Proxnote

The rapid adoption of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT has transformed academic writing while creating significant challenges for educators seeking to verify the authenticity of student work. UK universities have reported a sharp increase in confirmed cases of AI-assisted academic misconduct, with unsupervised, take-home assessments presenting the greatest risk.

The resulting demand for academic integrity solutions has driven the anti-plagiarism market to an estimated value of $6.9 billion, growing at approximately 32% annually. Existing providers—including Turnitin, Copyleaks and ZeroGPT—typically charge around $4 per student per year by analysing submitted work for AI-generated text. However, detection-based approaches continue to face criticism over false positives and the ongoing challenge of keeping pace with rapidly evolving generative AI models.

Proxnote takes a fundamentally different approach. Rather than attempting to detect AI-generated content after submission, it combines an online writing environment with a learning management backend that captures and visualises the writing process itself. By measuring learner activity through transparent, objective metrics, Proxnote enables educators to retrospectively assess, trace and validate how a piece of work was produced, providing evidence of authentic authorship rather than relying on probabilistic AI detection.

With approximately 30 million English-speaking students in its initial addressable market, Proxnote represents a serviceable obtainable market of around $120 million, offering a substantial and scalable university spin-out opportunity.