Creating a spirit

Correct.

Your requirements to me sound very much like those to a familiar, which certainly can learn Art of Memory. Have a look at the Virtues in TMRE p.66ff Spirit Familiar and p.81ff Theurgic Spirit Familiar. Casting in the presence of your familiar might qualify as not being alone while casting: your troupe being the authority there. But I have my doubts, whether casting in the presence of your lap dog, the house flies in your lab, or a conveniently created mouse / elemental / dumb spirit would convince them.

Cheers

Personally, and without further refinement (my character has yet to be on his own when casting thus far) we've been treating it as "while in the presence of a sentient being."

So a faerie counts. So does an elemental, and technically so does a ghost or a demon. But a regular house cat doesn't.

A few years ago, while playing in an over-powered and very house-ruled 4th ed game that had evolved from 2nd ed and through 3rd, I enchanted my magus' laboratory with a Spirit of Magic Theory (I had Hermetic Architecture, which worked differently to 5th ed, and a home-made expanded Form of Spiritus, covering 'Spirits'). It enhanced my lab by being able to animate every fitting and fixture and acting as my lab assistant. It spent all of its spare time reading about Magic Theory, then once it had exceeded my own score of cough 30-odd (I told you it was over-powered, and abilities progressed as Arts in terms of xp) it wrote tractatii for me to read in exchange for me writing some for it. I can't remember the details of the creation spell I invented, but it was at least 100th level.

Basically, I think you should be able to create a minor spirit using the spell I suggested earlier. Feed it vis and it would be able to learn stuff from exposure.

I think you would need a fully independent, sentient being present. I would count a familiar, but not a simple spirit you'd created unless that spirit were statted up by someone else and able to choose to wander off at will.

Why don't you visit the magic realm and negotiate for a being to come and work/live with you? If you survive the journey, it might be a suitable story reward.

The elementals of RoP:M p.132ff "are simple beings" and have Cunning, not Intelligence. The same holds for the results of CrAn creations. So both will likely not be considered "sentient" IYC, will they? This leaves Animae to be created by magi as "sentient" in the books - but that is Faerie creation and Faerie Intelligence.
I would think twice and then some before allowing standard Hermetic magic to create a being with Intelligence. Such a being usually has a previous identity, and hence should be summoned. Getting it to become a companion of a magus then requires further effort. The typical result is a familiar.
But TMRE p.139 aspects of Pukis are sentient live-in companions in a magus sanctum summoned by the ritual ReVi 20 Invoke the Pact of Pukis (p.80f) and then bargained with. Other such aspects of companion Daimons willing to settle in might be found IYC. If your magus has a lab text for such a ritual, sufficient Arts and the vis needed, he can learn and cast it without knowing any specific Mystery - thus getting a Daimon aspect as a companion which might fit his needs.

Cheers

I have this image of:
"I summon to me now the spirit of Steve!"
A thousand voices in the darkness "Hello?"