For over a decade, Habitat Learn has supported students with their customisable learning platform. Their work is grounded in the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), helping higher-education institutions build more accessible and inclusive learning environments.

Supported by the Innovate UK BridgeAI programme, the company has advanced its AI-driven transcription platform, Messenger Pigeon, through research into bias and acoustics of different classroom environments. This has enabled Habitat Learn to develop new capabilities using bespoke large language models (LLMs) trained specifically for secure utilisation within the higher education sector.

Challenge

Accurate, scalable note-taking and captioning in lectures has long been a persistent challenge. Most mainstream automated speech recognition (ASR) models are not customisable to higher education settings as they often involve highly specialised academic terminology and abbreviations. They also struggle in real teaching conditions, where acoustics may be poor and speaker accents can differ widely. The use of AI introduces challenges around data security, bias and institutional control, particularly where solutions rely on cloud-based processing and lack transparency or governance.

Solution

Habitat Learn is actively working to meet these challenges head on and currently serves students at over 400 institutions across the UK and North America. Messenger Pigeon is an AI-powered transcription platform which promotes active engagement and learning, supporting learners to engage with notes or long lecture transcripts. The ASR model is trained on human-curated summary notes from over one million academic lectures. This means it delivers more accurate real-time transcription and captioning for technical terms.

Habitat Learn has worked with AI consultants Avanade to create detailed user personas that reflect a wide range of learning needs, including different cognitive profiles, neurodivergences and accessibility requirements.

Impact

The support from BridgeAI has driven market traction, with new Messenger Pigeon licences signed in Canada and the USA, Apple Education Ecosystem Partner status achieved and the Podium cross-campus learning platform launched. This platform enables the deployment of AI directly within classroom environments, supporting on-device processing and ensuring accessibility is delivered securely, consistently and at scale under institutional control.

Foundations for UK-based trials have been laid through a two-year Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP) project with the University of the West of Scotland. The KTP will explore how best to measure impact on student learning outcomes and inform robust frameworks for evaluating student engagement, retention and learning outcomes.

Next steps

Habitat Learn aims to further develop best-in-class research-driven platform capabilities supporting students who face barriers to learning across the globe. With stronger tools and a clearer market route, the company plans to expand its accessible learning platform, scale its AI and platform engineering capabilities, and continue progressing towards wider institutional deployment across the UK of enhanced versions of Messenger Pigeon.

BridgeAI supported key research to enable Habitat Learn to develop a scalable platform for education. Our focus is on moving beyond AI as a standalone tool and embedding it within the learning environment itself. This enables trustworthy AI to be delivered directly within classroom environments, ensuring accessibility is secure, consistent and scalable.

– Jeremy Brassington, Co-founder and Chair, Habitat Learn