EnglishPapa’s AI shift: automate content, keep learning human
SIARHEI SULIMAU, CEO/Founder of EnglishPapa (MATCH.EXPERT), discusses a business offering personalized English courses for individuals and organizations. The conversation looks at where AI can speed up content work, why student relationships still need human involvement, and how the business is thinking about discovery through AI assistants.
Use AI to reduce repetitive content work, but keep people responsible for trust and student relationships. For visibility, build on sound SEO foundations while monitoring how AI assistants describe and recommend the business.
What’s the quick origin story of your business, and what makes what you do genuinely different from the other options your customers are looking at?
The story behind EnglishPapa is quite personal. I was studying in England when I found out I was going to become a father. That’s actually where the name EnglishPapa came from!
I went on to build EnglishPapa into a language education business that has taught more than 100,000 students, with over 500 teachers working across multiple cities.
What makes us different is our focus on finding the right teacher for each student. Learning a language is a very personal experience. A teacher who works brilliantly with one student might not be the best fit for another. We believe matching teachers with students based on their goals, personalities, and learning styles is just as important as the teaching materials themselves.
Where does most of your new business come from today, and where do you wish it came from?
Historically, our three biggest sources of new customers have been search engine optimization (SEO), brand recognition, and word-of-mouth recommendations.
We invested heavily in SEO because people searching for English courses already have a clear intention to learn. Over time, our brand became recognizable enough that many customers started searching for EnglishPapa directly.
Where I’d like to see more growth is through AI-powered search and recommendations. I believe customers will increasingly discover educational services by asking ChatGPT and other AI assistants rather than browsing through traditional search results.
What’s one thing you’ve actually handed over to AI in the last year, and one thing you tried it on and went back to doing the human way?
We’ve increasingly handed over content-related tasks to AI, including drafting articles, improving marketing copy, checking grammar, and editing written communications. It helps us produce content faster and reduce repetitive work.
However, I don’t believe AI should replace genuine human interaction in education. We’ve explored using AI for customer communications, but personalized conversations, understanding students’ motivations, and building trust still need human involvement.
My approach is simple: let AI handle repetitive tasks, but keep humans responsible for relationships and important decisions.
Have you noticed a change in how customers find you or what they already know before they reach out? Is anyone arriving through AI assistants like ChatGPT yet?
Absolutely. The way people research businesses is changing.
Previously, a potential student might search Google for “best English language school” and compare several websites. Today, that same person can ask ChatGPT to recommend a school based on their location, budget, and learning goals.
We’re seeing a broader shift toward AI-assisted research, although it’s still difficult to measure exactly how many customers discover us through ChatGPT.
What concerns me is that businesses that have invested in SEO for years may now need to rethink their visibility strategies. Being on the first page of Google is no longer the only goal. You also want AI assistants to recognize and recommend your business.
If you were advising someone in your industry on all of this for the next 12 months, what would you tell them to actually do, and what would you tell them to ignore?
My main advice would be to double down on SEO, but adapt it for the AI era.
Traditional SEO is still extremely important. Businesses need fast, informative websites, useful content, strong reputations, and genuine customer reviews. These foundations also help AI systems discover and understand a business.
I’d recommend investing in content that answers real customer questions, building brand authority, and making sure your business has a strong presence across multiple credible platforms.
I’d also start monitoring how ChatGPT and other AI assistants describe and recommend your business and your competitors. What I’d ignore is the hype around generating hundreds of generic AI-written articles just to attract traffic. AI makes content creation incredibly cheap, but that also means the internet is becoming flooded with average content.
The businesses that win will be those that combine AI efficiency with genuine expertise, strong brands, and customer trust.
Sergey Sulimov Founder & CEO, EnglishPapa https://englishpapa.com
Thank you to SIARHEI SULIMAU and the team at English Papa (MATCH.EXPERT) for sharing what actually worked with Leaders Perception readers.
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