Arco Educação uses GPT-4 to improve teaching and learning in Brazil

Arco Educação, Brazil’s largest educational operating system, is partnering with OpenAI to build tools that enable teachers to concentrate on what matters most: helping students learn. “Arco’s products were built by teachers, for teachers,” says CEO Ari de Sá Cavalcante. “Our AI strategy aims to free up educators’ time, enabling them to focus more on each student's unique learning journey.” 

In Brazil, the average teacher spends a third of their time on administrative tasks, which is 40 percent more than the global average (OECD 2018). The rest of their time is spent on lesson planning, grading, and other operational activities. Arco Educação is leveraging AI to reduce this burden, allowing teachers to dedicate more time to delivering quality teaching directly to their students.

Active in over 11,000 schools across all 27 Brazilian states, Arco’s trusted name and deep relationships with schools have provided the company with unique insight into the daily challenges teachers face and where artificial intelligence can make a meaningful impact. 

After evaluating various generative AI models, Arco chose OpenAI for three key reasons:

1. Superior performance in Brazilian Portuguese: Arco’s data science team conducted rigorous experiments and found that GPT-4 achieved a 90% accuracy rate in creating and assessing pedagogical content in Portuguese, compared to 73% from the next-best model.

2. Quality & reliability: In tests where Arco’s pedagogical team evaluated generated questions, GPT-4 had a 70% approval rate, significantly higher than the 56% approval rate of the second-place model. Arco was also able to take advantage of fine-tuning with GPT-4 to iteratively improve on quality. 

3. Cost efficiency: Arco employs a mix of OpenAI models to balance cost and performance. By fine-tuning lighter models like GPT-4o mini and GPT-3.5, Arco maintains high-quality results while managing costs.

Lesson planning is one of the most time-consuming responsibilities for teachers, especially when navigating classrooms with diverse learning needs such as autism, attention deficit disorder, hyperactivity, or dyslexia. Over 1.7 million students are enrolled in special needs programs in Brazil, so developing inclusive lesson plans can have a large impact. Currently, teachers will work with inclusion support centers to develop a complete individualized education plan (IEP) for each student, which can take hours of planning for each class. The Teacher Assistant is designed to significantly speed up this process. Fernando, a high school teacher, says, “The Teacher Assistant allowed me to optimize my time, saving me hours that I used to spend on tasks such as creating lesson plans and designing classroom activities aligned with the course curriculum. The Teacher Assistant provides suggestions that serve as a gateway to new ideas. With more time for what truly matters, students are positively impacted.”

The Teacher Assistant helps teachers create general lesson plans and then tailor them to individual students’ needs, particularly those with learning disabilities. This tool was developed by codifying inclusion archetypes and protocols with the guidance of pedagogical and inclusion experts. Arco then uses OpenAI models to enable teachers to adapt questions and activities based on each student’s profile. Now, teachers can generate personalized lesson plans simply by describing the student’s inclusion needs to the Assistant. To maintain privacy, only the teacher can access the uploaded student data. Marcia, a high school Director of Curriculum and Instruction shares, “The Teacher Assistant gives teachers more confidence and autonomy. For a parent with a child with diverse learning needs, knowing that the school has a plan and tools that provides inclusion and a personalized plan to this student is wonderful.”

Arco is beginning to pilot the Teacher Assistant in 50 schools, with plans to scale to 600 schools by the end of the year, reaching approximately 70,000 students. Throughout 2025, Arco aims to roll out these solutions to their entire customer base of over 3 million students. This phased approach will include continuous testing and refinement of the tools’ quality and reliability. In the long run, Arco aims to expand its reach to include both public and private K-12 schools in Brazil and throughout Latin America.

Arco Educação’s commitment to leveraging AI and technology for educational quality is building the foundation for transforming the educational landscape in Brazil. By putting teachers at the center of their strategy, Arco is at the forefront of bringing AI-driven educational innovation to classrooms across Brazil and beyond.