Every January I get the same question from new students, just dressed up in slightly newer clothes. A couple of years ago it was “flashcards or past papers?” Last year it was “which app should I buy?” This year, almost without exception, it is some version of: “Olga, can’t I just get AI to teach me the SQE?”
Short answer: no. Slightly longer answer: AI can genuinely make your revision faster — and, honestly, a lot less lonely — but only once you understand what it is actually good at and, far more importantly, where it will quietly walk you off a cliff. So let’s talk about it properly. Pretending AI is not part of SQE preparation in 2026 is a bit like pretending calculators are not part of maths.
What actually changed by 2026
The honest truth is that most candidates I coach now open a chatbot before they open a textbook. They use it to explain a knotty trust three different ways, to spit out twenty single best answer questions on business law over breakfast, and to nag them about their revision schedule. None of that existed in a usable form when the SQE launched in 2021. It is a real shift, and I do not think it is a bad one — as long as you stay in the driving seat. Where it goes wrong is when candidates hand over the steering wheel entirely. And I see that a lot.
Where AI genuinely helps your SQE revision
1. It explains the same idea five different ways
This is the thing I wish I had as a student. If a concept in FLK1 — say, the difference between a fixed and a floating charge — will not stick, you can ask for an analogy, then a worked example, then a one-line summary, until one of them finally clicks. A textbook explains it once. A good tutor explains it three times. AI will happily explain it fifty times, at 2am, without sighing.
2. It turns passive reading into active recall
Reading a summary feels productive. It mostly is not. What actually moves the needle in FLK is active recall — pulling an answer out of your own head — plus spaced repetition, so you revisit a topic just as you are about to forget it. AI is brilliant here: feed it your own notes and ask it to quiz you, mix topics so you cannot coast, and turn up the difficulty as you improve. The one rule is to answer before you look, every single time. The moment you let it hand you the answer, you are back to passive reading with extra steps.
3. It plans the boring bits so you don’t have to
Half the battle with the SQE is simply mapping the mountain: how many hours per subject, spread across how many weeks, around a full-time job. That arithmetic is exactly what most people avoid until it is too late — which is why we built our free SQE Planner. You give it your exam date and the hours you can realistically study, and it lays the whole thing out for you. Think of it as the sensible, un-flashy cousin of all the AI hype.
4. It is a decent first reader for SQE2 drafting
For the written SQE2 skills — legal writing, drafting, attendance notes — AI is a passable first reader. It will catch waffle, flag where your structure wanders, and push you to get to the point sooner. Use it for that. Do not use it to tell you whether your answer would pass, and never let it write the substance for you.
Where AI quietly sabotages you
It makes law up, confidently
The single most dangerous habit I see is trusting AI on black-letter law. Last cycle a student “learned” a limitation period that simply does not exist in English law, because a chatbot stated it with total confidence and even invented a case name to match. In an exam where you are choosing the single best answer, one made-up rule can quietly poison a whole topic before you notice.
It does not know your examinable law cut-off
The SRA tests the law as it stands on a fixed examinable law cut-off date for your sitting — the dates are set out in our guide to SQE exam dates. Most AI tools are trained on a soup of sources from different years and have no idea which version of the law is “live” for your exam. In a fast-moving area, that is a genuine trap.
It cannot sit in the room with an assessor
SQE2 is marked by trained assessors against specific criteria — you can see how that works in our explainer on SQE marking and pass marks. No model can replicate an assessor’s judgement on your client interview or your advocacy. Feedback from someone who has actually marked to those criteria is worth more than a hundred AI “scores”.
It makes you feel productive while you learn nothing
This is the quiet one. Skimming AI summaries lights up the same “I have done some work” feeling as real revision, minus the retrieval that actually builds memory. I have watched strong candidates spend six weeks “revising” this way and score worse than someone who did half the hours with a pen and a blank page. If your study feels easy and comfortable, be suspicious of it.
How we blend AI and human coaching
Our whole approach rests on a simple division of labour: let AI do volume and explanation, and keep humans for judgement, feedback and accountability. In practice that means using AI to drill knowledge across FLK1 and FLK2, while a tutor pressure-tests your understanding, marks your SQE2 work against the real criteria, and — frankly — notices when you have gone quiet and are quietly panicking. AI will not chase you. We will.
The same logic applies to the parts of qualifying that have nothing to do with revision, like logging your Qualifying Work Experience (QWE) correctly. A chatbot can summarise the rules; it cannot tell you whether your specific placement counts. For that you still want a human who has seen a hundred QWE forms.
An honest AI-for-SQE playbook
- Do use AI to explain concepts, quiz you, and build your study plan.
- Never trust it on a rule, a case name or a date without checking a proper source.
- Cross-check anything legal against your provider materials or the SRA.
- Protect real recall — write from memory first, ask the bot second.
- Get a human to mark your SQE2 work. Every time.
Frequently asked questions
Is it “cheating” to use AI to prepare for the SQE?
No. Using AI to study is no different from using a revision app or a tutor. What matters is that the knowledge ends up in your head, because in the exam hall it is just you and the questions.
Can AI predict SQE questions?
Not reliably. It can generate realistic practice in the right style, which is genuinely useful, but anyone promising “predicted questions” is selling you confidence, not law.
Will AI replace SQE tutors?
For explaining content, it already does a chunk of the job. For judgement, honest feedback and keeping you moving when motivation dips — no. The best results I see come from candidates who use both, deliberately.
Ready to build a plan that actually fits your life? Start with our free SQE Planner, or have a look at our SQE1 and SQE2 courses if you would like a human in your corner too.
— Dr Olga Pogrebennyk