Country: New Zealand
Phase: Launched
Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology has used Cogniti to build a wide range of AI agents, for different programmes. As part of this, Toi Ohomai have inputted law and case studies from Aotearoa to make content relevant for students. These agents have included but may not be limited to:
Relevance for us:
- Despite the primary purpose of these AI agents being delivery, they demonstrate elements required for formal assessment (e.g., review of learner responses and provision of feedback).
- Toi Ohomai is one of few organisations who have well documented how they conducted evaluations of their agents, both in paper and video.
Key person(s): Josh Burrell, Jonathan Adams and Rochelle Flight
Country: New Zealand
Phase: Launched
Auckland University of Technology has also adopted Cogniti’s technology to create an agent which aids their postgraduate Nursing and Science students in writing research proposals for their Masters programme. This agent does so by bringing together a large set of example abstracts and provides students with feedback and possible edits.
Relevance for us:
- While this is not called an assessment tool, it technically is performing at least one of the functions our AI agent for learner oral assessment aims to do – it reviews someone’s work, compares it to other content, and provides feedback.
Key person(s): Kiri Hunter and Lucy Macnaught
Country: New Zealand
Phase: Launched
kahu.code specialises in creating bilingual text and voice models as well as large-scale translations, with a focus on reo hangarau (tech terminology). Their mission is to “facilitate seamless kōrero (communication) between technology and humans, enabling effective interactions and understanding, supporting the revitalisation of indigenous languages.” Their products include:
They are also in the early stages of developing a transcription tool (not yet named).
Relevance to us:
- Our agent speaks only in English and moreover, uses a speech-to-speech model, while these te reo AI products appear to be built using speech-to-text, text-to-speech and text-to-text models.
- Nevertheless, future AI agents in education could explore the option of agents that either use different voices (e.g., different accents, genders, ages), or can speak in te reo Māori or other languages to support all learners effectively.
Key person(s): Michael Puhara and Xaviere Murray-Puhara
Poipoia te kākano, kia puawai.
Country: New Zealand
Phase: Mature
Te Reo Irirangi o Te Hiku o Te Ika (Te Hiku Media), has created a suite of ‘te reo Māori’ natural language processing (NLP) tools that can enable the creation of new digital products and services that leverage te reo Māori speech recognition, including a speech-to-text system (audio transcription), text-to-speech system (TTS), and other pronunciation focussed language tools. For example, see the following products:
- Kaituhi (transcribes spoken Te Reo Māori and New Zealand English into audio and video files)
- Reo (synthesizes Te Reo Māori words, large bodies of text and utterances)
- Reo Ora (provides pronunciation feedback)
- Rongo (supplies users with specialised API keys to ensure kaitiakitanga of Indigenous data).
Relevance to us:
- Our agent speaks only in English and moreover, uses a speech-to-speech model, while these te reo AI products appear to be built using speech-to-text, text-to-speech and text-to-text models.
- Nevertheless, future AI agents in education could explore the option of agents that either use different voices (e.g., different accents, genders, ages), or can speak in te reo Māori or other languages in order to support all learners effectively.
Key person(s): Peter-Lucas Jones
Country: Australia
Phase: Launched
Coach M is a text-based AI agent that workplaces can purchase to help employees learn critical skills and improve their on-the-job performance. Over eight weeks, employees engage in three 30-minute instant messaging chats with Coach M. This is possible due to it being based on a database of over 20,000 real-life coaching conversations. These sessions enable employees to reflect on goals and keep themselves accountable. Coach M then tracks their progress and provides insights on how employees are performing.
Relevance to us:
- Given that we are interested in piloting our AI chatbot for learner oral assessment, it is useful seeing how Coach M is incorporated into the workplace – with three 30-minute chats over 8 weeks. This may help us understand the best way to make the use of an AI chatbot in the workplace practical.
Key person(s): Unknown
Country: Australia
Phase: Launched
Deakin Genie is an AI agent developed in 2017 to help students throughout their academic journey, including answering questions about courses, keeping on top of their assignments and planning what to study. It employs advanced natural language processing and machine learning techniques to engage in more natural, context-aware conversations with students. This allows Deakin Genie to understand and respond to complex queries, maintain context throughout interactions, and provide personalised assistance based on individual student needs.
Four years later, Deakin University piloted a new AI automated feedback tool created by FeedbackFruits with students from the Faculty of Sciences and Built Environments. These students were able to upload draft assignments to the tool and get personalised feedback on how well their grammar, structure and referencing aligned with the assessment criteria. For example, if they used the correct tense or abbreviated scientific names accurately. By 2022, the tool had been adopted by 15 courses across multiple faculties and was available to 3800 students.
Relevance for us:
- While Deakin Genie is quite different to the AI agent for learner oral assessment we plan to make, it is impressive in that it was created in 2017. This demonstrates the number of years educators have been exploring AI to improve the student experience.
- The AI automated feedback tool highlights how these tools can be adapted and applied to a wide range of disciplines.
Key person(s): Unknown
Wesmigo, Wesley College
Country: Australia
Phase: Launched
Launched in 2022, Wesmigo is a custom-built generative AI chatbot powered by ChatGPT for international baccalaureate (IB) students at Wesley College. The College wanted to create a safe environment for their students to use AI as a coach for brainstorming and help with assignments, monitored from their existing learning management system. By developing this custom agent, they were able to tailor the responses to be age appropriate, safe for children, have knowledge of the school and the IB curriculum. They also created a companion guide to sit alongside the chatbot, to support students to critically evaluate the chatbot's outputs and understand the limitations of generative AI.
