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PermanenceAI-operated search engine that competes with Google and Chatgpt has participated with the identity verification company Mustard Companies announced on Monday to offer free premium service of up to two years to over 264 million students worldwide.
The deal deal with an important challenge for AI companies: providing educational access to expensive equipment while preventing discount fraud. Perplexity education is making heavy bets on the market as competition for users is fast in the entire industry.
Under the agreement, verified students can access Special supporterUsually $ 20 per month price, through the verification platform of the Sherid, connects to more than 200,000 official data sources in 190 countries. This program will be available to all universities and secondary students globally Mustard Provides verification, eligibility to 264 million students worldwide. This offer includes characteristics such as research, intensive report and interactive AI applications quoted.
Partnership comes as AI adoption among students, 86% of American students have used AI tools, according to companies, have used AI tools. However, rapid growth has led to concerns about the requirement of AI devices designed for educational integrity and especially educational use.
How advanced verification technology prevents sophisticated student exemption fraud
MustardA portland -based company established in 2011 has created its own business to solve a frequent problem for retailers and service providers: verifying that consumers actually relate to eligible groups for special discounts, such as students, military personnel or health workers.
“We verify the data of the customer audience, and then we enrich the brand CRM with this first party data, so that they can fully attach their most loyal audiences,” in a special interview with venturebeat, by the chief revenue officer of Shirda, Rebecca Grims. “Our platform has been created so that we can distribute this comfortable, safe and fast experience for their consumers.”
The verification process starts with basic information like name, date of birth and university. Mustard The official data immediately investigates against the sources, in which Grims stated that the company has formed relations with more than 14 years in business. If immediate verification fails, the system proceeds to review the document using both AI-operated analysis and manual verification.
“If we are unable to process through our official data sources, then there is an aging step where you add a document,” Grims said. “Once it goes into our system which is another layer of supplementary review which is automated with our AI Document Review Process, in some cases, automatic through manual doctor review.”
The company can complete this secondary verification process globally in an average of 15 minutes, said Grims said.
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The partnership reflects the increasing refinement of fraud in student discount programs. Jesse Dwire, head of communication in Perplexity, stated that the company’s focus on accuracy especially makes it valuable for academic users who require reliable information.
“For most AI model manufacturers, for most AI model manufacturers, a certain amount of hallucinations is a feature, and for perplexity, it is a bug.” “This is something that we get the value of academics, students give importance to it, finance professionals give it great importance.”
Unlike the contestants who train the AI model on user data, DWYER said that Perplexity does not use customers’ information for training purposes. “We don’t train your data,” he said. “The model is not really trained on your data.”
Mustard A software-A-A-Service works on the model, charging for platform access, verification processing volume and support services. The company, which has about 160 employees with offices in the US and Europe, work with major brands including Amazon, Spotify and T-Mobile.
According to a study commissioned by Sherid Forester counselingCustomers using the company’s verification platform achieved one 337% return to investment Through increased revenue, prevention of fraud and operational savings.
How is the goal of defeating Chatgpt and Google for student users in fighting
AI companies rapidly target education market. Permanence The accuracy and source separates themselves from big contestants such as chatgpt of Openai and Google’s search tools by emphasizing attention.
“What we do with the third party model, we optimize two forms,” Dwire explained. “We create our own in-house model that looks at the query you are asking … We are improving the questions. So you ask a question, AI what is good, it can ask the same question in 1000 different ways.”
This focuses on accuracy that concerns can be addressed among teachers about AI devices that can generate admirable-dhwani but incorrect information. Dwyer stated that the approach to verification aligns with educational values around the creation of knowledge through verified sources.
“The colleague review system was developed to create a sense of accuracy … so that future generations could build on that established knowledge,” he said.
The actual cost of giving millions of free AI services to students
Student access is a major investment for the program PermanenceHowever, company officials refused to specify the cost. Dwire said that unlike traditional software, the AI tool has direct computational costs for each query.
“Every query has a direct cost in terms of calculation,” Dwire said. “This is something that we take care of, and we build our partnership.”
However, the company sees strategic values in having a relationship with academic users. Unlike several technical companies magical through advertising, Dwire said the advertisements represent “less than one percent of our revenue” and the company does not sell user data.
The partnership provides shiyid with rapidly growing AI market exposure. Grims compared the current moment compared to the early days of music streaming, when Sherid began working with Spotify and other services.
“I think we are going to watch similar global programs in the AI industry, only beyond being attached to the students, who needed services like Shireed to support their success,” she said.
How the student data remains preserved in the era of AI privacy concerns
Both companies emphasized their approach to data secrecy, especially given the recent concerns about the use of individual information from AI companies. The shayid operates as a data processor instead of the controller, which means that the customer data belongs to the brand partner instead of the sheerid.
“We are processors, so we are not a controller, so we are only processing that data from that brand,” Grims explained. “We do not control the ownership of that consumer data.”
The verification system sees additional signals beyond documents to prevent fraud, including IP address location and proximity to claimed universities. Grims stated that it allows the triangle of all these procedures and data to be “confidently” to confirm the eligibility or disqualification against a proposal. “
What does this partnership indicate for the future of AI in education
The partnership reflects extensive trends in both AI and identity verification industries. Mustard In recent years have expanded rapidly, new products have been launched for in-store verification and income-based eligibility check. In June 2024, the company appointed former Ruby CEO Stephani Copland Weber as CEO, as the founder Jake Vederli infected in the role of a board.
For PermanenceEstablished in 2022, the education market represents a natural fit for its research-focused AI devices. The company globally conducts more than 150 million questions weekly and deploy itself as a “answer engine” that provides citrus information rather than generating creative materials.
Comprehensive partnership comes amidst comprehensive investigation Role of Ai in EducationStarting with questions with institutions Academic integrity And proper use of AI tool. By emphasizing the need for verification and accuracy, the aim is to remove these concerns by expanding access to AI capabilities.
“We will encourage any type of teachers and universities or researchers to reach out and try seriousness,” Dwire said. “We are one of the few major technical companies that have been established not only by a PhD student, which is quite common, we are actually established by the one who fulfills our PhD.”
