For AIPOP (using AI to get People Out of Poverty), I'm running a small experiment. I live in the US. In India, eight young people from poor families get guidance every day, not only from me but from my AI assistant, "Raja's AI Bot." It writes the messages, follows up, keeps track of everyone's progress and checks in with me before anything important goes out.
Here's what it's doing right now:
- Three students starting college. It checks in with them every week about classes, assignments and campus life. The goal is to get each of them through the next three years and graduating with skills employers actually want.
- A woman who can't read or write, starting her own food business in Bangalore. Since she can't read text, the AI talks to her in Tamil voice notes. It helped build her business website, and it's now filling out her government food-safety registration with her, step by step. She sends photos of her documents and passes on the one-time code by voice. Government forms that used to need a middleman now just need a phone.
- A young woman finishing an Excel course to move up in her career. She gets daily practice, gentle accountability, and feedback on her own spreadsheets.
- Two graduates becoming entrepreneurs. One is unemployed and the other delivers packages for Amazon. The AI is coaching them to build websites for small shops and businesses in their area. It taught them to host the sites for free on Cloudflare, so their only real cost is a ₹500 domain. They charge only once the shop owner is happy with the site.
None of this needs a big organization, an office or a large budget. It needs one person who cares, a smartphone in each of their hands, and an AI that never gets tired of following up, in their own language.
I think this is what the future of mentorship looks like. One person can now help many, personally and patiently, across oceans.