If Jessica Parker, CEO and Co-Founder of Raleigh-based Academic Insight Lab, had to choose one person to represent her startup, it would be Dolly Parton.
Dolly Parton has personality, integrity, and most importantly, Parker described her as “fresh.” Academic Insight Lab is an AI-driven edtech startup that provides academic coaching and research assistance especially to grad students and post-doc academics, At the end of this month, the company will be rebranding as Moxie, a word that encapsulates Dolly Parton’s spirit and energy.
“No matter what kind of stage you’re in, we will have a tool that can help you with it,” Parker said.
Parker works alongside Co-Founder and COO Kimberly Becker, both of whom work full-time at Academic Insight Lab. On March 25, the startup was named a semifinalist for one of NC IDEA’s $50K SEED grants.
The company’s AI-powered tools are designed to streamline the research process, offering a variety of services including searching for sources, summarizing documents and identifying patterns in literature.
Parker said the technology is designed to encourage critical thinking skills.
“It’s all about keeping humans in the loop,” Parker said. “It’s not about replacing the human.”
When it comes to technology, there is automation—having technology complete a task for the human user—and augmentation, which is using technology to leverage existing skills more effectively. Parker said Academic Insight Lab is focused on augmentation, which starts with AI literacy.
The company’s approach to education aims to inform users about how to use the AI tools most effectively to help them in their research and writing. Every Wednesday from 2-3 p.m., Academic Insight Lab hosts a virtual meeting with its members where they teach AI literacy concepts and welcome feedback from their customers.
Parker said there is too much focus in the media on how AI can assist cheating and plagiarism, but she said cheating and plagiarism have been around much longer than generative AI. Most students want to learn, especially at the graduate level, and sensationalizing cheating and plagiarism is doing a disservice to this type of technology, Parker said.
Parker has years of experience in academia, having completed a bachelor’s and master’s degree at UNC-Chapel Hill, and she now teaches a professional doctorate program at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. Becker, meanwhile, has a PhD in applied linguistics and technology with a specialty in disciplinary academic writing.
Parker said that a consistent problem in education is that it is impossible to replicate the benefits of one-on-one tutoring for students who can’t afford or access it. One of Parker’s other companies, an educational consulting firm, charges $145 per hour. Once Academic Insight Lab makes the transition to Moxie, all customers will pay $59 per month for unlimited access to the AI tools, including a chatbot that can help users navigate the site and figure out what tool to use.
“It’s kind of painful to have to turn people down who can’t afford your services,” said Parker. “And, that’s what really excites me about this technology—I feel like I’m able to meet the needs of this whole other side of the market.”
Academic Insight Lab sells its products both directly to customers and to universities. After launching in November, the company has reached 3,000 users and has met with 30 universities interested in licensing their tools.
Moxie also can help identify “at-risk” students who are struggling in their coursework. Parker said oftentimes, professors may not be aware of their students’ progress until it’s too late in the semester, but these AI tools can provide data to educators about how exactly the student is struggling so they can be met with precise intervention.
“At the end of the day, we believe in the power of this technology to democratize education,” Parker said.
