[Sohcahtoa82]

Yeah, "reasoning" just tells the AI to take an extra planning step.

In my experience, before "reasoning" became an option, if you ask it a question that takes a decent amount of thinking to solve, but also tell the model "Just give me the answer", you're FAR more likely to get an incorrect answer.

So "reasoning" just tells the model to first come up with a plan to solve a problem before actually solving it. It generates its own context for coming up with a more complete solution.

"Planning" would be a more accurate term for what LLMs are doing.