How is AI changing Coursera and education?

Coursera is a global online learning and career development platform that offers access to online courses and degrees from leading universities and companies to anyone, anywhere. It received B Corp certification in February 2021.

Jeff Maggioncalda, who joined Coursera as the CEO in June 2017, has helped the company grow to over 148 million learners and 7,000+ institutions, served by high-quality learning content from 325+ of the world’s top universities and industry educators. Previously, he served as the founding CEO at Financial Engines Inc. for 18 years. The company was co-founded by economist and Nobel Prize winner, William Sharpe. Financial Engines grew rapidly under Jeff's leadership, providing high-quality online investment advice that has helped millions of people save and prepare for retirement.

Jeff has also worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Company and Cornerstone Research, and serves as a Director of SVB Financial Group. He holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and has a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and English from Stanford University.

In his free time, Jeff is a learner and proud dad, and enjoys studying music theory and spending time with his wife and three daughters.

Coursera’s foray into Generative AI

Jeff starts with, "The Harvard Business School just wrote a case on Coursera called Coursera's Foray into Generative AI. It covers the behind the scenes of us integrating AI into Coursera. But there are a wide range of ways that we are looking at AI trends and how we can adopt it, and I think if we don’t adopt it properly, it will be more likely a threat. If we do adopt well, it'll be more likely an opportunity."

He continues, some exciting pieces we’ve added with AI are:

1)   Generative AI academy - to upskill people in AI specifically

2)  Language translations - we've now translated about 5,000 courses into 22 languages

3)  Coach - a virtual tutor who helps you through the courses

4)  Course Builder - generative AI to build courses

5)   Academic Integrity - methods using generative AI to prevent people/students from cheating using ChatGPT

He further adds, we have four people every minute who are enrolling in a Gen AI course on Coursera and in India, someone every minute in India is enrolling in a Gen AI course, which is mind-blowing. 80% of the learners on Coursera come from countries where the primary language is not English. I mean, most of the world does not speak English, so this really opens up Coursera to a much, much wider audience of people who, frankly, didn’t have access to the kinds of instruction that is available on Coursera. So that’s been fantastic.

The India opportunity

Jeff excitedly narrates about India and says, “We have about 25 million registered learners on Coursera from India, which is more than all of Europe. India will be a bigger representation than almost any other country, and it’s going to be catching up on the United States as well. Just the number of people, the culture of education, the relatively high incidence of English-speaking people, and the low-cost of labour is going to make India a really valuable source of human capital for the world."

For instance, "With Coursera, we have probably over 400 people in India and this is not just in software. It’s in software sales, customer service, finance, legal strategy, UX design, product management, and every function. In our company we have large groups of people in India. They’re a fully integrated part of our whole workforce and it’s extremely effective".

The skills for the future

“I would say for sure, everybody needs to be doing critical thinking with generative AI”. More broadly, human skills will be important. Working with teams, influencing people, leading and managing will never be the same, because the rate of change is so fast.

“I think leadership and management will be really important. Communication, teamwork, and collaboration are really important. Persistence, focus, time management, and self-discipline will be really important. Frankly, I think maintaining one’s physical and mental health will be important, just so you could be a highly productive, highly effective employee at work."

As a CEO, I often say that my job to build a culture is to really create a company that can learn, change, and grow. It’s an experimental-based way of growing for an individual. Some people say, oh, we want to just hire learners. It's not just about learning. There’s a capacity to learn, a capacity to change, and a capability to drive results, like that’s what companies are really looking for.

It’s all three of those things: Learn and change and grow as an individual, so you can do the same for the institution.

Timestamps:

0:00 - AI Integration in Coursera Education

11:32 - Changing Role of Universities in Education

20:22 - Industry Micro-Credentials in Education

24:13 - Future Skills for Workforce and Education

34:53 - Future Business With Generative AI

42:46 - India is the Future Workforce of the World