No English needed: IIT Madras launches AI tutor for students in 22 Indian languages
IIT Madras-incubated Bodhan AI has launched four open AI models with AI4Bharat, covering speech, translation and OCR across Indian languages. It has also introduced a Student Tutor Bot for Classes 6 to 12 and a Teacher Assistant Bot, aiming to make AI-powered learning more accessible beyond English, in Indian classrooms.
What if a Class 8 student could ask an AI tutor a question in Hindi, Tamil or another Indian language and get help without first switching to English?
That is the idea behind a new set of AI tools launched by Bodhan AI, the Centre of Excellence in AI for Education incubated at IIT Madras, in partnership with AI4Bharat.
FOUR AI MODELS, BUILT FOR INDIAN LANGUAGES
Bodhan AI has released four foundational models covering automatic speech recognition, text-to-speech, machine translation and optical character recognition.
The speech recognition model supports 27 languages, while OCR and text-to-speech support 23 each. Its translation model covers 22 languages. The models are being offered as open-weight Digital Public Goods and through hosted APIs on sovereign infrastructure.
That could mean an education app reading a student's handwritten answer, translating study material between Indian languages or allowing students to speak to an AI system instead of typing.
STUDENTS GET AN AI TUTOR
Bodhan AI has also launched a Student Tutor Bot for Classes 6 to 12, built around NCERT and SCERT curricula.
Students can interact with it through text or voice in 22 Indian languages. It can provide explanations, examples and assessments, guide students through problems and offer tools for diagrams and calculations.
TEACHERS GET THEIR OWN AI ASSISTANT
The Teacher Assistant Bot can create lesson plans, worksheets, quizzes, homework and revision material based on class, subject, topic and difficulty.
Teachers can also upload student work for evaluation against specified criteria. Crucially, Bodhan AI says teachers remain in control and can review, edit, regenerate or discard AI-generated content.
The launch forms part of the larger Bharat EduAI Stack, envisioned as sovereign digital infrastructure for India's education system.