Creating a safe, observable AI infrastructure for 1 million …

2013 年，Caleb Hicks（现为 SchoolAI 的创始人兼首席执行官）每天要教近 300 名学生。他对表现最好的和最差的 20% 学生非常了解，但中间 80% 的学生常常在视线之外被忽略。随着班级规模扩大、预算缩减，这种盲点一直困扰着他。像他这样的教师根本难以跟上学生的需求。

2022 年 ChatGPT 推出后，人工智能开始进入课堂。尽管一些教育工作者因担心作弊和安全问题而讨论全面禁止 AI 工具，Hicks 却看到了另一条路径。凭借在 Apple 的教学设计背景，Hicks 认为只要设计和监管得当，AI 能以更个性化的方式帮助学生学习，并为教师提供改进教学的工具和洞察。

2023 年，他创立了 SchoolAI（https://schoolai.com/）。该平台为教师提供学生进展的实时信号，并为学生提供个性化支持。

仅仅两年内，SchoolAI 已覆盖 80 多个国家的 100 万间教室，并与 500 多个教育合作伙伴建立了嵌入式合作。该平台基于 OpenAI 的模型，将前沿技术转换为适合课堂使用的工具。

“我们做了大量工作，确保 AI 不会替你做题。如果 AI 只是把答案直接给学生，那就是我们的失败——教学的要点是引导并保持他们投入到学习中。” — Nate Sanders，SchoolAI 首席体验官

课题一：让教师参与以建立信任

SchoolAI 的代理架构类似于典型课堂：Spaces 是通过会话式助手 Dot 由教师创建的互动学习环境。

如果教师输入“为三种不同水平的学生创建一个分层阅读活动”，Dot 会在几秒钟内组装出一个可直接使用的课程。教师还可以为学生添加交互式应用，让学生根据课程目标创作、玩耍和学习。

学生通过 Sidekick（基于 GPT‑4o 和 GPT‑4.1 的 AI 导师）与这些课程互动。Sidekick 会根据学生的回答适应其学习方式，提供指导、节奏安排和鼓励。

当学生在学习时，教师始终处于环路中。每一次 SchoolAI 的互动都是可观察的，能够在小差距变大之前为教师提供前瞻性的洞察。内建的安全护栏有助于确保 SchoolAI 的使用保持安全、透明并与课堂目标一致。

有一位刚到美国、只会说达里语的学生使用 Sidekick 进行实时翻译。几周内，他就开始参与小组活动、建立友谊，并带着新的归属感来上学。这类早期且自信的参与为长期成功奠定了基础。

课题二：把模型匹配到真实任务

对教师来说，真正的问题不是 AI 能做什么，而是如何用 AI 改善学习过程，而不是仅仅给出答案。

“如果 AI 只是把答案给学生，那我们就失败了，”Hicks 说。“教学的要点是教练式引导，并让学生保持对学习的投入。”

从一开始，SchoolAI 就在架构中内置了教师监督。不是单纯的提示—响应循环，而是每一次学生输入都会经过一个包含数十个专业节点的代理图，这些节点会调用模型、工具或安全护栏，然后再返回答案，从而让学生获得能强化真实学习的结构化支持。

该工作流的各个部分均由 OpenAI 提供支持：

• GPT‑4o 驱动 Dot 的会话界面以及课程构建和响应生成背后的实时逻辑
• GPT‑4.1 支持更深层次的推理任务，例如为多步数学问题提供分层引导
• 图像生成用于创建定制视觉材料，如光合作用示意图或历史地图，以支持课程
• 文本转语音（TTS）以 60 多种语言提供语音反馈

这种编排依赖于智能路由：重推理任务交给 GPT‑4.1 或 GPT‑4o，轻量级检查则由更小的模型处理，如 GPT‑4o‑mini 或其他纳米级模型。这样既能在关键环节保证准确性，又能保持成本的可预测性。

在学校里，准确性和细微差别比几乎任何地方都更重要。模型所做的决策会记录在日志中，实时呈现给教师，并通过汇总报告提供给管理者。这些反馈回路有助于执行 SchoolAI 的核心理念：AI 应当像教练一样支持学生，而不是把答案交给他们。

