Profe Gabi — WhatsApp Generative-AI Mentor for Novice Teachers in Chile (IDB Pilot with 550 Teachers)

Chile's National Induction and Mentoring System reaches fewer than 1% of eligible novice teachers because human mentoring is capacity-constrained.
Profe Gabi is a generative-AI chatbot on WhatsApp that offers on-demand mentoring in three areas: pedagogical practice, socio-emotional well-being and career development, drawing on the content of the national mentoring system.
In an eight-week pilot with 550 novice teachers, the tool reached more than three times the number of teachers served by the national programme, and users reported high satisfaction. Engagement, however, declined significantly over the pilot, which the authors treat as the main implementation challenge for sustained adoption.
The published working paper (Elacqua, Hermosilla, Kutscher and Del Toro Mijares, IDB, December 2025) reports no comparison group or learning outcomes; an RCT of effectiveness is planned as a follow-on. Evidence is therefore of feasibility and uptake, not impact.

Read the full analysis: https://publications.iadb.org/en/scaling-teacher-support-piloting-profe-gabi-ai-powered-mentoring-chatbot-novice-teachers-chile