Two year ago, I was helping students complete assignments manually.
Researching topics.
Structuring essays.
Editing drafts.
Formatting citations.
It was a service business built around solving academic chaos.
Then AI arrived.
And the entire model collapsed almost overnight.
When ChatGPT Became the Competition
Once tools like ChatGPT became mainstream, students didn’t need manual help anymore.
They could:
Generate essays in seconds
Get instant explanations
Rewrite content automatically
The demand for traditional assignment services dropped fast.
At first, it felt like disruption.
Then I realized it was evolution.
As a Developer, I Noticed Something
While running that business, I was also coding.
And in development workflows, we had tools like:
GitHub Copilot
AI code assistants
Inline documentation tools
Everything lived inside the IDE.
No constant tab switching.
No copying from one place to another.
No breaking flow.
That’s when I saw the real problem in academic writing.
The Problem Wasn’t AI. It Was Fragmentation.
Students weren’t struggling because AI didn’t exist.
They were struggling because their workflow looked like this:
Open ChatGPT
Open Google Scholar
Open citation generator
Open paraphrasing tool
Open plagiarism checker
Copy. Paste. Edit. Repeat.
That’s not productivity.
That’s context-switching chaos.
Developers would never tolerate that kind of workflow.
Why should students?
So I Built What I Wish Existed
Instead of competing with AI…
I decided to orchestrate it.
I built ASimplify Lab under Assignments Simplify.
The idea was simple:
One academic writing workspace.
Everything integrated.
Zero tab switching.
What It Does
Inside a single editor, students can:
Research academic papers
Break down complex sources instantly
Generate structured content
Insert references properly
Refine and humanize AI-generated text
All in one place.
Not an “essay generator.”
A workflow system for academic writing.
Lessons I Learned
- If AI disrupts you, build with it — not against it.
You won’t outcompete foundational AI models.
But you can build better workflows around them.
- The real moat is user experience.
AI is becoming commoditized.
Good workflow design is not.
- Context switching kills productivity.
Reducing friction is more powerful than adding features.
Why I’m Sharing This
If you’re building in the AI space, especially in education:
Don’t just build “another AI tool.”
Build around how people actually work.
That’s where the leverage is.
If you’re curious about what I’m building, you can check out ASimplify Lab here:
Free AI Essay Writer for College Students | Assignments Simplify
Write research papers in minutes. AI essay writer, humanize tool & citation generator — built for college students. Try free, no sign-up.
assignmentssimplify.com
I’m still iterating and would genuinely appreciate feedback from fellow builders.
—
Tushar Anand
Builder, ASimplify Lab
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