When we started Valarchi, the obvious pitch was "AI marks your exam papers". We decided early that we would never ship that sentence.
What we built instead: AI suggests the mark, and the teacher confirms it. Every answer. Every student.
Trust is the product
A mark is not just a number. A parent will argue about it. A student will remember it. If a teacher cannot stand behind a mark, the whole system is worthless, however accurate the model is on average.
So the AI reads one answer region at a time, compares it with a locked answer key, and returns a mark with a short reason in a fixed format. It never touches the register. The teacher sees the answer, the suggestion and the reason, and taps to accept or change it.
Faster, because of the order
Confirming is much faster than marking from scratch. And the AI sorts the pile: answers it is unsure about go to the top, when the teacher is fresh. Clear-cut answers come at the end, when a quick glance is enough.
A batch of 40 scripts is cleared in under 20 minutes, and the model's suggestion matches the teacher's final mark nine times out of ten.
The real value is after marking
Once marks are confirmed, they turn into something a principal can use. Which section fell in which subject. Which students made the same mistake, so they can be taught together. What to tell parents, in simple Tamil.
Valarchi in one school
Counts up to 5 Aug 2026.
The numbers above are from one school, up to 5 August 2026.
