Original Source: Duo Jing
Image Source: Generated by Wujie AI
Under the "double reduction" policy, self-study rooms are coming to the rescue. With traditional subject training entering a cold winter period and the supply side being blocked by policies, self-study rooms have quickly become a suitable transformation path to meet the urgent market demand. In recent years, the competition in the paid self-study room industry has become increasingly fierce. At the same time, with the gradual formation of the concept of AI+ education, the adaptability of smart education hardware has been increasing, and many enterprises with AI technology have begun to deploy "AI smart study rooms."
In recent years, AI self-study rooms from brands such as Dushulang, Squirrel AI, and Qimeng have emerged. Compared to traditional shared self-study rooms, AI smart study rooms have differentiated artificial intelligence technology, which can better assist users in learning. However, due to the relatively high operating costs of AI smart study rooms and the limited consumption capacity of the core user group, it seems that there are also significant challenges behind the business opportunities. Is the AI smart study room a good business?
On October 27, Hu Yong, the initiator of the Dushulang AI smart study room project, Zhang Haitao, the national head of the Future Book Room project, and Yao Yufei, founding partner of Duo Jing Capital, gathered online to discuss a series of topics related to the technical application, development prospects, and industry concerns of AI smart study rooms.
Since the release of the "Interim Measures for the Administrative Penalties of Extracurricular Training Institutions" by the Ministry of Education on October 15, extracurricular training has changed from "violating regulations" to "illegal," and institutions and individuals who violate the regulations for subject training may face more severe legal sanctions. After the new regulations were introduced, everyone in the education and training industry felt threatened, and traditional subject training entered a cold winter, with the supply side being blocked by policies, and the market demand urgently needing to find a compliant way to be released. As an emerging product in the past two years, AI smart study rooms combine the traditional shared self-study room model with large models, artificial intelligence big data, and smart hardware to push corresponding learning resources through big data analysis, customize precise learning services, and assist users in independent learning. Under the urgent transformation needs of traditional education and training practitioners, AI smart study rooms seem to act as the "savior" of the market vacuum left after the large-scale withdrawal from education and training.
Although intelligent self-study rooms are highly anticipated by education and training practitioners, many people feel confused about the specific operational aspects of the actual transformation—new technology, new equipment, and new staff training will significantly increase the initial costs. On this issue, the operational and franchise experience of the Dushulang AI smart study room project may provide some answers to the confusion.
Hu Yong, the initiator of the Dushulang AI smart study room project, mentioned that among the more than 4,000 Dushulang stores nationwide, more than a thousand "integrated stores" have transformed from traditional education and training institutions that can no longer use classrooms after the "double reduction" policy, rearranging the classrooms, installing new desks, chairs, and smart hardware such as tablets, learning machines, and computers, and implanting the Dushulang smart learning system to complete the transformation from tutoring classrooms to AI smart study rooms. At the same time, some medium and large education and training institutions have invested in transforming some campus classrooms into AI smart study rooms, gradually transitioning to the smart study room model. Dushulang provides customers with smart hardware facilities and systems, assists customers in providing better services to parents, empowers products to more families, and finally guides the sales side to sell hardware for profit.
This provides a train of thought for traditional education and training institutions and individuals to transform into intelligent self-study rooms—utilizing the original space and facilities, implanting intelligent learning hardware and corresponding systems, and also utilizing existing customer base, reputation, resources, etc., effectively reducing the initial software and hardware costs and customer acquisition costs to overcome the difficulties of transformation.
In addition to concerns about initial operation and customer acquisition costs, the compliance space of intelligent self-study room models and whether they will be quickly included in regulatory crackdowns have also become major concerns for industry transformation.
Regarding the compliance risk of AI smart study rooms, the initial experience of the Future Book Room seems to temporarily boost the confidence of practitioners attempting to transform. The Future Book Room is an emerging project established in 2020, focusing on independent learning models and intelligent hardware, and intelligent teaching aids related products. Zhang Haitao mentioned that the emergence of the Future Book Room is not a forced transformation after the introduction of the "double reduction" policy, but an active exploration. The initial stores were even opened next to the education bureau, and after three or four rounds of inspections, they survived, attracting many franchisees to join.
In the strong wind of cracking down on education and training, the AI smart study room adopts a model similar to managed self-study rooms, charging customers for "hardware and venue rental fees" and "membership service fees" in an attempt to reasonably avoid compliance risks, seemingly skirting the policy—smart study rooms may become the "firefighters" in the current severe situation of the education and training industry.
However, with the popularity of AI+ education, AI intelligence, and digitization, although the current AI smart study room industry is still in its early stages of development, there are hundreds of brands entering the smart study room market, including exploration of top brands, participation of intelligent hardware manufacturers, and attempts by some small and medium-sized enterprises. Baidu, iFLYTEK, ByteDance, and many other technology giants have successively entered the research and development of their own learning machines and large models, while also creating their own smart study room brands. With the boost from technology and capital, the AI smart study room industry in the next few years seems to be very promising. The booming industry will inevitably attract attention and regulation from relevant national departments, and the iFLYTEK learning machine incident has also sounded the alarm within the industry. The imperfection of artificial intelligence technology, the lack of industry standards, and the uncertainty of regulatory review are all hidden concerns for the future development of the industry.
Hu Yong also stated that to enter the smart study room, one must operate in a regular manner from the beginning and not engage in "deceptive practices" by using the name of a smart study room to conduct subject training. If non-compliant methods are used during the initial startup, there will be no escape from being shut down in the future. Traditional education and training practitioners who want to enter the smart study room field need to change their mindset, embrace AI, truly understand the operation logic of AI intelligent education, and develop products and technology to achieve long-term success.
