AI. It can present the student with sources from WHE and from Open University’s CORE global network of academic articles, data, and content.
Anne Krive, a school librarian at the Moses Brown Schools in Providence, RI, said, “In contrast to 10 years ago, there is a firehose of information available to students and not all of it is accurate. If discovered through a search or AI study tool, it may not have been curated or evaluated for truth, accuracy, or quality. On the other hand, World History Encyclopedia is accessible, credible, and free to use. I’m thrilled that now there is an AI chat to make it easier to sift through World History Encyclopedia’s incredible library.”
“People are consuming information differently now, relying on AI search to answer questions and find content,” added van der Crabben. “World History Encyclopedia’s History AI Chat can only access the curated corpus of data from two globally respected and unbiased sources: World History Encyclopedia and Open University’s CORE Index. Using World History Encyclopedia, teachers can be confident that their students will have access only to an unbiased global repository of scholarly material.”
WHE is entirely free to search, read, and consume, which is why there are thousands of teachers in every country who use it. The chatbot is powered by Perplexity Sonar.
Educator Feedback
Dustin M., History Teacher in Alabama, USA
For teachers and students across the globe, AI has ushered in a host of challenges and opportunities. Learning how to ethically navigate the world of AI with curiosity, clarity, and consistent integrity is vital for the immediate and long-term success of learners. All the while, teachers are tasked with building trust through equipping students with reliable, precise, and engaging resources.
As we aim to forge critical thinkers who make careful observations, ask insightful questions, glean diverse perspectives, and cite trustworthy evidence, World History Encyclopedia’s new History AI Chat offers an indispensable tool for the teacher’s toolkit, for a number of reasons.
- It is historically reliable. Each article, definition, map, and infographic passes through a sieve of rigorous editing to ensure accuracy.
- It is transparent. It clearly and succinctly cites vetted, in-depth, and trustworthy resources.
- It fuels an inquiry-driven, curiosity-building classroom climate in which students can explore the wonders of world history within a safe, history-specific site.
- It offers the ability to scaffold content for depth and readability, making it accessible to a wide range of grade levels.
- It can package content into charts and produce lesson plans beneficial to both students and teachers, saving and maximizing valuable classroom time.
- It is cost-effective. The tool is absolutely free for teachers and students across the world.
Student Comments
Our school is a Pre-K through grade 12 Title I school in a small rural community in Carbon Hill, AL. For context, I chose four student responses spanning four grade levels and asked them to make observations between ChatGPT and the WHE Chat tool.
For the fifth grader, I guided her a bit more and asked the chat to convert the information to her grade level (which it did). The grade 7 and 8 students wrote anonymously on an exit ticket. The tenth grader is a family friend.
- Grade 5 Student: “I have so many questions about everything we study. If we can’t ask them all in class, I can go home and look them up [using the WHE chat].”
- Grade 7 Student: “WHE cited sources after answering every question. It also had links to pretty much anything I wanted to study more about.”
- Grade 8 Student: “The WHE chat is easy to use and makes it feel like I am talking to my history teacher.”
- Grade 10 Student: “We are comparing the American and French Revolutions in class. [The WHE chat] broke the information down into a way that I could understand and explain it to others [through a chart].”
Kyle L., Social Studies Teacher in Maine, USA
As a teacher, I have a lot of reservations surrounding student use of AI. Most teachers have stories of students using it to pass in work that has misinformation they found from Google AI or other sites. World History Encyclopedia’s History AI Chat is different.
It uses its own reliable articles and other academic papers as its sources, and provides links to each one, so I don’t have to worry about the information being incorrect. My students sometimes have very specific questions that I don’t have an answer for, and they love that I allow them to type their question into the History AI Chat to get a real answer in a concise manner.
David P., History Teacher in Ontario, Canada
I was a bit weary at first due to my general distrust of AI, but the History AI Chat actually seems pretty cool! This tool rewards thoughtful inquiry, unlike Chat GPT which encourages laziness. The AI Chat provides partial information to help with student inquiry and provides links to additional reading, encouraging students to further develop their research skills.
About World History Encyclopedia
World History Encyclopedia—which is free for everyone, everywhere—is the world’s largest and most popular history encyclopedia. All of the Encyclopedia’s content is authored by historians, archaeologists, educators, and scholars. It is a trusted resource in classrooms and universities, and recommended by esteemed institutions such as Oxford University, California State University, and Common Sense Education. There were over 89 million page views of World History Encyclopedia in 2024. Learn more at worldhistory.org or follow on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
TEACH is the largest national education publication in Canada. We support good teachers and teaching and believe in innovation in education.
