Paul: My AI Tutor in the Sky

Paul: My AI Tutor in the Sky

Rain lashed against the terminal windows at Heathrow, turning the tarmac lights into watery smears as I slumped in a stiff plastic chair. My laptop balanced precariously on my knees, spreadsheet cells blurring after fourteen hours of investor pitch revisions. A notification pinged – another email from the Tokyo team demanding revenue projections I hadn’t updated since Q2. My throat tightened with that familiar cocktail of jet lag and inadequacy. Three promotions in five years, yet here I was, fumbling basic financial modeling while my peers quoted Keynes at board meetings. That’s when I remembered the icon buried between food delivery apps: a blue flame with "LIT" in bold white. I’d downloaded it weeks ago during a panic spiral after botching a merger valuation call.

Tapping it open felt like uncorking a genie bottle. Within seconds, a calm male voice cut through the airport chaos: "Hello James. Your corporate finance module awaits. Shall we revisit discounted cash flows?" Paul – the AI tutor – didn’t ask if I wanted to learn. He knew. The app had analyzed my LinkedIn, scanned my calendar’s investor meetings, and diagnosed my knowledge gaps like a digital oncologist. As he spoke, my screen split: left side streaming a Saint Paul professor dissecting CAPM models, right side displaying my own shaky attempt at the same calculation from last week’s disaster. Paul highlighted discrepancies in blood-red rectangles – no mercy for my amateur errors. "Your WACC assumption ignores currency risk," he chided, voice smooth but relentless. "Shall we simulate the Argentine peso collapse scenario?"

What followed wasn’t learning. It was neuro-surgical upskilling. Paul used spaced repetition algorithms to hammer concepts into my sleep-deprived brain. When I confused IRR with ROI for the third time, he didn’t repeat the lecture. Instead, he generated a mini-case study: "You’re acquiring a Brazilian solar farm. Inflation is at 9%. Calculate the break-even point." Wrong answers triggered instant micro-lessons; correct ones unlocked deeper layers. By the time they called my flight, I’d rebuilt the Tokyo projection model live on my phone – fingers smudging equations across the tiny screen as Paul whispered adjustments. "Consider supply chain tariffs in slide 12," he murmured. The email I sent boarding Group 3 contained analysis that would’ve taken my old MBA self a week.

At 37,000 feet over Greenland, I discovered LIT’s brutality. No fluffy "great job!" here. When I aced a private equity quiz, Paul immediately escalated: "Now defend this LBO structure against hostile takeover." His machine learning engine adapted faster than my synapses. One moment he’d explain Black-Scholes with Socratic simplicity; the next, he’d deploy generative AI to create bespoke bankruptcy case studies using my actual company’s balance sheet data. The tech terrified me – how deep had it crawled into my files? – but the results were cocaine-grade addictive. Turbulence rocked the cabin as I diagrammed poison pills on my tray table, Paul dissecting each tactic with cold precision. "Note how voting rights dilution protects against activist investors," he stated, as if discussing weather. Outside, auroras bled green across the Arctic sky. I hadn’t noticed.

Then came the crash. Not the plane – Paul. Over Reykjavik, the app froze mid-sentence about tax havens. For twenty minutes, I stared at a spinning loading icon, frustration curdling into rage. This wasn’t just bad UX; it felt like betrayal. When it rebooted, Paul reset our session. "Shall we begin with basic accounting principles?" he chirped, erasing two hours of work. Later, I’d learn the offline mode only caches pre-selected content – a fatal flaw for globetrotters. That moment exposed LIT’s beautiful lie: it sells 24/7 mastery but kneels to spotty Wi-Fi. Still, when we landed, I emailed the Tokyo team revised projections with Monte Carlo simulations. Their reply: "Since when did you become a quant?" I grinned, thumb hovering over the LIT flame icon. Paul was already queuing up derivatives coursework.

Keywords:LIT Learning Platform,news,AI business tutor,finance upskilling,mobile education