JA Boost: Transforming Learning Through AI
March 3, 2025
Guest post by Caroline Jenner, Chief Operating Officer, JA Worldwide
In today’s rapidly evolving world, education must keep pace with technological advancements to equip young people with the skills they need for success. JA Worldwide, with our century-long history of empowering youth, is taking a bold step forward with JA Boost—an innovative, AI-driven learning experience designed not only to personalize and enhance students’ educational journeys but also ensure that JA students are active, innovative participants in shaping the future of work.
Seeing the Vision Behind JA Boost
JA Boost isn’t just another digital tool—it’s a portfolio of AI-powered learning enhancements tailored to JA’s core pillars: entrepreneurship, work readiness, and financial health. By integrating AI into our programs, we aim to make learning adaptive, dynamic, and accessible to students everywhere, regardless of geographic or economic barriers.
At its core, JA Boost is about guiding students through their learning journeys with real-time mentorship, business planning assistance, skill-building exercises, and more, all designed to empower learners to think critically, problem-solve, and develop confidence in their own abilities.
However, JA Boost is not intended to replace human mentors; rather, it enhances the mentorship experience, especially the mentor’s role in building self-belief. Andrew Smith Lewis, CEO and Founder of Alai Studios, which collaborated on the JA Boost prototype, explained: “We want to ensure that AI not only provides guidance but also fosters motivation and belief in students. A well-calibrated AI system can offer encouragement, provide constructive feedback, and create a sense of personal engagement, reinforcing the role of human mentors, rather than diminishing it.”
JA Boost will serve as a scalable support system, providing immediate assistance while allowing educators and mentors to focus on higher-value coaching, personalized advice, and relationship-building. This hybrid model ensures that technology and human interaction work in tandem, creating a powerful and engaging learning experience.
Over the last half-century, most educational-tech advances have widened the divide between traditionally served and underserved students. But because JA operates in so many locations—working closely with local school systems and digital delivery channels, as well as with numerous community partners—we’re in a unique position to help mitigate these disparities of opportunity. JA Boost will help level the technology playing field, bringing AI-driven educational tools to young people in traditionally underserved areas.
Understanding How JA Boost Works
JA Boost is designed to build on existing JA learning experience, starting with enhancements to the JA Company Program, JA’s flagship entrepreneurship program. Through the JA Company Program students create, launch, and run actual businesses, developing critical skills such as teamwork, leadership, and creativity. The experience is hands-on and experiential, ensuring students gain real-world business experience. Many students turn their JA businesses into full-time startups.
When paired with the JA Company Program, JA Boost supports students in three key areas:
JA Boost will also offer additional features that facilitate collaboration, self-paced learning, and AI-driven insights, helping students take ownership of their learning journey. Future iterations of JA Boost will expand into career guidance, financial literacy, and leadership development, ensuring a comprehensive learning ecosystem that evolves with students’ needs.
Rolling Out a Global Initiative
Developing JA Boost has been a collaborative effort, incorporating stakeholder feedback from 21 countries to ensure the platform meets the needs of diverse learners across different regions. JA’s approach prioritizes local adaptability while maintaining global consistency, allowing students worldwide to benefit from AI-powered learning in a way that aligns with their unique educational environments.
The initial phase of JA Boost will involve pilots in a handful of countries before expanding to all six regions. The platform will seamlessly integrate with JA’s existing digital learning infrastructures.
Building the JA Boost Prototype: The Role of Alai Studios
JA Boost will benefit from the innovative work being done by Alai Studios, an AI-focused company dedicated to amplifying human performance. Led by Andrew Smith Lewis, Alai Studios specializes in using AI to enhance human capabilities, ensuring that technology works as a supportive partner rather than a replacement. With a background in AI and human performance, Andrew has been working in the AI field long before it became mainstream.
“Our mission is to use AI to get behind people and push—not automate them out of the equation,” Andrew explains. “We want to ensure that when young people interact with AI, they emerge more capable, more confident, and better equipped for the future.” Alai Studios' approach aligns seamlessly with JA’s mission. Rather than creating AI tools that simply provide information, JA Boost is designed to empower students, simulate real-world problem-solving, and provide personalized mentorship at scale. Andrew adds, "JA already has the brand, the content, and the audience. Our role is to help unlock human potential at scale, making learning both engaging and effective."
Bolstering Support: The EY Global Organization and JA Boost
EY teams will help support the JA Boost prototype. In addition to JA Boost, EY teams have supported JA in several initiatives including two global research studies focused on sustainability and generational perspectives.
Jay Persaud, EY Global Emerging Technology Ecosystem Leader and a JA Worldwide board member, served as a JA mentor to help make sure JA Boost is designed to augment the student’s learning experience. “Volunteering with young people is an important part of the workplace experience and JA was one of those opportunities when I was a young professional, I was able to volunteer for. The EY Ripples’ focus on education and entrepreneurship—and especially on ensuring equity in those areas by leveling the knowledge playing field—makes us a great collaborator for this initiative. JA Boost gives students and teachers the capability to work even more efficiently with JA’s world-class learning content, which will help JA scale and which means reaching even more students and making even more impact.”
When asked about AI’s greatest opportunities, Jay explained that as AI is becoming an agent capable of automating complex and creative tasks and solving complex problems, we’re freed up to work on the most complex challenge of all—people. “If you think about it, AI tools are enabling us to automate complex and mundane tasks, allowing us to shift focus to more strategic thinking. This empowers us to hone the most important skills: understanding and connecting with others. Young people, especially, need time to focus on the people side of business, and AI gives them the time to do this.”
Recognizing What Makes JA Boost Unique
Unlike generic AI tools, JA Boost is built specifically for JA’s educational framework, ensuring that students receive accurate, relevant, and structured guidance. The platform is powered by custom AI codices, which align with JA curriculum and provide region-specific content, making it far more contextually intelligent and pedagogically sound than off-the-shelf AI solutions.
Additionally, JA Boost focuses on active learning, encouraging students to engage deeply with concepts rather than passively consuming information. JA’s approach to education is immersive, experiential, and hands-on—students don’t just learn about entrepreneurship, financial literacy, and work readiness; instead, they actively participate in real-world scenarios, developing and applying skills in tangible ways. JA Boost enhances this learning-by-doing model, providing AI-powered real-time feedback, interactive exercises, and guided self-reflection to reinforce student learning.
By fostering curiosity, guiding exploration, and building confidence, JA Boost supports students in becoming independent, lifelong learners who are well-equipped to navigate the complexities of the modern workforce.
Envisioning the Road Ahead
Over the next two years, JA Boost is set to scale rapidly, with goals to:
Reach 40,000+ students across 400–500 schools in the first two years.
Train 500+ educators to effectively integrate AI-driven learning tools into classrooms.
Expand to at least 10 countries, ensuring global accessibility and impact.
Develop additional AI-driven use cases beyond entrepreneurship, such as career navigation tools, financial literacy modules, and leadership development resources.
As the future of education shifts toward technology-enhanced, personalized learning, JA Boost represents a major milestone in JA Worldwide’s ongoing commitment to innovation. By leveraging AI in a thoughtful, structured way, JA is ensuring that young people across the globe have access to cutting-edge educational experiences that prepare them for success in an AI-driven world.
With JA Boost, the future of learning isn’t just automated—it’s personalized, dynamic, and built for impact.