Looking back at the development of the field of intelligent education in the first half of 2023, two main lines cannot be ignored: first, educational intelligent hardware products concentrate firepower on large models, and artificial intelligence becomes the core of competition; Second, on the software and service supply side, enterprises focus on cooperation and collaboration. For major companies, in the next exploration, they must not only adhere to the user-oriented, but also be undefeated in the fierce market competition, artificial intelligence is undoubtedly still the main line of development in the second half of 2023.
At present, there are three types of manufacturers participating in the competition of learning hardware products in the market: one is traditional learning hardware companies, such as BBK, Yoshulang, etc.; the second is 3C, hardware consumer goods, such as Huawei, Lenovo, Xiaodu, etc.; The third is the upstart of education technology, such as iFLYTEK, New Oriental, Good Future, Homework Gang, etc. Since the first half of 2023, major smart education brands have frequently launched new hardware products.
On February 6 this year, iFLYTEK launched its new educational hardware product, the AI Learning Machine T20 Pro. The learning machine provides personalized learning solutions for students aged 3-18, supporting functions such as Chinese and English composition correction, mathematics interactive supplementary learning, and English language dialogue. According to the product introduction, the learning machine is designed for the three school-age groups of adolescents and children, and designs precise learning stages such as enlightenment and puzzle, independent auxiliary learning, and academic improvement to help improve students' academic level.
In line with AIGC products such as ChatGPT, on May 6, iFLYTEK officially released the iFLYTEK Spark cognitive large model and application results. At the press conference, iFLYTEK demonstrated its real-time capabilities in text generation, language understanding, knowledge Q&A, logical reasoning, mathematical ability, programming ability and multi-modality. As a result, iFLYTEK became the fifth company in China to officially release a large language model after Baidu, Alibaba, SenseTime and Kunlun Wanwei. The Spark cognitive large model will be applied to a number of iFLYTEK products, and the AI learning machine T20 Pro is the first AI learning machine equipped with a large model.
On the first trading day after the release of the Spark cognitive big model, iFLYTEK's share price rose to close at 63.86 yuan. On June 13, iFLYTEK (002230. SZ) rose sharply, closing at 74.85 yuan per share on the day, up 9.27%, and the stock price hit a record high. Since the beginning of this year, iFLYTEK's share price has hit record highs many times.
The stock price reached a new high, and sales also became a hit. During this year's long-awaited 618 promotion, iFLYTEK AI learning machine ushered in the "618" opening - from May 31 to June 1, iFLYTEK AI learning machine won the sales champion of the three major platforms of JD.com/Tmall/Douyin, an increase of 247% over last year.
On July 6, iFLYTEK released the LUMIE 10 series of AI learning machines, which was unveiled with its powerful functions, excellent performance and innovative design. This is the first vertical large-screen AI learning machine launched by iFLYTEK.
Recently, iFLYTEK released its 2023 half-year performance forecast. According to the report, iFLYTEK is expected to achieve operating income of 7.8 billion yuan and gross profit of 3.1 billion yuan in the first half of the year. As of June 30, 2023, the number of iFLYTEK Open Platform developers was 4.974 million (3.43 million in the same period last year), an increase of 45% in the past year. Among them, after the release of the iFLYTEK Spark cognitive large model, the number of developers increased by 850,000 in two months.
After talking about iFLYTEK, another giant of intelligent education, Hao Future's brand Xueersi, also actively explored and pursued a big model in the first half of the year.
On May 5, Xue Er Si officially announced that a large mathematical model is being developed, named "MathGPT". The model is aimed at mathematics enthusiasts and scientific research institutions around the world, with problem-solving and lecture algorithms in the field of mathematics as the core. It is said that MathGPT is the current core project of Learning and Thinking, which is responsible for CTO Tian Mi, and has started corresponding team building, data, computing power preparation and technology research and development before the Spring Festival this year, and has achieved phased results and will launch product-level applications within this year. In addition, the company has also launched team building in Silicon Valley, and will set up an overseas algorithm and engineering team to recruit excellent artificial intelligence experts around the world.
