5 AI Tutors from China Tops US market, one made $6M ARR in 1.5 years
AI is reshaping education by making it more accessible, affordable, and personalized
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Peter Thiel recently shared a popular perspective abroad. He believes AI could be bad news for those relying heavily on math and logic skills. AI excels at processing vast amounts of data and extracting patterns, making jobs dependent on logic and math increasingly replaceable.
However, AI lacks human language skills and creativity. Thiel suggests that young people should focus on developing these skills to stay competitive in an AI-driven future.
Yet, the combination of AI and education presents exciting opportunities. Today’s education system is expensive and struggles to offer personalized learning. AI tutors can address both challenges by making learning more affordable and tailored to individual needs.
For example, AI-powered language learning tools like Speak and Praktika have reduced costs while offering highly personalized learning experiences. These products quickly broke tens of millions in annual recurring revenue(ARR), highlighting AI’s potential in education.
Speak is now the first Unicorn in AI-language learning, with ARR nearing $50M, a growth of 100% year-on-year.
And Praktika, another AI-powered language learning app designed to help users master English through interactive and immersive experiences, has garnered a significant user base, with over 1.5 million users engaging with the app.
Praktika reported generating nearly $20 million in revenue over the past year in May.
AI tutors also transform traditional tutoring. Previously, hiring subject-specific tutors was costly and inaccessible for many families.
With AI, a single subscription offers 24/7 multi-subject support, drastically improving efficiency and reducing costs.
Chinese teams are at the forefront of this transformation, leading the global market with 5 products topping the US AI Tutor market.
They are from big tech ByteDance, Zuoyebang, and startups with small teams. One of them is only 4 people making $6M ARR in just 1.5 years.
Big Techs leading the market
Tools like ByteDance’s Gauth and Zuoyebang’s Question AI excel at solving math problems through photo recognition and step-by-step explanations, now expanding into other subjects like history and biology.
ByteDance’s Gauth (GauthMath) is an AI-powered study companion that helps solve complex problems across subjects like math, physics, and chemistry.
Users can take a photo of a problem, and Gauth provides step-by-step solutions with detailed explanations. It now supports history, literature, and economics as well. Interestingly, Gauth is hiring online human tutors to assist students, blending AI with real human expertise.
Similarly, Question AI from Zuoyebang focuses on math while also offering AI tutoring for biology, history, English, and business.
Since its inception, Question AI has been downloaded 6 million times across Apple’s App Store and Google Play Store in the U.S.
However, Gauth has amassed twice as many installs(12 million times) since its launch, according to data provided by market research firm Sensor Tower. Both Gauth and Question AI are operated by Singapore-based entities.