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When the world slammed shut during the COVID years, most people baked bread, binge-watched TV series or finally cleaned out that spare room. Adele Smolansky did something else entirely. When she saw her younger sister struggling to learn during lockdown, she didn’t wait for someone else to help her sister through this period. She built AI-Learners, a platform designed to listen, adapt and celebrate the way every student learns. No more forcing square pegs into round holes. No more ‘one size fits all.’
Adele built a breathing technology that shifts itself around the child instead of demanding children twist themselves into impossible shapes to fit the tech. It’s smart, it’s playful and it’s got heart stitched into every line of code. So, what’s the secret sauce? Simple. AI-Learners is a digital platform that helps students with disabilities sharpen their math, literacy, and social skills, but it doesn’t slap the same content at every child. It listens. It learns. It morphs. A bit like a favourite teacher who just gets you.
Each student has their own account. The platform watches how they play. It clocks how fast or slow they work, how many tries they need, whether they prefer things bright and bubbly or muted and calm. Then it adjusts itself to their speed, their quirks and their rhythm. No two learning paths look alike and with AI-Learners, no kid gets lost in the shuffle.
And the teachers? They finally get to breathe. Instead of drowning in piles of worksheets and endless grading marathons, they get sharp, clean data served up on a silver platter. Real insights, real fast. They can tell in seconds whether little Sam needs a nudge in numeracy or if Mia’s smashing her literacy goals like a champ.
It’s life-changing technology. Take Ann Arbor Public Schools in Michigan, USA. They ran a pilot with AI-Learners: 60 students and 10 teachers. Within a month, students were begging to log in. “Can we use the AI game today?” they’d shout across classrooms. Today, almost 200 students there tap into the magic and the numbers are still climbing.
But the road was not paved in gold. Adele has been the sales team, the marketer, the boss, the brainstormer, and the coffee-fetcher. Selling to schools isn’t exactly a stroll in the park either. Budgets are tight, staff are stretched, sceptics are everywhere. Yet somehow, she’s making it happen, one conference, one meeting, one connection at a time.
AI-Learners is a standalone powerhouse. Export the reports, shuffle them wherever they’re needed, done. No messy integrations. No hair-pulling IT drama. And because Adele cares about kids’ privacy, AI-Learners is built with serious security muscle. No data hoarding. Everything’s squeaky clean and legally watertight.
The bigger picture? Adele reckons the future of education isn’t robots replacing teachers with soulless screens. It’s teachers having more time to do what they do best: connecting, inspiring, laughing, listening, building kids up. The machines take the grunt work. Humans keep the magic alive.
Special education needs that personal touch even more fiercely. Every student is a puzzle with a different pattern. AI-Learners give teachers the tools without swallowing the heart of teaching.
And the mission? It’s growing. New features keep rolling out like a never-ending stream of good ideas: social story generators, self-management exercises, ways for kids to build emotional muscles, not just academic ones. After all, what good is math if you can’t handle a playground fall-out?
For schools watching their budgets, AI-Learners hit a sweet spot too. Pricing starts at about $100 per student per year, which is pocket change compared to the future it builds. And because it’s pure software, there are no shipping disasters and customs headaches. Adele is even eyeing expansion beyond the US, tapping into countries ready to level up their approach to special education.
The goal? Give every student, no matter how tangled their needs, a platform that flexes and grows with them. Put power back into the hands of teachers and parents and make learning a joyful experience.
We live in a world that’s obsessed with racing ahead, but Adele Smolansky slowed down just enough to ask: How can we do better? She did not set out to change the world but to help her sister, and along the way, she built something that’s helping hundreds of students find their own way forward. AI-Learners proves that when technology is shaped by empathy, it becomes something powerful.
Adele Smolansky is the founder and CEO of AI-Learners, an EdTech company dedicated to making education more accessible and engaging for students with all abilities. Inspired by her sister, who has a disabilities, Adele is passionate about using AI to personalize learning and empower all students. She holds a Computer Science degree from Cornell University and a Masters from Stanford in Learning Sciences. Adele is committed to transforming special education through innovative, inclusive technology.