Arman Jaffer, the technologist behind Brisk Teaching, has earned recognition for his innovative work in education. Launched in 2023, this AI Chrome extension is transforming the way teachers manage their workloads. Over 700,000 educators worldwide rely on Brisk Teaching for crafting lesson plans, generating quizzes, and even helping with report cards.
Jaffer’s goal is to help teachers spend less time on administrative tasks and more time engaging with students. “Something that would normally have taken you maybe 20 minutes could be done in two minutes,” Jaffer explained. Before launching the platform, Jaffer worked on cutting-edge projects at Google and in the White House Office of the Chief Technology Officer.
However, it was his extensive experience in education technology at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative that laid the foundation for Brisk. “Teachers didn’t have the capacity to implement modern pedagogies with fidelity,” he shared. Observing teachers struggle to manage a sea of disconnected tools and tabs, Jaffer recognized a deeper issue.
“It’s almost like being an operator rather than being in charge,” he noted. Brisk Teaching was born from the idea of solving this fragmentation. Unlike many edtech solutions that require educators to adopt entirely new systems, Brisk works where teachers are already working—in their browser.
The Chrome extension integrates into existing workflows, automating repetitive tasks. “Our goal was to meet teachers where they are, instead of adding more work for them to do,” Jaffer explained. Brisk Teaching offers features designed to make a teacher’s day easier, from content creation to feedback generation.
Arman Jaffer’s impactful education efforts
One standout capability is Inspect Writing, a tool that provides a detailed version history of student assignments. Unlike traditional AI plagiarism detectors, Inspect Writing offers transparency by showing how students craft their work over time.
“It’s about holding students accountable to their own writing voice and ensuring they engage in productive struggle to improve,” Jaffer said. As AI tools gain traction in education, data privacy remains a pressing concern. Jaffer reassured that the foundation of Brisk Teaching is security.
“We are not sending your data to OpenAI or Anthropic,” he emphasized. Instead, Brisk operates its own licensed language model, ensuring that student data remains within a secure environment. The platform also achieved GDPR compliance in August 2023, making it suitable for educators in Europe.
Brisk is not limited to just providing teacher tools. The company has recently expanded to include features for students, allowing them to receive AI-driven feedback on assignments. “Teachers don’t want their students waiting a week for feedback,” Jaffer pointed out.
With Brisk, students can engage with their assignments in real-time, gaining insights that help them improve immediately. Investors have shown strong support, investing $6.9 million in Jaffer’s San Francisco-based startup, positioning it to revolutionize education technology. Yet Jaffer’s outlook remains grounded.
“I’m an impatient person,” he admitted with a smile. “I wish we had developed more things in the last two years, but I’m incredibly optimistic about the future.”
