We’re excited to announce the new Understood Assistant!

The Understood Assistant is a generative AI-powered tool on our website. It answers your unique questions about learning and thinking differences. And it provides helpful resources from Understood’s expert-vetted content library.

Whether you’re looking for information to help your child, your student, or yourself, the assistant helps you quickly get answers tailored to your unique needs. You can ask general or specific questions, such as: 

• I want to help a new teacher get to know my daughter, who has ADHD. What would you include in an email to her teacher?

• My son gets really overwhelmed at parties and big social events. Do you have any advice on how I can help prepare him for family gatherings and parties during the holidays?

• My 11-year-old student mixes upper and lowercase letters in his writing. He has no spelling or reading fluency problems and no issues with a computer. Can it be dysgraphia?

When you ask the assistant your questions, you’ll get a curated response that includes digestible information, actionable tips, and links to additional resources.

Read on to learn what the engineering manager for the Understood Assistant, Amaury Moulron, has to say about its creation, features, and future on Understood.org.

What inspired Understood to create the Understood Assistant?

Over the years, Understood has built a comprehensive library of resources, including articles, personal stories, videos, podcasts, and educational materials. We saw an opportunity to help people more easily find the information they’re looking for and get answers to their specific questions. So, the Understood Assistant was inspired by our desire to make our content library more accessible and impactful by providing custom answers for our users. 

We recognized that by combining our expert-vetted content with AI technology, we could make it easier for people to find the information they need while maintaining the quality and accuracy of our expert guidance.

One of the most exciting aspects of this technology is its ability to handle complex, situation-specific questions, such as “How do I help my child with dyslexia manage anxiety in the classroom?” The assistant interprets your questions and crafts accurate, human-like responses using generative AI. Then it uses large language models to ensure that the responses come from our expert-reviewed content about learning and thinking differences.

This approach allows us to scale our expert-driven support to reach more families while maintaining the high quality and reliability that our community expects from Understood.

What makes the Understood Assistant unique? 

While there are many AI-powered tools available today, the Understood Assistant is unique because it’s built upon thousands of articles, resources, and tools developed in partnership with experts. In addition, its responses are continually evaluated by experts, including licensed psychologists.

Like our content library on Understood.org, the assistant is also available in Spanish. Providing free expert-vetted resources to the Spanish-speaking community is an important part of our mission. Learning and thinking differences affect all communities. But resources and support have not always been available to non-English speakers.

By combining these elements — our expert-vetted content, AI capabilities, and commitment to multilingual support — we’re creating a unique tool. It can provide personalized, reliable support to a broader community of families and educators navigating learning and thinking differences.

How can AI-powered tools benefit people with learning disabilities?

I can speak to the benefits of AI-powered tools for learning differences from both personal and professional experience. As someone with ADHD, I’ve found these tools invaluable in helping me navigate daily challenges. In a world overwhelmed with noise and constant stimuli, AI helps me find the signal through the noise — whether it’s making decisions, prioritizing tasks, or creating structure in ways that work with my natural thinking patterns.

The impact extends far beyond my personal experience. As a parent of a very active child, I’ve discovered how these tools can be lifelines during challenging moments, providing immediate access to strategies and solutions when I need them most. For educators, AI-powered tools can help them better understand students with learning and thinking differences. And it can suggest differentiated teaching strategies and resources for creating more inclusive classrooms.

What makes these tools particularly powerful is their ability to provide personalized, judgment-free support at any time. While they’re not replacements for human support or professional guidance, they serve as valuable complementary tools that can help bridge gaps and provide additional layers of support for people with learning differences.

How has the chat tool impacted user experience on the website?

So far, we’ve seen a significant positive impact on visitors’ experience on our site. For example, people who come to Understood.org and use the Understood Assistant read twice as many articles. They’re more likely to return to our website, and they’re even more likely to subscribe to our email newsletters. 

These metrics tell us that the assistant isn’t just a helpful tool — it’s fundamentally transforming how users engage with our content and connect with our mission to support people with learning and thinking differences.

How do you envision the Understood Assistant evolving in the future? Are there any features or functionalities you’re particularly excited about?

We have an exciting vision for the Understood Assistant’s evolution that focuses on making it even more accessible and impactful for our users. 

Soon, you'll be able to (actually) chat with the assistant! Later this year, we’ll be adding voice search so you can just ask your questions naturally and get spoken answers. This addition will make the tool more accessible to users who prefer verbal interaction or who might struggle with text-based interfaces, creating a more natural and conversational experience.

We’re also exploring adding more ways to share the assistant’s responses with others who may find the information useful, such as a family member, educator, or pediatrician.

Understood is partnering with other organizations to integrate the Understood Assistant onto their websites. What’s the benefit for folks who use the tool on partner websites? 

We’re collaborating with partner organizations to expand the reach and impact of the Understood Assistant in the context of each partner’s unique mission. By integrating our tool on their website, our partners are able to provide their audiences with tailored access to our expert-vetted content on learning and thinking differences directly from their platform. The tool also draws from their own content, maximizing the resources available to those seeking help.

The integration, which is currently in its pilot phase, includes partners like Learning Heroes, IEP&Me, and Once. By seamlessly incorporating the Understood Assistant into platforms where people actively seek guidance, we offer prompt, expert-vetted support precisely when it’s most crucial.

Try the Understood Assistant. To learn more, visit our FAQ page.