BAAI's SoulAgent Expands Education Tests at RDFZ

The first was the Haidian District work deployment meeting for Beijing's Learning by Doing pilot action and a science and engineering practice seminar. The second was a seminar titled AI Learning by Doing, Creating the Future, on AI-enabled training of innovative talent. SoulAgent, which BAAI describes as a personal agent that understands its user better with continued use, was applied in areas including help with class listening, teacher AI avatars, essay correction and teaching Q&A. BAAI said the work is meant to help teachers improve efficiency and retain teaching content, while giving students feedback and follow-up questions that support understanding, broader thinking and sustained reflection.

In the class-listening scenario, the Help Me Attend Class function uses AI shorthand, automatic summaries and continuous Q&A to record class content and identify teaching points. The feature is designed for cases when several classes run at the same time and teachers cannot attend every room. Teachers can review a session later and continue asking questions about it. On Oct. 21, 27 open classes were connected to the function. That morning, multiple research classes ran in parallel; in the afternoon, seven teaching-research sub-forums followed. The class notes and summaries produced during the day could be shared as common reference material for later discussion, reducing repeated review of classroom content and leaving more time for teaching analysis, experience exchange and discussion.

SoulAgent's teacher AI avatar addresses a different problem: adapting AI to individual teachers' methods. BAAI said teachers differ in course design, evaluation standards, annotation habits and the points they emphasize in class. SoulAgent collects a teacher's course materials, evaluation criteria, annotation samples, lecture language and feedback from actual use to form a dedicated avatar. The avatar can then assist with essay grading, class summaries and teaching Q&A according to that teacher's professional standards, and is intended to move closer to the teacher's own evaluation approach as it is used.

In English essay grading, teachers provide scoring standards, annotation samples and lecture materials. The teacher AI avatar applies those standards to a specific grading task and can quickly generate a personalized grading report for a class. In practice, BAAI said, the avatar can give students more targeted revision suggestions while helping teachers identify common problems, typical cases and improvement directions across the class. Useful material is retained for later lectures, lesson preparation and teaching. For students, feedback moves from a score toward problem analysis and revision advice; for teachers, the aim is to reduce repetitive analysis and organization work and free time for classroom lectures and individual guidance. For teaching research, real classroom data can be used to identify common problems and teaching priorities more systematically.

During the two events, teachers of different subjects tried SoulAgent for classroom records, lesson preparation, homework feedback and teaching Q&A, according to Leiphone. Students interacted with it on knowledge questions, after-class learning and follow-up questioning. Questionnaires, a co-creation wall and face-to-face exchanges were used to collect their views and expectations. BAAI said the goal is to move AI use beyond completing tasks faster toward better supporting thinking, so that teachers can spend more professional time on teaching design and student guidance and students can focus more attention on understanding, judgment and deeper thinking.

BAAI said it will continue to deepen cooperation with RDFZ in education and explore AI applications in real classrooms, teaching research and learning. SoulAgent is also expected to expand into education, intelligent conference services and expert avatars. The agent is open for registration through its website, soulagent.world, and the SoulAgent WeChat mini program.