AI Appu to tutor children in India

Vishal Sunil, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, Rocket Learning speaks at the launch of an AI-powered tutor – Appu – which offers conversational and personalised learning experiences for children aged 3-6 in India on March 19, 2025.
| Photo Credit: PTI

Rocket Learning, a Bengaluru-based ed-tech non-profit organisation, with support from Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google, has introduced Appu, an AI tutor for personalised learning for children in the age group of 3 to 6 years in India.

Appu would offer multilingual conversational learning experience, starting with Hindi, while 20 other Indian languages would be supported soon including Marathi and Punjabi, the company said.

According to Rocket Learning, Appu, which was built with a $1.5 million grant from Google.org, is being piloted by thousands of children and is expected to reach 50 million families by 2030, including government-run Anganwadi centres and pre-schools nationwide. The product leverages advanced Large Language Models (LLMs) for complex reasoning tasks, speed, and efficiency.

Vishal Sunil, Co-Founder and CTO, Rocket Learning, said, “Appu is the future of learning — AI-driven, intuitive, and designed to evolve. With 85% of brain development happening by age six, early childhood education is the next frontier in human capital. Appu is designed to elevate India’s IQ, maximise its demographic dividend, and bridge the AI divide.”