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Praxis AI is transforming higher education by using Claude in Amazon Bedrock to create AI-powered digital twins of professors. These virtual teaching assistants provide personalized, round-the-clock support to students, improving engagement and performance while alleviating the burden on faculty.
With Claude, Praxis has achieved:
- 15x increase in usage of platform across higher education
- 75% student engagement with digital twins, compared to 14% for generic AI tools
- Full letter grade improvement in class averages after implementing professor digital twins
Solving the capacity crisis in higher education
Today’s college students face unprecedented challenges balancing academics with work, mental health concerns, and mounting financial pressures. Professors are stretched too thin to provide the increased support these students need—especially in under-resourced institutions.
“Students are struggling more than ever before. Many are working multiple jobs to afford tuition, dealing with pandemic learning gaps, and navigating complex personal challenges,” said David James Clarke IV, CEO of Praxis. “For example, at many universities, professors are teaching six classes, coaching sports teams, and don’t have time for research. Not every student can afford private tutors. It can be an impossible situation.”
This lack of individualized support has dire consequences. Clarke explained, “There’s a clear link between a student’s access to tutoring and a student’s success. Students with tutors graduate faster and get better jobs. We wanted to make that level of personalized guidance available to everyone.”
Why Praxis chose Claude
Praxis quickly recognized Claude’s potential to revolutionize educational support through its superior performance and security features. “When we tested different models, Claude stood out for its ability to maintain context and provide nuanced, educational responses,” explained Clarke. The platform’s ability to anonymize student information while delivering personalized support was crucial for maintaining academic integrity.
Leveraging Claude through Amazon Bedrock
Praxis discovered Claude through the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Generative AI Accelerator program, and its seamless availability via the Amazon Bedrock API proved transformative. “We developed an LLM switcher, and all we had to do was switch our default from OpenAI’s GPT-4 to Claude 3.5 Sonnet and it worked like a charm,” recalled Clarke.
The impact on Praxis’s growth has been remarkable. “The fact that we can deliver the industry’s best LLM from within our AWS infrastructure via Amazon Bedrock has improved our middleware performance, allowed us to scale our business faster (15x usage in 6 months), enhanced security, and decreased costs,” explained Clarke. This explosive growth was made possible by housing all key services within the same AWS cloud instance. Just as crucial is Amazon Bedrock’s guarantee of immediate access to new Claude models. “When new Claude models launch, we can seamlessly switch to them in Bedrock with zero downtime,” noted Clarke. “In education, where AI improvements directly impact student outcomes, having day-one access to Claude’s latest capabilities is invaluable.”
Security remains paramount in educational technology. “We deliver one of the most secure AI solutions in Higher Education, and our customers demand that. Rightfully so,” said Clarke. Amazon Bedrock enables Praxis to protect and secure user privacy and institutional IP in secure instance “vaults,” while providing enterprise-grade security controls including secure API authentication, SSO authorization, and protected data processing.
The cost benefits have been equally impressive. As Clarke notes, “All our student identity information is anonymized, and all institutional IP, including the content we use for retrieval-augmented generation, is protected. It’s delivered to the user in a cohesive conversation, in one secure place that’s also fast and portable.” Amazon Bedrock’s pay-as-you-go pricing model optimizes token costs as usage grows, while reducing infrastructure management overhead.
This infrastructure efficiency has freed Praxis to focus on innovation. “This agility has allowed the Praxis AI engineering team to focus on application-level innovation – releasing new features such as multi-agent workflows, real-time conversational voice, proactive trigger APIs, and data insight dashboards,” explained Clarke.
Empowering students and faculty with real-world results
The impact of Claude-powered digital twins has been transformative across Praxis’ partner institutions. At Clemson University, a bioinformatics professor struggled to provide timely feedback to his 125 students. After implementing his digital twin, student engagement soared, with average grades rising significantly. Similarly, at another university, a social sciences professor’s digital twin answered an astonishing 2,000 student questions per week, leading to an average grade increase from a C to a B.
These results demonstrate the power of providing personalized, on-demand support at scale. Clarke said, “By handling repetitive queries, the AI frees up professors to focus on high-value interactions with students. We’ve seen up to 70% time savings for faculty, and when students get the help they need, we see improvements in everything from grades to graduation rates.”
Praxis’ AI-powered solutions are not only enhancing academic outcomes but also helping institutions serve more students effectively. Clarke explained, “That’s the promise of this technology—making quality education more accessible and affordable for all.” With 75% of students regularly interacting with their AI teaching assistants, compared to just 14% with generic chatbots, Praxis is driving transformative gains in student engagement and success.
Expanding impact through strategic partnerships
Praxis is partnering with leading institutions like Alabama State University, Clemson University, and the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) to bring AI benefits to diverse learners. Clarke said, “We’re committed to leveling the education playing field. By partnering with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), tribal colleges, and community colleges, we can empower historically underserved students.”
Praxis is also developing corporate training solutions in collaboration with Fortune 500 companies. Clarke noted, “The technology applications are boundless. From onboarding to upskilling, AI can personalize learning at every stage of an employee’s career.”
Leading the AI revolution in education
Praxis believes AI will be pivotal in tackling the most pressing challenges in education. Clarke warned, “The current system is not sustainable. If institutions don’t embrace AI to transform how they operate, they risk becoming obsolete. But if we harness this technology thoughtfully, we can create an educational experience that empowers every student to reach their full potential.”
Praxis is working to expand access to world-class instruction, enable institutions to serve more students effectively, and equip learners with personalized support to succeed through its partnership with Anthropic and AWS. Clarke said, “What Anthropic has created with Claude is extraordinary. Students can now have meaningful, personalized learning interactions anytime, at scale, which is magical. We’re excited to build on that foundation to redefine what’s possible in education,” said Clarke.
As Praxis scales its AI platform, its collaboration with Anthropic and AWS will be crucial. With Claude’s exceptional conversational capabilities, Anthropic’s commitment to beneficial AI, and secure, scalable infrastructure from AWS, they’re poised to lead a new era of AI-powered, universally accessible education—one where every student can unlock their full potential.