For Assignment 3, I am introducing EvidentAI, a venture project that I am currently developing and hope to further explore in collaboration with Innovation UBC. EvidentAI is designed to help educational institutions make more informed and responsible decisions when selecting AI and EdTech tools. It brings together research evidence, privacy and governance requirements, educational needs, cost considerations, and human expert review within one structured decision process.
As the project is still at an early stage, your feedback would be very valuable to me. In particular, I would appreciate your thoughts on these two questions:
- From an investor’s perspective, how do you see the potential and value of this venture?
- What aspects of the venture should we strengthen or highlight to make it more attractive to investors?
Thank you very much for taking the time to review the project and share your feedback.
As EvidentAI is currently under active development, I kindly ask that the presentation and related information remain private and confidential and not be shared or published outside the UBC course environment.
Venture Pitch Manouchehr
Elevator Pitch – Manouchehr
FEEDBACK
Hi Manouchehr,
At the moment, I would not invest in EvidentAI, though I think it addresses a really relevant problem in helping organizations make educated decisions about the AI tools they already have access to.
I think the idea has potential, but I’m not sure how it will scale beyond a consulting model, or what would make it difficult for larger AI governance platforms to replicate. I would be interested in revisiting the investment when those concerns are addressed.
As well, both videos have several screens in which the content is cut off (at 1:24, 7:26 of venture video, for example). Just FYI!
Hi, Thanks so much for the feedback!
As I’ve mentioned, EvidentAI is still in development, and input like yours is really helpful as we refine the concept. I’ll definitely take your points on scalability and competition into account moving forward.
FEEDBACK
I thought your pitch addressed a very timely and important problem in education. With so many AI tools becoming available, I really liked the idea of helping schools make more informed decisions based on educational research, privacy standards, and their own organizational priorities rather than relying mainly on marketing from AI companies.
One thing that would have made me more excited to explore the venture further would have been a little more clarity in the elevator pitch about how the platform would actually work in practice. I understood the overall goal of helping schools determine which AI tools they can trust, but I found concepts such as the “decision intelligence platform” and “trusted decision layer” a little difficult to visualize. A brief example of a school using the platform to evaluate a particular type of AI tool would have helped me better understand the user experience and the value it provides.
Overall, I think this addresses a very relevant need in education, particularly as schools continue to navigate the rapidly growing AI market. Great job!
FEEDBACK: Hi Manouchehr,
I thought EvidentAI addressed a very timely problem in education, particularly as institutions face increasing pressure to adopt AI while evidence, governance, and local implementation considerations are lagging behind. I liked the methodology-first approach to concierge MVP which allows the venture to validate its decision process and willingness to pay before investing in a SaaS platform.
From an EVA lens, I am curious about how EvidentAi would operationalize “trust”. Educational AI evidence can be emerging, conflicting, or highly context-dependent and subjective, so how would the framework determine the quality and weighting of different forms of evidence? I would also want transparency around who determines these criteria and how uncertainty or conflicting evidence would be committed to institutions. I think establishing this clearly would better support EvidentAI to become the trusted decision layer it proposes to be.
Overall, nice work on this. It’s highly relevant and this venture has promise and potential.
FEEDBACK
I think EvidentAI addresses a particularly timely institutional problem. Schools and universities are being asked to rapidly evaluate changing AI products while simultaneously considering many factors such as research evidence, privacy, governance, educational value and cost. Having a structured decision process that becomes the standard could create meaningful value.
My main question from an EVA point of view is how much of that value can be turned into a scalable product rather than consulting service. If every institutional decision requires substantial individual expert analysis, growth may be tied to the number of employees able to provide that analysis.
I’d like to see how this product can become repeated software-based analysis as well as understand more about the standout qualities of this product which makes it defensible against larger platforms who might try to replicate the service at scale.
Thank you for sharing!
I found this to be one of the strongest ventures because the problem of AI adoption moving faster than institutional governance is very relevant, immediately identifiable, and can be seen in various organizations. Fragmentation across silos is a problem in any large institution and I can see how difficult it would be to decide which AI tools to purchase when many groups have different objectives. The proposed solution of using AI to provide a report that supports AI-related institutional technology decisions, while still incorporating a human-in-the-loop who reviews the final output prior to making a decision, is a practical response to the problem that could lead to meaningful cost savings.
I also thought the UBC pilot strengthened the venture considerably. Starting in higher education provides a focused environment to validate the platform before considering expansion into other sectors. This makes the growth strategy grounded in testing the concept rather than assuming immediate scalability.
The one area I may have liked to see explored further was the founding team. You refer to “we” throughout the pitch, and while I could see your background on the first slide, I think a brief introduction of yourself and the expertise and experience of the broader team could lend further credibility to the venture. This is really a minor point, but knowing more about the team would further strengthen my confidence in the venture’s ability to execute. This is a great concept, and I look forward to following your progress!
Feedback:
While you have identified a very real pain point, I feel as though there are operational considerations, as well as considerations around the use of an AI tool to evaluate AI. We are still very much in a moment where AI hallucinates and remains prone to biases. I am not sure how the tool would address the elusive ‘trust’ issue.