Rise of Generative AI impacting people across jobs: Coursera's Shravan Goli

Firm's COO also said that India is one of Coursera's fastest-growing markets and is critical to the edtech giant's global strategy

India is one of Coursera’s fastest-growing markets and is critical to the edtech giant’s global strategy, said Shravan Goli, chief operating officer, Coursera. In an interview with Peerzada Abrar, Goli said the firm is scaling up its partnerships with institutions and the government to equip individuals with skills for a digital future. He said the platform is also seeing a large number of learners coming from remote and non-urban areas such as Manipur, Bihar and Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Goli also spoke about the impact that the rise of Generative AI and ChatGPT is having on the education industry. Edited excerpts:

How do you think the global macroeconomic uncertainty will impact jobs?

Around the world, there are definitely concerns about the slowdown and recession. What's also happening is the continued disruption and dislocation of jobs. In the past 10 years, especially since the pandemic, digital transformation has become critical for every company. There is automation and globalisation in the workforce. The adoption of remote workforces has really created a shortage of skilled workers. There is a bigger need for reskilling and upskilling. If you combine the rise of generative AI in this case, what was earlier impacting the low-skilled workforce has begun impacting professional job workers as well. The disruption has not spared anybody. Coursera and the World Economic Forum did a survey in which employers predicted that almost 61 per cent of the workers will need retraining between now and 2027. But they are also foreseeing almost two million new tech-enabled roles being added to the global labour pool in that time. With the rise of AI, especially Generative AI, impacting every aspect of our workforce, businesses are being forced to retool their systems, processes and also their talent.

What impact do you think the rise of Generative AI and ChatGPT will have on the education industry?

It's really changing the paradigm of skills and how skills need to be transformed at various levels. A recent University of Pennsylvania study estimates that up to 49 per cent of workers will see 50 per cent or more of their tasks exposed to Large Learning Models (LLMs, a type of AI). The imperative is much higher in terms of who it impacts. Clearly, it impacts individuals in every job. All of us need to keep retraining ourselves. Businesses are focused on retooling their systems and processes. That means they also have to reskill and redeploy their talent. There's already an existing skilled worker shortage in these emerging skills areas. They have to improve their customer offerings and increase their productivity. The technology has evolved so fast that their (organisation's) existing models are no longer going to work as they seemed to be. The governments also have to react as well to get to make sure to provide job training programs at speed and scale to keep pace with it.  The universities also have to enhance their curriculum and learning experience. We recently announced Coursera Coach which is GPT enabled or AI-based learner assistant. It listens to you and is ready to help you. This is a change from passive video learning to active and personalised learning. From the educator side, (AI) can help them create content faster and better. We launched ‘Course Builder’ which is an AI or GPT-assisted course creation tool. Instead of hours, it now takes 5 minutes to create a course and launch it.

India’s edtech sector is also seeing a series of layoffs and valuations are under stress. How do you view this situation?

The edtech sector is not one-size-fits-all. There is K-12, secondary education, post-secondary education and then skilling, in this space. You'll probably have a different perspective on the problems each of those segments are facing. In the K-12 space, it became unwieldy in terms of the competitiveness and fragmentation of the market. The unlimited supply of capital that was driven by low-interest rates meant that customer acquisition took priority versus sustainability. And profitability and predictability of growth took the backseat. And then, obviously, macroeconomic conditions changed. So the consumer tightened the belt to some degree.  Also, technology is changing so rapidly that some of the relevancy is going away. When I think about the post-secondary education where Coursera plays a role along with other players, a lot of opportunities got unlocked because of the disruptions we're seeing in the marketplace. When there's economic uncertainty and layoffs, people realize that they need to reskill. Employers are embracing skills-based hiring.

What kind of traction are you seeing from students and professionals in India to reskill and stay relevant?

Globally, we have about 123 million registered learners. In India, we've added 15 million new registered learners  since the pandemic in 2020 . It was a 26 per cent year-over-year growth rate last year for us in India. India is one of the fastest-growing markets in the world. We have 19.8 million total registered learners in India. I expect India to beat Europe in terms of the number of registered learners by the end of this year. People in (India) are learning skills related to in-demand jobs and careers like AI, machine learning, data science, cloud and mobile, cybersecurity and the Internet of Things. We're also seeing the importance of soft skills like leadership, communication and mental health continues to be a top course. I'm seeing a lot of growth in the area called industry professional certificates or industry micro-credentials. For example, in 2022, we saw a 56 per cent year-over-year increase in enrollments and these are certificates like Google data analytics, IBM data analyst and Meta software development. Each of these industry professional certificates is designed for people who don’t require prior work experience or a (specific) college degree.

What kind of opportunities do you see in India and the problems that can be addressed?

India is an amazing, exciting and fast-growing market. When you look at the opportunity, about 183 million people aged 15-64 are getting added to the workforce population in the next 30 years. And 22 per cent of the world's incremental workforce is being added (from India) by 2050. At the same time, government policies have been very accommodating. They are looking at increasing the Gross Enrolment Ratio in higher education from 27 per cent to 50 per cent by 2035. They have used the National Education Policy (NEP), where they have said 40 per cent of the credits can be delivered through online learning. The time is ripe for Coursera to play a bigger role in the Indian market.

We earlier had only 3-4 educator partners, but we added 23 educator partners in the past two years. We're seeing fast-growing adoption from the ecosystem of educators. In the consumer base, we have 19.8 million total registered learners in India. We are also seeing traction in terms of our institutional base. We have about 150 enterprise business customers and about 1100 campuses have used Coursera for Campus to date. We're seeing traction in terms of the content coming from the local educator ecosystem and adoption from businesses, governments and these campuses around India. For example, the BITS Pilani degree which is BSc in computer science on (Coursera) is a fascinating case study.

Learners as young as 15 and as old as 64 are taking this course and 40 per cent of the students are working professionals. What is also interesting is that almost two-thirds of them (students) are from non-metro cities. The highest growth for (learning) is actually happening in remote and non-urban areas such as Manipur, Bihar and Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Clearly, internet access is reaching almost 900 million users and mobile is clearly a powerful tool that is helping bridge the digital and skills divide. We're seeing 70 per cent of learners in remote States are actually using mobile versus 58 per cent in India overall. We are also using India as a platform and a launchpad to scale up global innovations. For example, Coursera for Campus was first launched here in India. Coursera for hiring solutions is getting first launched here in India.