Frequently Asked Questions

Bloom is an AI learning platform for schools and universities. It brings together AI tutors and coaches, interactive learning workspaces, tools for creating teaching materials, and educator insights. Educators can configure the experience around their courses and teaching approach.

Bloom is designed for educators and educational institutions to deploy with their students. Educators use Bloom to support teaching and learning within their classes, while institutions can roll it out at scale with features like SSO, LMS integration, and centralized user management. Bloom is most commonly used in secondary schools and universities, where it integrates directly into existing teaching workflows.

Individual educators can sign up directly and start with Bloom's free plan. If you're exploring Bloom for a school, university, or larger rollout, contact our team to discuss pilots, institutional pricing, onboarding, and procurement requirements.

Yes, Bloom is available globally. We have users across Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Asia.

Bloom works on any modern web browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge) on desktop, laptop, tablet, or mobile devices. There's no app to download. Simply access Bloom through your browser.

Yes. We offer structured pilot programs for institutions considering Bloom. Pilots allow you to evaluate Bloom with a subset of students or courses, with defined scope, outcomes, and support. Pilot programs are typically costed and can be credited toward a full deployment if you proceed. Contact us to discuss a pilot suitable for your institution.

Bloom is built for teaching and learning, with course materials, educator controls and visibility into student learning in one platform. Educators can shape the support students receive, including explanations, worked examples, questions and practice. The aim is to help students understand and use what they learn, with guidance appropriate to the course and learner.

Bloom combines student-facing AI tutoring with tools for educators to create teaching materials, configure support and review learning activity. Educators can choose how much guidance their tutors provide, from questions and hints to worked solutions. Bloom supports a range of instructional approaches around the course, rather than prescribing a single teaching method.

It depends on the educator's settings. Bloom's Default preset emphasises questions and limited guidance. Custom settings can allow explicit explanations, worked solutions and direct answers. Seeing a solution can be useful instruction, particularly when a learner is new to a topic; explaining the reasoning and practising a related task then help build independence. Educators set the boundaries for their course and assessment context.

Educators can upload slides, papers, syllabi, and other course materials to create a 'Teaching Space'. Bloom indexes these materials using our proprietary technology (including knowledge graphs and Retrieval Augmented Generation) so that responses to students are grounded in your approved content. Every answer can cite the specific page or slide it's referencing.

Bloom supports PDF, DOCX, PPTX, and other common document formats. You can drag and drop files directly into the platform, and materials can be added or removed from your Teaching Space at any time.

No AI system is completely free from errors. Bloom is designed to minimize inaccuracies by grounding responses in your course materials rather than relying on general web knowledge. Bloom also cites sources so students can verify information themselves. At an institutional level, we monitor usage patterns and continuously refine performance, which significantly reduces the kinds of hallucinations seen in general-purpose AI tools.

Bloom supports understanding and independence through guidance matched to prior knowledge and task complexity. Explanations, worked examples, questions, scaffolding and practice all have a place. Cognitive Load Theory supports more guidance for novices learning complex material, with support fading as expertise grows. Active learning, metacognition and self-regulation also inform our approach. Educators configure the support; Bloom does not automatically choose an ideal method every time.

Yes. Bloom Managers and Space Owners can use the Pedagogy tab to keep the Default preset or, on a paid plan, choose Custom to customize writing feedback, model writing, solution steps, answer provision and code assistance. Educators without either role can ask their Bloom Manager or Space Owner to adjust these settings. Match them to your learners' prior knowledge, the task and your assessment expectations. The Default preset is a starting configuration, not a recommendation for every learner.

If a question falls outside your uploaded course materials or Bloom's knowledge, it will acknowledge this honestly rather than fabricating an answer. Bloom may suggest the student consult their teacher or other resources for questions it can't confidently answer.

Bloom helps educators in three main ways: (1) Providing students with 24/7 tutoring support so they get help when you're not available; (2) Reducing repetitive student enquiries (institutions using Bloom have seen up to 94% reduction in admin emails); (3) Giving you insights into what students are struggling with through analytics dashboards, so you can focus your teaching time where it matters most.

