A scholarly experiment and classroom pilots show chatbots designed to scaffold debate can improve the quality of student disagreement and discussion, offering a new tool for pedagogy. Some professors report better-structured, more reflective seminar exchanges when students use moderated AI dialogue partners. But a Brookings Institution report and other researchers caution about widespread, unscaffolded AI use, warning it can undermine independent thinking, homework integrity and teacher‑student trust. Brookings calls for narrow, pedagogically guided deployments; researchers advise clear policies, vetted content and teacher training to capture benefits while limiting risks.