# Reasoning models struggle to control their chains of thought, and that's good

DevFeed: [Reasoning models struggle to control their chains of thought, and that's good](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/reasoning-models-struggle-to-control-their-chains-of-thought-and-that-s-good-6626.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://openai.com/index/reasoning-models-chain-of-thought-controllability>)

Published: 2026-03-05T10:00:00Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [OpenAI News](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/openai-news.md>)

Topics: [Responsibility & Safety](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/responsibility-safety.md>), [ai observability](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/ai-observability.md>), [AI, ML & Data Engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/ai-ml-data-engineering.md>)

Tags: [agents](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/agents.md>), [ai](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ai.md>), [ai-safety](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ai-safety.md>), [chain-of-thought](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/chain-of-thought.md>), [evaluation](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/evaluation.md>), [models](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/models.md>), [monitoring](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/monitoring.md>), [post-training](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/post-training.md>), [reasoning](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/reasoning.md>), [research](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/research.md>)

## AI overview

OpenAI examines whether reasoning models can deliberately control or obscure their chain-of-thought reasoning under monitoring. It finds that current models struggle to do so, suggesting chain-of-thought monitoring remains a useful AI safety safeguard while continued evaluation is needed.

## Source excerpt

OpenAI introduces CoT-Control and finds reasoning models struggle to control their chains of thought, reinforcing monitorability as an AI safety safeguard.