alai vs Khanmigo

What each one is

Khanmigo is Khan Academy's AI tutor and teaching assistant. It sits inside Khan Academy, next to the videos and practice exercises, and you talk with it in a chat. alai is a notes app for iPad and the web with Ally, an adaptive AI tutor that follows your work on a problem, asks about the first step that goes wrong and learns which kind of help works for you.

Both are built to help you find the answer yourself. The main difference is where you work: Khanmigo is a conversation beside Khan Academy's lessons, and alai is a page you write on.

At a glance

Khanmigo's prices and age rules are from its page for learners and Khan Academy's guide to signing up.

How Khanmigo works

Khanmigo is built into Khan Academy. Khan Academy says you can get tutoring on every exercise, video and article there, and that Khanmigo helps from elementary school through college, in math, science, coding, history and the humanities. It's turned off on quizzes, unit tests, course challenges and mastery challenges, which are meant to test what you know on your own.

You type to it, with a "Math keys" keypad or LaTeX for equations, or you speak and have it read its replies aloud. In the Tutor Me activity on the web you can attach a photo, and Khan Academy suggests a photo of your handwritten work as a good way to check your steps. As of October 2026 the Khan Academy app doesn't take images, so you'd use a browser for that. Besides tutoring, Khanmigo coaches writing and debate, gives feedback on code in JavaScript, HTML, Python and SQL, and helps with college and career planning.

On a parent plan, a parent can turn on Khanmigo for up to 10 children under 18 and see their chat history.

What Khanmigo does well

• It knows where you are. On a Khan Academy exercise, Khanmigo can tutor you on that exact problem.
• It sits on a large free library. Khan Academy's lessons and practice are free; Khanmigo is the paid part for learners.
• It guides with questions. Khan Academy built it to help you find the answer yourself, and describes it as having limitless patience.
• It's inexpensive, at $4 a month, and it's free for teachers, who get tools for lesson plans, rubrics and exit tickets.
• It covers more than math, including writing and coding.
• It's set up for families and schools, with parent controls and district plans.

Where alai is different

Khanmigo works with what you bring to the chat: what you type, what you say, or a photo. alai works on the page where you write. Ally reads your steps each time you pause writing, so there's nothing to retype or photograph.

When a step goes wrong, Ally finds the first wrong line, points at it and asks a short question. Under 3(x + 4) = 2x + 19, if you write 3x + 4 = 2x + 19, Ally highlights the +4 and asks something like "Did the 3 reach every term inside the brackets?" The question is designed to point you at the slip without writing the fix for you. When you ask Ally for a hint, it's designed to stop one step short of the next move.

You can also bring the worksheet from your own class as a photo or a PDF, and the page becomes the place you write. Khanmigo's Tutor Me can look at a photo of a problem too; in alai, the worksheet is where you do the work.

Like Khanmigo, alai lets you talk: you can hold to talk and ask Ally why a step works. Ally also remembers what tripped you up in earlier sessions and what helped, and can bring that up when the same slip comes back.

alai is new. It opened to the public in November 2026. alai is for students 13 and older in the US, and younger children through a parent.

Which to pick

• You're working through a Khan Academy course: Khanmigo, since it can tutor you on the exercise in front of you.
• You're a teacher: Khanmigo for Teachers is free and helps with lesson plans, rubrics and exit tickets.
• You're a parent of children under 18: both work. Khanmigo covers up to 10 children on one plan; on alai, you set up a child under 13 yourself, and a teen makes their own account with your permission.
• You're in college and doing problem sets from your own class by hand: alai.
• You want help with writing or code: Khanmigo covers both.
• You live outside the US: Khanmigo's learner and parent plans need a US billing address, though its teacher tools are offered in many other countries.

Using both

Khan Academy's videos are a good way to learn a method, and alai is a place to practice it by hand. You could watch a lesson on Khan Academy, then work through your class worksheet in alai, where Ally follows each step and asks about the first one that goes wrong.