课题三：坚持使用一套技术栈以便在规模上更快推进

当 SchoolAI 举办最近一次产品展示时，吸引了超过 10,000 名教育工作者。但在活动前几天，团队发现他们仍受限于消费级使用上限。

“我们联系了 OpenAI 的对接人，询问能做些什么，”SchoolAI 首席体验官 Sanders 说。“十分钟内，他们不仅升级了我们的使用级别，还看到我们大量使用 GPT‑4.1，主动提高了我们的额度，确保活动顺利进行。”

随着模型发布和推理成本持续下降，SchoolAI 已将每个学生 Space 的成本从接近一美元降到仅为此前的一小部分。这一转变为团队提供了长期投资和战略扩展的空间——这在教育领域至关重要，因为学校的预算需要通过效率来应对日益增长的需求。

“Hicks 说：‘我们选择 OpenAI，因为他们的模型在准确性、细微度和灵活性方面无可比拟。我们选择与他们一起扩展，是因为我们得到的支持也是无与伦比的。’”

塑造教育的下一个时代

对教育工作者而言，AI 可以成为强有力的盟友，帮助他们腾出更多时间去做真正的人类教学工作。SchoolAI 团队听到教师反映使用该平台每周可节省超过 10 小时。但更重要的变化是他们如何使用这些时间：更早介入、提供更快速的支持，并与学生开展更有意义的一对一交流。

一位教师分享说，她过去依赖考试分数来发现学生掉队。但 SchoolAI 发现了一名不再提问也不参与讨论的学生。这个微小的信号促成了一次关怀谈话和及早干预，否则这个学生可能会被错过。

学生行为也在改变：在 AI 辅助的课程中参与度上升，Sidekick 帮助学生建立信心和独立性。那位依赖实时翻译的达里语学生现在能参与小组活动，会与同学开玩笑，并找回了新的自信。

随着从试点校园到整个学区的推广，学校管理者开始使用实时教学数据来了解哪些做法有效、应在哪些地方投入支持。通过为家庭学习设计的新功能，SchoolAI 的触达也延伸到课堂之外，将学生、教师和家庭通过一个可信赖的系统连接起来。

“我们的使命一直是让每个学生都被看见，”Hicks 说。“借助 OpenAI，我们能够在学校系统所需的层面上持续兑现这一承诺。”

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In 2013, Caleb Hicks, now founder and CEO of SchoolAI, taught nearly 300 students a day. He knew the top and bottom 20 percent well, but the middle 80 percent often slipped by unseen. That blind spot nagged at him. Between growing class sizes and shrinking budgets, teachers like him simply couldn’t keep up with student needs.

With the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, AI began to enter the classroom. While some educators debated banning AI tools altogether due to concerns about cheating and safety, Hicks saw a different path. Drawing on his instructional design background at Apple, Hicks believed that with the careful design and oversight, AI could help students learn in a more personalized way and give teachers the tools and insights to help them teach better. 

In 2023, he launched SchoolAI⁠. The platform gives teachers real-time signals on student progress and provides students with personalized support. 

In just two years, SchoolAI has reached 1 million classrooms across 80+ countries, embedded in over 500 education partnerships. Built on OpenAI models, it translates cutting-edge tech into classroom-ready tools.

“We’ve done a lot of work to make AI not do things for you. If AI just gives the student the answer, we’ve failed—the point of teaching is to coach and to keep them engaged in the work.”

Lesson 1: Building trust with teacher-in-the-loop

SchoolAI’s agent architecture resembles a typical classroom: Spaces are interactive learning environments that teachers create through Dot, a conversational assistant.

If a teacher types ‘create a differentiated reading activity for students at three different levels,’ Dot will assemble a ready-to-use lesson in seconds. Teachers can also add interactive apps for students to create, play, and learn based on the lesson goal.

Students engage with these lessons through Sidekick, an AI tutor built on GPT‑4o and GPT‑4.1. Sidekick adapts to how students learn, offering guidance, pacing, and encouragement based on their responses.