Assistant Mode is a suite of educator tools built into Bloom. It helps you create quizzes, worksheets, and custom exercises with answer keys; generate feedback for students; explain tricky concepts; draft messages to parents or students; write report card comments; and handle other administrative tasks, all grounded in your course materials.

Yes. The educator dashboard provides insights into student engagement, common questions, and areas where students are struggling, without requiring you to review every individual conversation. This helps you identify topics that need more classroom attention.

Setting up Bloom is straightforward: (1) Upload your course materials (slides, readings, syllabus); (2) Optionally configure Bloom's teaching persona; (3) Invite your students, or share an access code. The whole process can take 10 minutes or less.

Yes. You can create multiple Blooms for different courses or classes, each with its own course materials and configuration. Students only see the materials relevant to their enrolled courses.

Yes. Bloom offers full LTI 1.3 compatibility, which means it integrates seamlessly with Moodle, Canvas, Schoology, Brightspace (D2L), Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams, Blackboard, and other LTI-compatible platforms. Students can access Bloom directly from within your LMS. We typically implement our LMS integration with our larger institutional deployments.

Yes. Each Bloom is scoped to the materials you upload. If you don't want Bloom to help with certain topics (for example, topics covered in an upcoming exam), you can remove those materials. You can also provide instructions about what types of questions Bloom should or shouldn't answer.

Bloom's educator dashboard shows engagement metrics (active users, session time, questions asked), topic insights (what students are asking about, common struggles), and AI-powered summaries of student learning patterns. These insights help you understand where students need additional support.

Bloom can help you understand course material through explanations, examples, questions and practice, within the settings your educator has chosen. You might study a worked example, explain why a step works, then try a related task yourself and use feedback to improve. The goal is to build knowledge you can use independently.

Bloom works across all disciplines, from STEM subjects (with built-in equation editors and code environments) to humanities, social sciences, business, and more. The key is that your educator uploads the relevant course materials, which Bloom then uses to provide subject-specific tutoring.

Yes. Bloom includes a built-in LaTeX equation editor for mathematics, making it easy to type and discuss mathematical notation. For programming, Bloom understands many programming languages and can help you debug code, understand algorithms, and learn programming concepts.

How you use AI matters. Use explanations and examples to understand a method, then check what you can do independently and act on feedback. Research on other AI tutors has found both learning benefits and risks of over-reliance in particular settings; those results do not establish Bloom's effects. Educators can configure support and review student work, but no setting guarantees learning.

Absolutely. Bloom can help you review course material, work through practice problems, test your understanding with interactive quizzes, and identify areas where you need more study. Because Bloom is grounded in your course materials, it's focused on what you actually need to know for your assessments.

Yes! One of Bloom's key benefits is 24/7 availability. Whether you're studying late at night, over the weekend, or during holidays, Bloom is there to help. This is especially valuable when your teacher or tutor isn't available.

Bloom is intended to support your learning and your own work. Depending on your educator's settings, it can provide writing feedback, model sentences or paragraphs, and worked solutions. Use these to understand and practise the relevant skills, and follow your course's rules on AI assistance and assessed work. Educators can restrict how much writing, working and answer support Bloom provides.

Bloom offers multiple learning interfaces: a document viewer where you can read through slides or papers while Bloom follows along; a canvas interface for working through problems with Bloom guiding you; and AI-native assessments with interactive quizzing beyond just multiple choice.

We work directly with institutions to deploy Bloom across departments, faculties, or the entire institution. This includes SSO integration with your identity provider, LMS integration via LTI 1.3, bulk user provisioning, and centralized$ administration. Our team provides onboarding support and training for educators.

Yes. Bloom integrates with your institution's Single Sign-On system, allowing students and staff to access Bloom using their existing institutional credentials. We support OpenID Connect (OIDC), SAML 2.0, OAuth, and other standard protocols.

Bloom supports hierarchical organisation structures. Administrators can manage access at the institutional, faculty, department, or course level. Each Teaching Space can have its own materials and configuration, while central administrators maintain oversight and governance.

