Peeyush Ranjan, former Flipkart CTO and Myntra co-founder Mukesh Bansal debuted Fermi.ai on Thursday. This new edtech venture prioritses AI-driven learning for high school STEM students across India and the US.
Fermi.ai enters the market during a period of industry-wide correction, as edtech firms move away from the recent cycle of rapid investment and subsequent decline. At the same time, the startup is navigating a landscape where generative AI tools like ChatGPT have become a staple of student life.
According to Ranjan, the platform was intentionally designed to solve a critical issue: the tendency for students to use AI as a quick fix to get answers rather than a tool to actually master the material.
The ex-Flipkart CTO was said that the venture would support students in their "productive struggle" instead of replacing it.
It encourages students to figure out answers by themselves one step at a time, instead of giving them the full answers at one-go, and utilises AI-powered learning tools that surface solutions quickly.
Designed with a stylus-first, canvas-based interface, the platform mimics the traditional pen-and-paper experience, allowing students to physically write out equations and sketch diagrams. This approach focuses on the "work-through" phase of learning rather than just the final answer.
According to Bansal, the goal is to expose, rather than hide, conceptual gaps. While standard AI can effortlessly solve equations, Fermi.ai is designed to analyse a student's logic, identifying specific errors in their step-by-step process. This gives both students and educators clear visibility into the "silent struggles" that occur during the learning process.
Fermi.ai functions as an integrated ecosystem that leverages several large language models or LLMs, such as those from OpenAI and Google. Rather than relying on a single source, the startup benchmarks various models to determine which is best suited for specific educational tasks, combining them into one holistic experience.
Data privacy is a central focus of the platform's architecture. Ranjan emphasised that the company does not use school-specific data for model training; any materials uploaded by teachers remain the exclusive property of their respective institutions.
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