While students work, teachers stay in the loop. Every SchoolAI interaction is observable, giving teachers proactive insight into what students need before small gaps become bigger ones. Built-in guardrails help SchoolAI use remain safe, transparent, and aligned with classroom goals.

One student, newly arrived in the U.S. only speaking Dari, used Sidekick for real-time translation. Within weeks, he was participating in group work, building friendships, and showing up with a new sense of belonging. That kind of early, confident engagement lays the foundation for long-term success.

Lesson 2: Matching models to real-world tasks

The real question for teachers isn’t AI’s capability, but how it can be used to improve the learning process, not just give answers.

“If AI just gives the student the answer, we’ve failed,” says Hicks. “The point of teaching is to coach and to keep them engaged in the work.”

From day one, SchoolAI built educator oversight into the architecture. Instead of a single prompt-and-response loop, every student input runs through an agent graph with dozens of specialized nodes that call models, tools, or guardrails before returning an answer so students receive structured support that reinforces real learning.

Every part of this workflow is powered by OpenAI: 

• GPT‑4o drives Dot’s conversational interface and the real-time logic behind lesson construction and response generation
• GPT‑4.1 supports deeper reasoning tasks, like scaffolding multi-step math problems
• Image generation creates custom visuals, like photosynthesis diagrams or historical maps, to support lessons
• Text-to-speech (TTS) provides spoken feedback in over 60 languages

That orchestration depends on smart routing: heavy reasoning tasks go to GPT‑4.1 or GPT‑4o, while lightweight checks run on smaller models such as GPT‑4o-mini or other nano class models. This helps keep costs predictable without compromising accuracy where it matters most.

Accuracy and nuance matter more in schools than almost anywhere else. Decisions a model makes are observable in logs, surfaced to teachers in real time, and rolled up to administrators through a consolidated report. These feedback loops help enforce SchoolAI’s core philosophy: AI should coach students, not hand them the answer.

Lesson 3: Sticking with one stack to move faster at scale

When SchoolAI hosted its most recent product showcase, it drew over 10,000 educators. But in the days leading up, the team noticed they were still stuck on consumer-level limits.

“We reached out to our OpenAI contact, to see what we could do,” said Sanders, Chief Experience Officer at SchoolAI. “Within ten minutes, they not only upgraded our usage tier but also saw we were leaning in on GPT‑4.1 so proactively increased our limits so that we would have a smooth event.”

As model releases continued to decrease in inference prices, SchoolAI was able to bring costs down from nearly a dollar per student Space to just a fraction of that. The shift gave the team the margin to invest for the long term and expand strategically—critical in education, where budgets depend on efficiency to meet growing needs.

“We chose OpenAI because their models offered unmatched accuracy, nuance, and flexibility,” Hicks says. “We chose to scale with them because the support we’ve received is unmatched.”

Shaping the next era of education

For educators, AI can be a powerful ally, helping free up more time for the truly human work of teaching. The SchoolAI team has heard from teachers who report saving 10+ hours a week with the platform. But the bigger shift is how they use that time: stepping in earlier, offering faster support, and spending more meaningful moments one-on-one with students. 

One teacher shared that she used to rely on test scores to catch students slipping. But SchoolAI surfaced a student who had stopped asking questions and engaging in discussions. That small signal led to a check-in and an early intervention that would have otherwise been missed.

Student behavior is changing, too: engagement is rising in AI-supported lessons, and Sidekick is helping students build confidence and independence. That same Dari-speaking student who relied on real-time translation is now participating in group work, joking with classmates, and finding a new sense of confidence.

As adoption spreads from pilot campuses to full districts, school leaders are using real-time instructional data to understand what’s working and where to invest support. And with new capabilities designed to support learning at home, SchoolAI is extending its reach beyond the classroom, connecting students, teachers, and families through one trusted system.

“Our mission has always been about helping every student feel seen,” says Hicks. “With OpenAI, we’re able to deliver on that promise consistently, at the system level schools need.”

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