Compared to the traditional training class model, the biggest difference of the smart self-study room is the provision of intelligent hardware and corresponding systems and resources to assist users in independent learning. The learning content is generated personalized by artificial intelligence, no longer prepared and explained by teachers, and no longer controlling the pace and difficulty.
Regarding the user experience of AI intelligent hardware in actual use and its effect on learning, Hu Yong shared the practical application experience of the company's AI intelligent technology. There is a concept that needs to be distinguished. The smart study room product is neither a recorded course nor a fragmented course, but a system—the AI smart study room system assists learning in various modes. The simplest mode at the technical level is precise checking, summarizing weak knowledge points through incorrect questions during the process of doing exercises, and then pushing related questions for targeted learning; there is also the ability to build a knowledge map, linking the knowledge chain, adjusting the dimensions of questions, and being able to trace back to knowledge points that have not been mastered for several semesters or even years, making up for relatively distant weak points; some top students may not have knowledge point problems, but have higher personalized learning needs, so intelligent learning plans are intelligently formulated through big data analysis to allocate learning resources. Hu Yong stated, "This is something that traditional teachers cannot do, and humans cannot do, but it can be achieved through technology, which is intelligent learning."
Intelligent hardware also has applications in teaching supervision and regulation. According to Hu Yong, in the actual operation of the smart study room, although there is no constant supervision and reminders from teachers to ensure the user's concentration, the operation of the intelligent supervision system improves self-awareness—such as the camera system recognizing whether the user is focused, and the hardware's built-in system recognizing whether the user has stayed on the same interface for a long time. Through technological means, supervision is used to improve learning efficiency and manage learning progress.
The highly popular language large model technology in recent times also has the potential to be integrated into the hardware system of the AI smart study room in the future, providing more powerful support for precise learning and personalized customization of the smart study room. Hu Yong mentioned that Dushulang is currently developing its own educational large model. At the current stage, the educational large model in the education field can develop many advanced intelligent aids, providing personalized suggestions to both students and teachers. The large model will greatly help analyze educational data—analyzing students' learning behavior, predicting learning achievements, and predicting possible difficult questions. It may even be able to predict which students can be admitted to a certain school before the exam, which will be beneficial for academic and career planning.
Although there is a powerful intelligent hardware system, "people" are still an indispensable part of the smart study room product—Hu Yong also mentioned that although the smart study room product mainly relies on product technology, human care is indispensable, and teachers still need to be involved to guide and inspire children's learning interests and help cultivate their learning habits, so that technology can better play its role. In the smart study room system, teachers no longer need to impart knowledge as before, but play a role in habit formation and interest guidance, closer to "planners" and "counselors."
Although no longer playing a teaching role, teachers in the smart study room still have standards and requirements for employment, and not everyone can be competent for this position. The interview requirements for teachers at the Future Book Room mainly include two points: first, a bachelor's degree or above, with knowledge and cognitive abilities at least at the same level as the users; second, a sense of responsibility, genuinely caring about education and caring for users.
In the process of integrating smart study rooms with intelligent hardware, both people and technology are equally important. Hardware facilities provide fundamental support for the intelligent operation of AI smart study rooms, while operators and teachers play a lubricating role, optimizing the process of user interaction with intelligent hardware to enhance the user experience.
The model of AI smart study rooms inevitably involves the coordination between hardware, resources, and services, which translates to products such as learning machines, accounts, and self-study room scenes. The different balance between these elements also brings different profit models.
In the Future Book Room model, neither direct operation nor franchise involves equipment sales. The most essential aspect of the project is the scene, aiming to create a second study room for children. Zhang Haitao mentioned: "Learning is a very anti-human thing." In the concept of the Future Book Room project, even with the same learning machine and account resources, due to the inherent laziness of children, the enthusiasm for learning at home cannot be guaranteed in the long term. However, in educational scenes such as smart study rooms, the atmosphere and environment can greatly enhance the efficiency of children's learning. The project's profit model mainly relies on membership fees, with a single price of 1,600 to 1,700 per month for learning all subjects, rapidly expanding the number of stores, and each store earning one to two hundred thousand can achieve profitability.
On the other hand, Dushulang's profit logic expands the market to the offline education and training field. Through the scene of AI smart study rooms, users can experience the effects of intelligent learning technology, ultimately leading to the sale of educational hardware, such as learning machines and tablets, essentially still following a "selling" logic.
Whether it is the membership fee logic for services and scenes, or the "selling" logic leaning towards traditional education hardware sales, both have seen relatively successful practices in the two companies.
As the AI smart study room industry is now a hot trend in the industry, smart study room brands of all sizes are emerging like mushrooms after the rain, and various educational smart hardware products on the market are uneven. Is the AI smart study room really a profitable business? In Zhang Haitao's view, due to the introduction of new regulations, practitioners will be passively involved in the competition in the smart study room industry for a period of time, and after the initial intense competition, they will face a process of elimination. Throughout the entire industry, products and technology are always the core competitive strengths—whether they meet the needs of user learning and whether they can truly achieve improved learning outcomes are important issues in actual operations. In the coming years, AI technology will continue to iterate, and companies without the ability to independently develop technology may find it difficult to survive.
Whether the smart study room industry can be profitable mainly depends on "products" and "people." The iterative capabilities of resources and technology, as well as the management and operational capabilities of talent, are core elements in industry competition. The future integration of artificial intelligence technology and education will become increasingly close, and intelligent educational hardware products, language large models, and more will undergo deeper evolution. For quite a long time, the AI smart study room industry will remain a dynamic and fiercely competitive industry full of innovation.
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