AIMAITES reached the final four of the UKRI and Innovate UK Agentic AI Pioneers Prize, competing alongside organisations of every size from across the UK.
With prizes of up to £500,000, the competition sought practical and responsible uses of agentic AI: systems capable of taking purposeful action, coordinating tasks and helping people solve complex problems.
Our selected Creative Industries challenge
AIMAITES responded to “Real-Time Adaptive Media and Experience Design Agents”. The official brief called for an agentic AI system that could support the design and operation of creative experiences which adapt in real time.
Solutions could interpret signals from sound, visuals, biometrics, behaviour and the surrounding environment, then turn those signals into creative inputs. Adaptations had to follow the creator’s artistic rules, safety requirements and operational limits—not simply allow an AI system to change an experience without clear boundaries.
The challenge also required transparency and human control. Systems could keep a record of why each decision was made, what action was taken and how behaviour changed over time, while giving creators straightforward ways to understand, review and override the system.
How our work responded
Our response applied that real-time adaptive-experience challenge to learning. AITutoring.me can respond to a learner’s voice or text, their answers and the areas in which they are struggling, adapting explanations, interactive drawings and subsequent practice while keeping the intended learning goal and safety boundaries in view.
The wider brief encouraged simulation and rehearsal before live use, coordination between agents responsible for sensing, creative decisions, safety and content delivery, and analytics that help creators improve the experience over time. These ideas closely matched our work on making adaptive support observable, testable and controllable by the educators and learners using it.
This pioneering technology is now being used to power AITutoring.me, helping the platform deliver responsive, personalised learning experiences while keeping educators and learners in control.
Reaching the final four
Being selected for the final stage was significant because the prize was open to companies and universities of any size. AIMAITES progressed alongside established teams working at the leading edge of UK artificial intelligence.
The ceremony brought together people from industry, research and government to discuss both the opportunities and responsibilities associated with agentic AI. Explainability, ethics, safety and real-world impact were recurring themes—and they closely reflect the principles guiding our work in education.
What we took from the experience
The final was an opportunity to test our thinking against ambitious work from other sectors and to demonstrate why education needs AI that is useful, accountable and designed around the people it supports.
Reaching the final four strengthened our commitment to building AITutoring.me as more than a generic chatbot. Our aim is a learning system that notices what a student needs, helps them understand rather than simply supplying an answer, and makes genuinely personalised support more accessible.