In addition, Xueersi has said that its learning machine will launch an "AI assistant" within this year, covering composition assistant, speaking assistant, reading assistant, mathematics assistant and other related functions.
NetEase Youdao's performance in the first half of the year was also very dazzling. In early April, NetEase Youdao launched a self-developed ChatGPT model for educational scenarios, called "Ziyue". The AI speaking teacher and Chinese essay correction based on "Ziyue" will be opened for internal testing after the completion of the DEMO and will become the first ChatGPT model in the education scenario launched by domestic enterprises.
In terms of Baidu, its subsidiary Xiaodu Technology launched Xiaodu Qinghe learning mobile phone in May this year, customizing the system for teenagers, providing users with free elementary school courses, comprehensive control of application use, real-time location security protection, and eye-protection screen paper. The learning machine mobile phone is equipped with a small AI learning large model, and supports intelligent functions such as interactive AI lectures, multidisciplinary AI homework assistants, AI speaking, and AI precision learning.
Baidu CEO Robin Li announced the launch of the large-language model-generating AI product "Wen Xin Yiyan" in mid-March; On July 3, Baidu's large-language model product Wen Xin was officially launched on the Apple App Store. In the wave of AIGC artificial intelligence represented by ChatGPT, Baidu took the lead in launching ChatGPT's benchmarking products, marking the official landing of China's first generative large-language model product.
In addition, other categories of education intelligent hardware have also been released, showing the latest achievements of various manufacturers in the exploration of education digitalization.
At the beginning of the school year, iFLYTEK launched a new and upgraded translation pen. The total thesaurus of iFLYTEK translation pen S10 and S11 has been upgraded to 10 million+, and the vocabulary of P20/P20Plus version has been increased to 20 million+. In addition, the product also deeply polished the functions of oral assessment, composition correction, Chinese pinyin learning, ancient poetry and so on.
On April 21, at the "Artificial Intelligence for Digital Transformation in Education" Summit Forum held at the 81st China Education Equipment Exhibition, iFLYTEK released three new products, including "iFLYTEK AI Infrared Smart Blackboard", "Smart Sports New Products" and "AI Reading Booth", showcasing iFLYTEK's latest achievements in the digital exploration of education.
On July 6, at the latest 2023 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, NetEase Youdao unveiled its Youdao dictionary pen, Youdao Audiobao, Youdao AI learning machine and other products, and a number of "black technology products" received industry attention at the conference, and the new picture of future intelligent learning displayed by it attracted attention from all walks of life.
It is worth noting that in the earlier 618 shopping festival, Youdao did hand over a brilliant sales answer: it won the first place in brand sales and sales in the Jingdong electronic dictionary category for four consecutive years, the brand sales and sales double first in the Tmall reading pen category for two consecutive years, and the sales and sales of its own brand in the Jingdong repeater category.
In the first half of 2023, major educational institutions have also actively deployed software and service tracks for intelligent education.
The collaborative cooperation between smart education brands and universities has become a trend, and strong alliances have jointly promoted the integration and development of technology and education.
In early March this year, iFLYTEK and Beijing Sport University held a cooperation signing ceremony. With the goal of "building a smart sports evaluation model, achieving accurate prescription of students' sports and training, and promoting the quality of physical education to a new level", the two parties explored the deep integration of technology and education.
In mid-May, Xueersi released "Learning and Thinking Great Reading". It is reported that the product is a strategic cooperation between Xueersi Online School and the Chinese Department of Peking University, and jointly created with reading experts of the "China Reading 30 Forum", aiming to fundamentally improve children's reading and creative ability by providing all-round reading solutions.
In mid-June, iFLYTEK and the School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences of East China Normal University signed a strategic cooperation agreement to jointly develop the "Youth AI Psychological Companionship Project Based on the Spark Cognitive Big Model", with a view to "providing more accurate and efficient AI self-service stress reduction and caring for adolescent mental health", and exploring the deep integration and application of artificial intelligence technology and mental health education.
Not only that, manufacturers are also actively cooperating with the Ministry of Education officials to provide low-level education technology support for government departments.