We provide dedicated support for institutional clients including: implementation and technical integration assistance; educator onboarding and training; ongoing customer success management; regular check-ins and usage reviews; and priority technical support.

Absolutely. We encourage institutions to run a pilot with a subset of courses or students before committing to a full deployment. This allows you to evaluate Bloom's impact on learning outcomes, student satisfaction, and educator workload in your specific context.

Yes. In addition to course-level analytics for individual educators, institutions receive aggregated reports on platform usage, engagement trends, and learning insights across the organisation. These can support reporting on AI adoption and educational technology investments.

Institutions retain full ownership over all course materials and student data. Your content remains your intellectual property, and no other institution can access or use your proprietary materials.

Yes. Security is core to Bloom. We use AES-256 encryption for data at rest and TLS encryption for data in transit. Our platform has been penetration tested by CyberCX, a leading cybersecurity firm, with no high or critical issues identified.

Yes. Bloom is designed to be FERPA compliant. We can execute a Data Processing Agreement (DPA) with educational institutions and act as a 'school official' under FERPA, with access to student education records limited to the educational purposes for which we're engaged.

Yes. We comply with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and UK GDPR. We support data subject rights including access, deletion, and portability requests. For EU/UK users, we have appointed DataRep as our local representative.

Yes. Bloom AI Pty Ltd is an Australian company and complies with the Australian Privacy Principles under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).

Data from paid institutional accounts is never used for model training. For free accounts, de-identified data may be used to improve Bloom by default, but users can opt out at any time. This is a key differentiator from many generic AI tools.

We host data primarily on Google Cloud in Australia. For institutions with specific data residency requirements, we offer flexible options to store data in different regions to ensure compliance with local data protection laws.

Yes. We support data access requests, deletion requests, and data portability where applicable. Users can contact us at privacy@bloom.study to exercise their data rights.

Yes. We offer multi-factor authentication to add an extra layer of protection to user accounts. Combined with SSO integration, this ensures robust access security for institutional deployments.

Institutional pricing is based on the number of seats and the features required. Contact us for a customized quote based on your institution's needs.

As an education-focused company, our pricing is already designed with educational institutions in mind. We work with institutions of all sizes, from individual schools to large university systems, and can structure pricing to fit your budget and procurement processes.

Institutional plans typically include: unlimited Teaching Spaces; SSO and LMS integration; educator and admin dashboards with analytics; priority support; dedicated customer success management; and regular product updates. Specific inclusions depend on the plan level.

We're committed to making quality AI tutoring accessible. If your institution faces budget constraints, reach out to discuss options. We also partner with research institutions on grant-funded projects that can provide access to Bloom.

It can be, depending on the tutor, learners and context. A 2025 Harvard trial in undergraduate physics found greater learning gains with a purpose-built AI tutor than with the active learning lessons it compared. It did not test Bloom or establish that AI tutoring is always better. Bloom needs evaluation in its own teaching contexts, including what students can do without AI support.

No, and that's not our goal. Bloom is designed to augment and support educators, not replace them. AI tutoring is most effective when combined with quality human instruction. Bloom handles repetitive questions and provides 24/7 availability, freeing educators to focus on the high-value work that only humans can do: mentoring, inspiring, and guiding students.

AI can help with practice without improving independent performance. In a high school mathematics trial, students using AI without learning safeguards performed worse when access was removed; a tutor with safeguards mitigated that harm. The study did not test Bloom or show that explanations and worked examples are harmful. Assistance needs to connect to understanding, practice and feedback.

Yes. We collaborate with universities including UNSW Sydney, University of Newcastle, and University of Technology Sydney on research into AI-powered learning. We recently secured a $480,000 grant from Australia's Economic Accelerator in partnership with UNSW to advance pedagogical AI research.

Institutions using Bloom have reported: 97% student satisfaction rates; 1.5x higher course retention; up to 94% reduction in repetitive student enquiries to teaching staff. These results come from real deployments across universities and schools worldwide.