An educational system presents an interactive avatar representing a subject matter expert in a particular field on a student's device, where the avatar can respond to queries posed by the student, and accompany the response with additional supporting information. The avatar's responses are based on artificial intelligence comparisons between the student queries and a knowledge base of anticipated questions, responses and learning goals. An authoring manager system employs natural language processing to identify an underlying meaning in the student's query and to add semantically equivalent questions in the knowledge base and internet searches to aid in compiling the list of anticipated questions. A student profile is stored containing student information and a history of the student's interaction with the avatar. Learning manager software, using the learning goals in the knowledge base and a record of the conversation, can compare and assess the student's progress to the learning goals.