How Preply combines AI and human tutors to personalize learning

How Preply combines AI and human tutors to personalize learning

Preply uses OpenAI to launch AI-generated lesson summaries, providing personalized feedback and language learning exercises.

Results

95%

ChatGPT weekly active usage among Preply employees

Results

70%+

Tutors actively use AI-powered Lesson Insights

Results

70%

Product market fit score

Results

4.7/5

Satisfaction rating for Lesson Insights

Preply is the world's largest marketplace for online language learning, connecting more than 100,000 expert tutors with learners across more than 180 countries. Through personalized one-to-one instruction across more than 90 languages, Preply’s mission is to make high-quality language education accessible to anyone, anywhere.

Language learning is fundamentally human. It requires conversation, confidence, motivation and cultural understanding. While Preply tutors provide irreplaceable energy, motivation, cultural nuance, and human connection for learners, they also face repetitive tasks: writing personalized plans and lesson notes. Students, meanwhile, often require a clear sense of progress to keep engagement high.

Preply saw an opportunity to use AI to strengthen—not replace—the relationship between tutors and learners. The result was Lesson Insights, an OpenAI API-powered experience that transforms every lesson into a personalized learning journey.

After each 1:1 lesson, OpenAI analyzes the lesson transcript and generates tailored feedback across grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. Learners receive actionable guidance. Tutors spend less time on administrative work. And both gain a richer understanding of progress over time.

“I think the biggest opportunity in language learning is in personalization. There are so many elements specific to individual humans that are hard, if not impossible, to be captured by humans. AI can do it much better.”

To find the right technology partner, Preply evaluated multiple AI models across language-learning tasks. OpenAI consistently delivered strong performance, while providing the speed, reliability, and production readiness needed to serve learners at global scale.

“We decided to partner with OpenAI because it provides state-of-the-art models for us, which solve problems for our customers,” says Dmytro Voloshyn, Co-founder & CTO, Preply. “It’s now at the center of our ecosystem and how we operate as a company.”

Preply introduced ChatGPT Enterprise across its organization, running company-wide enablement sessions for more than 600 employees across New York, Kyiv, London and Barcelona. Weekly active usage quickly grew from 60% to 95%, helping embed AI into everyday work across teams.

Lesson Insights became the centerpiece of Preply's customer-facing AI strategy. Lessons take place in the Preply Classroom, and with learner consent, the sessions are recorded and transcribed. Insight generation is scheduled a few minutes before the end of the session, so feedback is ready for the tutor and student to review together.

Within minutes of a lesson ending, the learner and their tutor receive a structured, personalized report in their chat thread that includes:

• A summary of key lesson topics
• Grammar corrections and explanations
• Vocabulary highlights and translations
• Pronunciation feedback
• Recommended next steps

Those insights feed directly into Preply’s self-learning exercise engine to generate personalized homework—turning every human lesson into structured practice that compounds over time.

“We were hearing time and time again, ‘How am I doing? Am I getting better? What do I get to do next?,’” says Emily Stott, Staff Product Manager at Preply. “Students wanted a more tangible view of their growth. Now, with Lesson Insights, we're able to understand exactly what you've been talking about, your goals, the topics you've been covering, your tutor’s feedback, and convert that into highly personalized and targeted practice.”

The result is a continuous learning experience that extends far beyond the lesson itself, helping learners build confidence, stay motivated, and make real progress. Instead of treating each session as a standalone event, learners receive guidance that compounds over time—creating a clearer path toward fluency.

Today, Preply uses OpenAI APIs across the organization, supporting customer service workflows, connecting internal systems, and helping teams automate operational processes. Custom GPTs, like its Brand Voice GPT, are embedded into daily workflows, helping teams create content that stays consistent with Preply’s tone, messaging, and brand standards.

The company has also embraced Codex as a core part of its engineering workflow.

“It's the topic I'm most excited about,” says Dmytro. “Codex helps us write code with a speed that was previously unseen. With such a powerful tool, engineers can focus more on architecture in the system as a whole and solving customers' problems.”

Around 94% of Preply engineers use Codex and AI coding assistants for code generation, PR reviews, debugging, and accelerating development workflows. By reducing time spent on routine coding tasks, engineering teams can focus on building new learning experiences, scaling products across languages, and delivering value to tutors and learners faster.

For Preply, AI is no longer a standalone initiative—it's becoming part of how the company builds products, serves customers, and operates day to day.

“There is an amazing opportunity for Preply to combine what humans are the best at—motivation, engagement, energy—with AI as a copilot. AI can handle all of the repetitive and administrative tasks.”

Preply has always had very high engagement on a per lesson basis. But its AI-generated summaries are helping students become even more motivated. The company reports that most active learners still engage with Lesson Insights more than a year later—with both tutors and students providing strong product feedback—boosting overall retention.

“We know AI-powered tools might have an element of novelty,” says Emily. “But if people are coming back and engaging months later, time and time again, that’s a very strong signal of value—learners and tutors find value in our solutions.”

Results:

95% ChatGPT weekly active usage among Preply employees 75% of English-language learners actively use Lesson Insights, powered by OpenAI APIs More than 70% of tutors use the feature Around 75% of active learners continue engaging with Lesson Insights more than a year after adoption 4.7/5 satisfaction rating among tutors and students, from more than 300k ratings received directly on the platform 70% product market fit score, significantly above the threshold often associated with strong customer demand

For tutors like Michelle Garcia Ramos, AI has become a practical teaching assistant—one that helps reduce preparation time while improving the learning experience.

Before Lesson Insights, creating personalized homework assignments and lesson materials could take hours. Now, much of that work happens automatically, allowing tutors to focus on supporting students directly.

“Before I started using Preply's AI feature, I would spend hours and hours prepping for classes and creating homework. But now that time has been cut by more than half.”

For Michelle, the benefit isn't simply efficiency. AI provides ideas, highlights learning opportunities, and helps identify what students should focus on next.

The result is better preparation, more focused lessons, and faster progress for learners.

Treat AI as a cultural transformation, not a tooling rollout: Adoption accelerates when leadership sets a clear strategy, teams are trained to use it, and AI becomes part of everyday work across the business Pick high-impact use cases: It’s better to go deep on a small number of features with clear user value and measurable impact than many experiments that don’t reach quality Build partnerships: Partnering deeply with technology leaders like OpenAI allows businesses to access cutting-edge models and scale efficiently.