LONDON — May 13, 2026 — Eedi Labs today announced it has been selected by Accelerate, a leading US education nonprofit, for its second Call for Effective Technology (CET) grant program. The initiative will bring Eedi’s math-focused AI Tutor trials to middle school classrooms in two US school districts, joining a national effort to evaluate how AI can solve persistent instructional challenges.
Selected from a competitive pool of 87 applicants, Eedi will participate in a year-long evaluation to assess whether its approach improves student outcomes and to determine the cost of implementation. The project seeks to address the widening "Math Gap" highlighted by the 2024 NAEP report, which found that nearly 40% of US eighth graders performed below "Basic" levels in mathematics.
“When children leave school without basic math skills, their economic options narrow dramatically, exacerbating inequality,” said Ben Caulfield, CEO of Eedi. “It is impossible for a teacher in a classroom of 30 to offer the precise, individualized support every student needs to stay at grade level. Eedi’s mission is to find scalable, evidence-based ways to provide that intervention.”
Accelerate’s CET program generates actionable, research-backed insights on what does and doesn’t work in classrooms. By focusing on student outcomes, the program equips educators and policymakers with the data needed to make informed decisions about which tools to adopt and scale.
“Focusing the conversation on student outcomes, and what the evidence tells us about how to improve them, is core to Accelerate’s work,” said Kevin Huffman, CEO of Accelerate. “AI tools should meet the same standard we have set for other learning interventions, with rigorous testing and transparency on effectiveness and implementation requirements.”
While Eedi has established a "gold standard" for efficacy in the UK, this partnership marks a significant milestone for the company’s expansion into North America.
“This will be Eedi’s first randomized controlled trial (RCT) in the United States so we’re excited to get started,” said Bibi Groot, Chief Impact Officer at Eedi. “As part of our work with Accelerate, we will deliver on the robust design required by ESSA Tier 1 certification and generate clear and transparent evidence of whether and how an AI Tutor supports better learning outcomes for students”.
Eedi’s "constrained" AI Tutor is designed specifically to avoid the pitfalls of general chatbots. Grounded in Eedi’s Diagnostic Engine, it activates when a student’s response to a diagnostic question reveals a specific misconception. The AI then engages the student in a brief, text-based conversation to resolve that specific misunderstanding before returning them to the lesson. Eedi’s model employs human-in-the-loop supervision to ensure safety and pedagogical alignment of AI outputs.
This design is a deliberate response to evidence that unconstrained AI can harm learning by encouraging "cognitive offloading," ensuring students remain actively engaged in the learning process.
Eedi enters the 2026-27 CET cohort with a strong foundation of research:
The upcoming US implementation will focus on study populations of at least 500 students, providing the structured data required to scale effective, tech-enabled solutions across the US.
Eedi is an education impact lab on a mission to demonstrate measurable learning gains for one billion students by 2030. Eedi’s AI Tutor is powered by Eedi’s diagnostic engine, an infrastructure product that identifies and maps students’ misconceptions in math in real time. Eedi's diagnostic engine can be integrated into any edtech tool or LLM. Learn more at eedi.com
Accelerate is a national nonprofit that helps states turn strong evidence into real results for students. Through grantmaking, research, and partnerships, Accelerate ensures that proven strategies in public schools translate into measurable gains in classrooms nationwide. Its Call for Effective Technology (CET) program evaluates the integration of AI and tech-enabled tools in education. For more information, visit www.accelerate.us.