AI Course Tutor Companion
Turn any online course into a 24/7 AI tutor trained on your content so creators lift completion rates without answering every 2am student question.
Course creators sell transformation, but most students never finish. MOOC and cohort completion rates routinely sit in the 5–15% range industry-wide — not because the content is bad, but because one instructor cannot be in five hundred inboxes at 2 a.m. when a student hits Module 3 and freezes on a concept that was obvious in the live call. The creator's business model depends on testimonials, upsells, and referrals from people who completed; every silent dropout is lost LTV, a refund risk, and a hole in the social proof flywheel.
Built for Creators, Solo Founders, Weekend Builders.
The global AI companion market was valued at roughly $18.35 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach $54.19 billion by 2034, reflecting strong adoption of conversational AI across education, wellness, and productivity (Business Research Insights; DataIntelo). Education is a cited vertical in these reports — learners expect Khanmigo-style tutoring UX even in paid cohorts.
Suggested stack: Next.js 14 (App Router) on Vercel, Supabase (Postgres + pgvector), Claude API (Anthropic), Stripe Billing, Teachable + Thinkific webhooks, Ingestion workers. Weekend scope: about 10 hours.
The Problem
Course creators sell transformation, but most students never finish. MOOC and cohort completion rates routinely sit in the 5–15% range industry-wide — not because the content is…
The Solution
Course Tutor Companion is a white-label AI tutor trained exclusively on a creator's course materials — video transcripts, PDFs, slide decks, worksheets, and community FAQs — so…
Market Research
The global AI companion market was valued at roughly $18.35 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach $54.19 billion by 2034, reflecting strong adoption of conversational AI…
Competitive Landscape
Teachable / Thinkific / Kajabi (LMS-native AI) — Increasingly bundle "AI" features inside creator plans: content outlines, quiz generation, lightweight student chat. Pricing is…
Business Model
Starter — $50/month up to ~100 active students; single course, embed widget, weekly struggle digest.
Recommended Tech Stack
Next.js 14 (App Router) on Vercel — Marketing site, creator dashboard, embedded student chat (iframe + postMessage), server actions for uploads; Edge middleware for tenant…
AI Prompts to Build This
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1. Project Setup
Build the weekend MVP of "Course Tutor Companion": upload a course's materials and get a student chat that answers only from them, with citations. Stack: Next.js (App Router), TypeScript, Tailwind, Supabase (Postgres with pgvector, Row Level Security, Storage, Auth with email magic link), Claude (Anthropic API) for the answers, and an embeddings API that returns 1536 dimensions. Deploy on Vercel. Tables (Row Level Security on, each creator reads only their own rows): - courses(id, user_id, title) - modules(id, course_id, title, order_index) - assets(id, module_id, type, storage_path) where type is one of pdf, transcript, slide - chunks(id, asset_id, content, embedding vector(1536), metadata jsonb) - students(id, course_id, email) - conversations(id, student_id, messages jsonb) Screens: /login, /course (upload and modules), /tutor/[courseId] (the student chat). Env vars (names only): NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_URL, NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY, SUPABASE_SERVICE_ROLE_KEY (server only), ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, EMBEDDINGS_API_KEY. Do not build: billing or plans, Teachable or Thinkific connections, struggle detection and digests, adaptive paths, voice, email to students, analytics. Done when: npm run dev starts, you can sign in, and the six tables exist with pgvector turned on and Row Level Security on.
2. Core Feature
Build the one feature that proves the idea: a tutor that answers only from the creator's own content, with links to the source. 1. Upload: split each PDF, transcript or slide text into chunks, embed them, and store them in chunks with the module and asset in metadata. 2. POST /api/chat takes a course id, a student and a message. Embed the question, fetch the top 8 chunks for that course with similarity above 0.75, and call Claude. 3. System prompt: "You are a tutor for {courseTitle}. Answer ONLY using the provided excerpts. If they are not enough, say so and suggest the relevant module. Prefer Socratic hints when hint_mode is on." 4. Return the answer plus citations [{ moduleTitle, assetType, excerpt }] and render each citation as a link to that excerpt. 5. Save the messages to conversations. Refuse medical, legal and financial advice outside the course. Rules: ship the citation links on day one. Creators trust the tutor when they can click through to the exact paragraph. Empty state: with no uploads, show the upload box and one sentence on what is supported. Done when: uploading a sample PDF lets you ask a question it covers and get a cited answer, and a question it does not cover gets a polite "not in this course" plus a module suggestion.3. Landing Page
Build a one-page landing site for Course Tutor Companion, an AI tutor trained on a creator's own course. Hero: "Turn any online course into a 24/7 AI tutor trained on your content." One button: Join the waitlist. Sections: the problem (2am student questions and drop-off), how it works in four steps (upload, train on your content, 24/7 answers with citations, see where students get stuck), a sample answer with a citation link, and an FAQ on accuracy, what it will not answer and student privacy. Waitlist: store the email in a waitlist table in Supabase. No other service. Voice: warm, practical and respectful of the creator's expertise. Done when: the page renders on a phone and a submitted email appears in the waitlist table.
4. Branding Package
Use a design or image tool for this one. A coding agent cannot draw a logo. Brand for Course Tutor Companion: a wordmark and an icon that suggest a helpful margin note. Colors: warm off-white, deep ink and one friendly accent. Type: one readable sans for the interface and a serif for quoted excerpts. Deliverables: wordmark, icon, a citation chip design, and one launch graphic. Done when: each deliverable is saved in one folder and the citation chip reads at 14 px.