At the beginning of the year, Guangdong iFLYTEK Qiming won the bid for the maintenance of the middle school entrance examination management system and related technical service projects of Zhuhai Education Bureau. As a wholly-owned subsidiary of iFLYTEK, iFLYTEK Qiming will provide technical services for English listening and speaking test, answer card scanning and online assessment technical services, and maintenance services for the management system of the middle school entrance examination for the 2023 Zhuhai Intermediate Examination.
This spring, the Affiliated Experimental Primary School of Nanchang Normal University joined hands with Hao Future Smart Education to open up school-enterprise cooperation, implement future after-school service solutions, and use high-quality curriculum resources to promote the all-round development of school students.
At the end of May, the construction project of the national reading standard in mainland China was launched, and iFLYTEK will undertake the construction of the national reading intelligent evaluation system.
In terms of software, brands are also actively using their AI models to empower new online products.
In March this year, NetEase Youdao launched a series of self-developed AI courses - artificial intelligence painting and design, ChatGPT from beginner to proficient, layout "GPT ecology". Among them, the former has a total of 32 class hours, which is divided into four main parts: beginner artificial intelligence painting, advanced artificial intelligence painting, artificial intelligence illustration drawing, and artificial intelligence operation design, involving the teaching of AI drawing software such as Stable Diffusion and ControlNet.
According to the financial report, NetEase Youdao's revenue in 2023 Q1 was 1.16 billion yuan, down 3.1% year-on-year. Gross profit was $601.9 million and gross margin decreased from 53.5% in the same period in 2022 to 51.7% in Q1 2023. Zhou Feng, CEO of NetEase Youdao, said: "Youdao will continue to leverage its technological advantages and continuous innovation capabilities to digitally empower the entire product line, including AIGC, and continuously strive to improve user experience and effect and promote sustainable business growth."
On July 3, Xueersi.com Correction announced the launch of an AIGC course based on self-developed large language models, called "The First Lesson of Artificial Intelligence". Tian Mi, Chief Technology Officer of Good Future Group, revealed: "Since the Spring Festival this year, Good Future has begun the research and development of self-developed large language models, and the first version of its self-developed large model will be available at the end of July at the earliest." According to reports, the artificial intelligence course launched this time is based on the self-developed large language model, and in the future, the good future big model will support more learning products.
Practice has proved that artificial intelligence technology can provide personalized learning, enrich interactive experience, solve problems such as unequal educational resources, and has huge business potential, and enterprises have turned their attention to artificial intelligence.
In early June this year, Tencent and Hao Future took a stake in Shenyan Technology, a company in Beijing that is at the forefront of artificial intelligence and natural language processing technology, especially large-scale pre-training model technology, to systematically reshape the entire process of text information processing for individuals and organizations.
NetEase has also put the exploration and application of AI large models in the first place. Recently, at the provincial conference on the high-quality development of platform economy held in Zhejiang Province, Ding Lei, chairman of the board and CEO of NetEase, said that the current priority of NetEase is to explore the innovative application of AI large models as quickly as possible. In the past three years, NetEase's total R&D investment has approached 40 billion.
Looking back at the first half of 2023, the competition between major companies on the smart education track can be described as colorful. To be user-oriented and undefeated in the fierce market competition, for major intelligent education companies, artificial intelligence is still their main development direction in the second half of 2023. Through the introduction of artificial intelligence technology, enterprises are promoting the upgrading of their products, providing users with a more personalized and rich learning experience, and bringing revolutionary changes to the field of education. With the continuous advancement of artificial intelligence technology and the promotion of innovative applications, we look forward to the continuous development and progress in the field of intelligent education in the future.
As early as 2018, the WWEC Educators Conference named the theme of the sixth conference with the theme of "Future Education", imagining the future education scene, the impact of science and technology on education and the adherence to the essence of education. In the second half of this year, the 9th WWEC Educators Conference, hosted by the China Private Education Association as the guiding unit and hosted by Jiajia Youpin, will be held again in Shanghai on August 20-22, 2023. The conference brought together elites from all fields to help promote continuous progress and innovation in the field of education around the theme of "Education makes life better", and then create a better life and future for people through the power of education.