It’s nearly unattainable at this time to find out when a scholar’s writing has been composed utilizing ChatGPT or one other generative AI device, and it may be a nightmare to disprove incorrect accusations. An AI edtech startup known as Brisk has constructed a device that might no less than assist academics determine among the telltale indicators, and it’s now saying $15 million in new funding on the again of first rate traction.
Alongside a writing inspector, Brisk’s platform provides round 40 instruments for academics and college students to make use of by the use of a Chrome extension. The platform makes use of generative AI, pc imaginative and prescient, and different AI options that Brisk says might help not solely velocity up work, but in addition do the work higher. These embrace writing lesson plans, exams, and shows; adjusting work for various talents; grading work; and extra.
“The present edtech stack as we all know it, which is round 140 totally different instruments that the common trainer within the U.S. makes use of in a given college yr, shouldn’t be prepared for AI,” Brisk’s CEO and founder, Arman Jaffer, stated in an interview. “We’re attempting to construct the AI-native edtech stack.”
The funding shall be utilized in half to construct extra instruments, and partially to broaden to extra platforms. A Microsoft integration, aimed on the many colleges which can be Microsoft outlets, is deliberate for autumn 2025.
Enterprise has up to now been brisk for San Francisco-based Brisk. Because it raised a seed spherical of $5 million in September 2024, its person base has grown fivefold, and Jaffer stated the corporate had “40x’d” its income in 2024 (it’s price noting that the corporate was ranging from zero). Brisk says greater than 2,000 faculties in 100 international locations use its merchandise at this time, and greater than 90% of its enterprise comes from inbound curiosity. One in 5 Okay-12 academics within the U.S. have put in the Brisk extension as of February 2025, Jaffer added.
Bessemer Enterprise Companions is main the Sequence A spherical, with earlier backers Owl Ventures, South Park Commons, and Springbank Collective additionally collaborating (the $15 million is being disclosed for the primary time at this time, with $6.9 million within the Sequence A).
Brisk’s funding and progress come at a time when expertise and schooling have gotten more and more intertwined.
Educators have spent years embracing an rising array of expertise to enhance how they work in addition to to offset different main adjustments of their instruments (such because the decline of textbooks) and different areas, reminiscent of funds cuts. (The current DoE adjustments within the U.S. have but to play out, but it surely has raised considerations that they’ll spell but extra erosion of sources.)
Enter tech, the place adoption is simple, in a way. There are actually a whole lot of startups and far bigger expertise giants rolling out edtech apps. Some outfits cater on to college students and households, just like the immense Khan Academy empire, whereas others direct themselves at faculties and educators such because the suites developed by Google and Microsoft.
And, simply as enterprises have embraced consumerization of their IT departments — on the lookout for apps which have the identical usability as the preferred client apps — so have academics regarded for inroads to attach with college students. Kahoot is a key instance of how schooling has been “gamified,” the idea being that is a method of creating studying extra accessible.
AI is one more step in edtech’s pure evolution. AI firms are constructing studying instruments to that finish, and their primary pitch is very like Brisk’s: AI is coming whether or not you prefer it or not, and it’ll make everybody’s lives higher.
However as with different segments of the world of labor and play, not all AI strikes are acquired with open arms. OpenAI’s academics’ information to ChatGPT — launched in November 2024, arguably nicely after the horse had bolted — was met with criticism over the larger points that it failed to handle round accuracy and knowledge safety.
Jaffer based Brisk after spending time in edtech in a distinct capability. He spent greater than 5 years on the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the place he conceived of and led a crew constructing Notebooks, a Google Docs various aimed toward enhancing collaboration between college students and academics. Finally, Notebooks didn’t take off, not least as a result of, nicely, Google Docs does the job, but in addition as a result of AI actually adjustments the sport for collaboration. That ethos was carried into Jaffer’s subsequent swing of the founder bat.
If utilizing AI rings alarm bells, Brisk desires to muffle that with a measured strategy: help, not substitute.
The corporate’s scholar writing inspector doesn’t conclude “this was written by ChatGPT.” It begins with a video of a scholar’s work course of on-screen, which it then watches in fast-motion, flagging when that scholar has copy/pasted data or is in any other case doing different issues which can be uncharacteristic of how they work. That is then despatched on to the trainer who can assess whether or not it might be a sign of copying from someplace else, or if the work was certainly created by GenAI.
The preferred device within the stack, “Focused Suggestions,” makes use of generative AI to learn scholar essays (on Google Docs) and create feedback which can be tailor-made to age, a grading rubric, or different requirements in the event that they’ve been uploaded or chosen. Earlier than something is shared with college students, academics can evaluation and edit the feedback (within the best-case state of affairs, they’re doing that fairly than simply shifting them together with no oversight).
Whether or not the thought of AI taking over a few of academics’ work, and perhaps even doing it higher, is beloved or feared on the earth of schooling, evidently the development line is simply too clear to be ignored, stated Kent Bennett, the Bessemer companion who led this funding.
“We’re huge believers at this AI second in monitoring sectors like schooling expertise, which have a repute for being tech phobic. This repute typically arises as a result of the high-value workflow in these environments entails human language, and thus wasn’t as addressable with legacy software program — with LLMs all of that may change,” he advised Trendster in an electronic mail alternate.
“[But] one of many largest surprises as we regarded into AI powered ed-tech was that educators weren’t simply tolerating AI, they’re aggressively in search of it out,” he stated, including that it’s “apparent” that academics can’t be lower out of the equation altogether.
Trying ahead, Brisk shall be constructing extra immersive instruments past its extensions. Later this yr, it will likely be switching on a brand new net platform in order that “educators can work cohesively and natively inside the Brisk setting.” It would embrace new sources and actions, Jaffer stated.
Brisk additionally desires to supply extra “multimodal” integrations. These will embrace the flexibility for college kids to submit image-based work, along with textual content, for evaluations; and a “podcast” characteristic to generate audio variations to explain paperwork and extra.
