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Small AI, Big Learning Possibilities
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Small AI, Big Learning Possibilities
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Small AI, Big Learning Possibilities
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Small AI helps young people build the skills and confidence to move from the classroom into meaningful jobs. The World Bank Group is working with countries to pilot small AI tools that support teachers, personalize learning, and support students.
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October 21, 2026
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Niguse Tarekegn, a teacher in Ethiopia using the AI-Coach.
Niguse Tarekegn, a teacher in Ethiopia using the AI-Coach. Photo: Biniyam Assefa/World Bank Group
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Story Highlights
- Small AI is helping teachers strengthen learning and students make more informed choices about education and work.
- The World Bank Group is working with countries to pilot small AI tools that support teachers, personalize learning, and guide students’ career choices.
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When Birqe Kassaye finished teaching her class in Ethiopia, she was eager to see what feedback her coach would give. But the coach was not sitting at the back of the classroom. It was on her phone.
Kassaye, an English teacher at Fitawrari Abayneh Secondary School, uses AI-Coach, an AI tool that gives teachers timely, targeted feedback on their classroom practice.
Teachers record their lessons and receive feedback on student engagement, questioning techniques, and instructional quality. Grounded in the principles of the science of learning, the feedback helps teachers identify practical changes for future lessons.
Ethiopia: a coach in every teacher’s pocket
AI-Coach is an example of small AI: practical, affordable technology designed to address a specific local challenge where infrastructure and technical capacity may be limited. Using inputs such as classroom observations, teacher reflections, and teaching evaluations, it delivers coaching through a simple app on phones teachers already have and can accommodate intermittent internet connectivity.
Helping teachers strengthen classroom learning is one part of a larger challenge: preparing the 1.2 billion young people projected to enter the workforce in developing countries in the next decade.
In Ethiopia, the World Bank Group and the government piloted AI-Coach with close to 350 English and mathematics teachers. Early experiences suggested that teachers valued the feedback as timely, tailored to their lessons, and practical for application in the classroom.
Niguse Tarekegn, an English teacher at Entoto Amba Secondary School, says the support is already changing his classroom. “Since I started using AI-Coach, I have noticed positive changes in the teaching and learning process,” he says. “Students are now able to reason more effectively and think more critically.”
In places where regular one-on-one coaching can be difficult to provide at scale, this AI tool can give more teachers practical guidance to improve one lesson at a time.
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Teacher Lariza Sedano in Lima, Peru, with her students
Teacher Lariza Sedano in Lima, Peru, with her students. Photo: Daniel Silva Yoshisato/World Bank Group
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Peru: helping students choose their path
In Peru, students are using Eligiendo Mi Camino (Choosing My Path), an AI-powered tool that helps them explore their interests, understand education and career options, and build a clearer plan for what comes next.
Supported by the World Bank Group, Eligiendo Mi Camino is reaching more than 4,500 students in public schools across Lima. Its career coach helps students explore more than 130 occupations across 12 economic sectors and make informed choices about further study and work.
At José Martí School No. 124 in Lima’s La Victoria district, teacher Lariza Sedano has seen how the tool helps students examine their options without making decisions for them.
One of Sedano’s students, Aljira, says the tool helped her move from uncertainty to a clear goal.
“When I started exploring which profession I wanted to pursue, I had a lot of doubts,” she says. “The AI tool helped me get a clear idea of which career path I wanted to follow.” Today, she hopes to attend the National University of Engineering and contribute to Peru’s mining sector.
Early results are encouraging. Nearly nine in ten students offered the AI career coach are using it. Early findings suggest that, after using the tool, students better understood the salaries associated with technical degrees, and that more were encouraged to pursue that field of study. While preliminary, the results point to the potential of personalized guidance to inform education and career choices.
For Sedano, the value of the technology is measured by whether it helps the students in her classroom turn ambition into action.
“I think that as a teacher, what motivates me every day is for my students to achieve their dreams,” she says. “I believe artificial intelligence is a powerful tool to help them get there.”
Ukraine: bringing a math tutor to students’ phones
In Ukraine, an AI enabled tool will soon help students strengthen their math skills through Mriia (which means Dream in Ukrainian) – the government’s existing digital education platform. The platform already supports school-management, parent-teacher interaction, and online learning resources. By end of this year, it will add a math AI tutor to the Mriia ecosystem.
Once the AI tutor is up and running, students will be able to access the Ukrainian-language tutor through Mriia on their phones. Using data from local textbooks, the AI tool is intended to provide personalized learning for students.
With support from the World Bank Group, the pilot will start with students in grades 6 through 9 at ten schools. Plans call for expanding the AI tutor to 2,000 schools by mid-2027 as well as expanding to additional subjects and grades to follow.
Lessons from Ukraine and other participating countries are helping the World Bank Group and its partners learn how to empower students, support teachers, measure costs, and build practical pathways from small pilots to education systems that can reach millions of learners.
Across Ethiopia, Peru, and Ukraine, these efforts show the promise of AI designed around a clear need and the realities of the people using it. Similar pilots are underway in El Salvador, Senegal, Seychelles, and Zambia, helping proven approaches travel faster across countries. By 2030, the World Bank Group aims to reach 13 million young people by helping governments move beyond pilots and scale solutions that work.
The goal is practical support that helps students learn and teachers strengthen their practice – not technology for its own sake. Reaching more classrooms will require reliable infrastructure, clear policies, relevant local data, institutional capacity, and a local technology ecosystem that brings effective tools into everyday teaching and learning.
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