Delhi-based Extramarks Education has launched an Artificial Intelligence-based chatbot named Alex that will help students get their doubts cleared round the clock.
Alex, which is based on the Item Response Theory system, has been receiving approximately 80,000 doubts daily, of which it has managed to solve more than 70,000.
Extramarks has had a dominating presence in the digital online curriculum in schools across India for about 10 years, along with app-based digital education solutions in the Kg to 12th standard education segment and test preparation modules for IIT-JEE and medical entrance exams.
Atul Kulshrestha, Founder of Extramarks Education said that the chatbot has been fed with data collected by Extramarks over a span of 10 years. “Most of the queries that Alex has not been able to solve are due to the language barrier. But we plan to introduce Alex to other vernacular languages and reach out to tier II and III cities,” said Kulshrestha. The company also has teachers available at their centres round the clock to address the doubts that Alex in unable to solve.
Extramarks has opened 60 new centres around the country and invested Rs 200 crore in its B to C segment in the last 18 months.
Ritvik Kulshrestha, Global CEO, Extramarks Education, said that the point of distinction between Extramarks and some of the other ed-tech companies will be that the educational videos made by Extramarks utilise rich media and animation along with storytelling to simplify complex subjects. “What we plan to do with the instructional videos is not to replace one-on-one education but to provide instructional content weaved in a story format in order to make it engaging and interesting,” said Ritvik Kulshrestha.
Alex is supplemented by real-time concept explanation, and problem solving coaching by Extramarks Achieve, another of the company’s products. For now, the chatbot service is available to the K-12 segment. Going forward, it will be extended to IIT-JEE and Medical aspirants too.
(The writer is an intern with The Hindu BusinessLine)