Relevance for us:
- As part of our project, we are also creating various resources to help users think critically about what outputs AI produces and the limitations of this technology through our own ethical considerations table and documenting our lessons learnt which will be published in a playbook at the end of the project.
Key person(s): Unknown
EdChat, South Australian Department Education
Country: Australia
Phase: Launched
EdChat is a generative AI chatbot launched by the South Australian Department of Education built on Microsoft’s Azure platform that provides learners with study support. Since its pilot in 2023 with 1,500 students and 150 teachers across 8 schools, it has been rolled out in more schools across Australia. During this pilot, the parameters of the chatbot (including what content was given and what was blocked) were determined by the Department and each school’s principal could decide on how and to what extent learners were exposed to the chatbot.
Relevance for us:
- EdChat is similar to Wesmigo above in that it is a tailor-made AI chatbot for use in the classroom with restrictions on how the chatbot interacts with students, highlighting the possible value in these types of chatbot.
Key person(s): Unknown
Catholic CoPilot Chatbot, Brisbane Catholic Education
Country: Australia
Phase: Launched
The Catholic CoPilot Chatbot was developed by Brisbane Catholic Education, a community of more than 140 schools in the Archdiocese of Brisbane, using Microsoft’s 365 Copilot Platform. It is set up to answer student’s common questions, provide them with learning support through a religious lens and help educators with administrative tasks such as lesson planning. In 2024, the chatbot was piloted in select primary and secondary schools, with plans for broader implementation across the region. Teachers from St Francis College Crestmead, one of the schools involved in the pilot, reported saving approximately 9 hours on administrative tasks per week using this chatbot.
Relevance for us:
- This Catholic CoPilot Chatbot highlights how existing AI platforms such as Microsoft’s Co-pilot can be tailored to organisation's needs whether that is restricting specific content (as done with Wesmigo or EdChat) or layering another lens (such as a religious perspective).
- Their pilot also illustrates the time savings that AI products can provide for educators.
Key person(s): Unknown
Virtual Peer, Macquarie University
Country: Australia
Phase: In development
Virtual Peer is an AI chatbot developed by Macquarie University and built on Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI platform. It was designed to assist students by providing answers to common academic questions based on verified training data the University provided. The chatbot uses text-based conversational AI to help first-year students navigate their courses and assignments. Currently, it is in the development phase, with a large pilot study occurring in October 2024, with 1,400 students. In this initial two-week pilot phase, over 20,800 messages were exchanged, with 80% of these interactions occurring outside of university operating hours. Further spikes in user engagement were seen in the lead-up to exams.
Relevance for us:
- Virtual Peer highlights the flexibility that conversational AI products can provide for students – giving them the ability to have questions promptly answered outside of traditional university operating hours.
Key person(s): Unknown.
NSWEduChat, New South Wales Department of Education
Country: Australia
Phase: Launched
In 2024, the department-owned NSWEduChat was piloted across 50 state schools across New South Wales. This custom-built chatbot was designed to act as a virtual tutor and replicate how teachers work by prompting students to work through where they are getting stuck on an assessment question. For example, when used for math homework, it does not give students the answer outright, but prompts them by providing the next step. For example, “To convert an improper fraction, you need to multiply the whole number by the denominator and then add the numerator. Can you do that?”. This contrasts generic AI models such as ChatGPT which would answer outright.
Relevance for us:
- NSWEduChat shows us the government interest in rolling out education-specific AI products with built-in safeguards.
Key person(s): Unknown
Country: Australia and New Zealand
Phase: Launched
Originating out of Aotearoa, KuraPlan is an AI lesson planning tool designed for primary and secondary school teachers (years 1-13). Launched in early 2024, KuraPlan is aligned with the country’s curriculum, and includes subjects from business to Te Reo Māori. Teachers can browse a library of lesson plans created by peers, or generate new plans using the tool. KuraPlan also supports lesson plans in Australia, the United States, Ireland, the United Kingdom and South Africa.
Relevance for us:
- Unlike Scarlatti’s assessment agent, KuraPlan is targeted at teachers (rather than learners), on lesson delivery rather than assessment, and is for primary and secondary education rather than vocational education.
- Nevertheless, it demonstrates how AI can be used to reduce teacher workload while still aligning with local educational requirements.
Key person(s): Emory Fierlinger
Will, Soul Machines & Vector
Country: New Zealand
Phase: Launched
In 2018, AI company Soul Machines partnered with Auckland energy company Vector to create an anthropomorphic AI avatar named Will for their ‘Be Sustainable with Energy Programme’. Through this program, Will helps to teach school students about energy and how to use it in a sustainable way. It does so by explaining an aspect of energy before asking them questions that students can respond to orally in real time. Soul Machine also has a number of other AI avatars that help teach other subjects from helping to practice English or getting fit.
Relevance for us:
- AI products can appear as digital characters, an interface you type into, or a human-like voice you speak with. Different learners may feel differently about these different options.
- Will is unlike our AI agent as it does not seem to transcribe the conversation it is having with the learner and has an anthropomorphic interface that learners can respond to, rather than clicking a button to record their responses verbally.
- Unlike the other AI products mentioned in this article, Will has not been rolled out by education providers. Instead it is led by the private company that created it (and what education providers they supply energy to).
Key person(s): Unknown.