Indian AI app ‘PadhAI’ cracks UPSC exam in just 7 minutes; scores 170 out of 200

PadhAI, an artificial intelligence application launched in India, has achieved an impressive score of over 170 out of 200 in the 2024 UPSC preliminary exams, completing the test in just 7 minutes. This score significantly surpasses the usual qualifying mark, which is typically under 100, and positions PadhAI among the top 10 candidates nationally, possibly even at rank 1, according to an official statement.

Developed by a team of IIT graduates, PadhAI showcased its capabilities in a public demonstration at Delhi's The Lalit hotel. The event, attended by notable figures from the education sector, UPSC community, and media, was live-streamed on livestream.padhai.ai and YouTube, making the questions and answers available for public viewing.

Karttikeya Mangalam, CEO of PadhAI, remarked, "This is the highest score achieved in the last 10 years of UPSC exams. We believe that while our event is first of its kind, in a few years, such events will become commonplace as several educational institutions race to solve papers quickly and precisely with AIs."

Designed for UPSC and IAS exam aspirants, the PadhAI app is available on the Google Play Store. It offers multiple features, including MCQ questions, daily current affairs updates, an AI chatbot for real-time query resolution, quizzes, UPSC games, personalised guidance, news summaries, a smart previous year question (PYQ) search, doubt clarification, interactive answer explanations, and book summaries. These features aim to provide comprehensive support to aspirants, utilising AI to enhance and streamline their study process.

PadhAI is poised to compete with other educational AI tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and Meta’s MetaAI. Additionally, it was reported that the audience in person and livestream audience can attempt the exam with AI as soon as the AI starts solving the exam.

“It is like Janta ka Poll, but for UPSC Prelims 2024 exam,” Mangalam said.

Since UPSC deducts marks for wrong answers, students can choose to skip a question if they're unsure about the answer. Similarly, PadhAI also opted to skip a question.

“ChatGPT or Gemini most likely would not choose to skip any question like PadhAI does. One of the key features of PadhAI is that, like a good teacher, it would rather say it doesn’t know the answer and will get back to you instead of misguiding you,” Mangalam added.