In September, OpenAI unveiled a new version of ChatGPT designed to reason through tasks involving math, science and computer programming. Unlike previous versions of the chatbot, this new technology could spend time “thinking” through complex problems before settling on an answer.

Soon, the company said its new reasoning technology had outperformed the industry’s leading systems on a series of tests that track the progress of artificial intelligence.

Now other companies, like Google, Anthropic and China’s DeepSeek, offer similar technologies.

But can A.I. actually reason like a human? What does it mean for a computer to think? Are these systems really approaching true intelligence?

Here is a guide.

What does it mean when an A.I. system reasons?

Reasoning just means that the chatbot spends some additional time working on a problem.

“Reasoning is when the system does extra work after the question is asked,” said Dan Klein, a professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, and chief technology officer of Scaled Cognition, an A.I. start-up.

It may break a problem into individual steps or try to solve it through trial and error.

The original ChatGPT answered questions immediately. The new reasoning systems can work through a problem for several seconds — or even minutes — before answering.