Coursera is an online learning platform that provides access to courses, professional certificates, and degree programs from top universities and companies. It serves individual learners looking to upskill or change careers, as well as businesses that want to train their teams. Users can take many courses for free or pay for certificates and degree-adjacent programs, with Coursera for Business offering corporate training. The platform emphasizes AI-focused content and lets learners begin a degree program before enrolling, offering flexible options that fit into daily life. How it differs from competitors comes from its large, global catalog, strong university and industry partnerships, and a mix of free and paid offerings plus a dedicated business solution. The goal is to make education accessible to people worldwide, helping them gain new skills, advance professionally, and achieve personal goals through scalable, flexible learning.
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AI adoption pays off only when businesses invest in people. MANILA, Philippines - Businesses have spent the past decade racing to bring artificial intelligence (AI) into their operations. Much of the business world's talk about AI has centered on its promise to slash costs, speed up operations and squeeze more productivity out of every hour. But for global learning platform Coursera, AI is only as powerful as the people who know how to put it to work. "Traditionally, companies invest more in technology and less in people. We should do the reverse," says Ashutosh Gupta, Coursera's managing director for India and the Asia-Pacific region. "We've been hearing a lot about why some of the technology investments are not paying off, and that is not all a technology problem; sometimes it's a people and skills problem. If you don't teach people how to leverage the technology and optimize for the outcomes, we're gonna run into this problem," he says. The Philippines logged the highest number of registered learners on the Coursera platform in Southeast Asia, reaching 3.4 million as of June. Coursera said there is a huge demand for generative AI skills. Enrollment in the company's generative AI courses in the country climbed to about 110,000 in 2026, up from roughly 75,000 in the previous year. Filinvest Development Corp., one of the country's established conglomerates, has recently partnered with Coursera to equip its workforce with the skills to utilize AI. Article continues after this advertisement Bing Paraguas, head of human resources (HR) strategy at Filinvest, says the rapid changes in business and technology call for better investments in people. "Filinvest is very serious about employee development and ensuring that our people have the capability they need in order to perform well today in their jobs," Paraguas says. "Partnering with Coursera allows us not only to provide our employees with the resources they need in real time to be effective at work, but also to allow them to keep pace with the changes in technology, " she adds. Filinvest assessed its employees' proficiency in AI and data, finding varying levels of readiness across its workforce. The firm then developed different learning tracks to address the gaps and help employees apply their new skills to their respective roles. Paraguas says Filinvest wants employee training to deliver measurable results. Its AI hackathon, for instance, encouraged employees to pitch AI-powered solutions to real business problems. "This makes it very practical for us because it shows us that learning has an ROI (return on investment) for people, for business, for problems that we need to solve," she adds. In her own HR division, Paraguas says Filinvest has deployed an AI-powered Talent Acquisition Recruitment Assistant (Tara). Tara pulls candidate information from multiple databases and matches applicants with job openings within Filinvest, freeing recruiters from searching through resumes one by one. Rather than eliminating the need for recruiters, she says the technology allows them to devote more energy to work that requires human judgment, critical thinking and empathy. "What it does to our recruiters is it frees up their time for higher-value work. So now they're more focused on stakeholder management, assessing the candidates that come out of Tara in a deeper way, and talent advisory," she says. For Anthony Salcito, senior vice president and president of enterprise at Coursera, the adoption of AI has not eliminated the need for human skills in the business space. "Many people think being AI-ready is simply completing a set of AI courses, understanding how to use [AI platforms] and thinking they're AI-ready. That's not at all what's happening. It's mostly about how to take advantage of AI to think differently and solve problems at a different scale," Salcito says. "The [AI] space is evolving much quicker; it's not years of knowledge, it's months of knowledge. And so constantly learning is just part of the narrative going forward," he adds. As businesses pour money into AI adoption, so too must they ramp up investment in employee learning to ensure the technology sharpens workers' skills rather than replaces them. Coursera and Filinvest believe business leaders must guide workers through change, encourage skills such as empathy, active listening and judgment, and recognize where human touch matters most. "AI is there to help you see the bigger picture so that you can make smarter and more strategic decisions," Paraguas says. "It's human-led, but AI-enabled." INQ globalnation
Coursera reported third quarter 2026 sales of $376.7 million and a net loss of $25.6 million. Losses widened from a year earlier, and the nine-month loss reached $126.5 million. The online education platform also completed a $215 million buyback that retired 18.05% of its shares. That leaves fewer shares to spread any future earnings across. Soft Enterprise and Consumer trends remain a risk. Investors are watching whether cost savings, the Helix product and the Udemy integration can move Coursera towards profitability. Analysts forecast revenue of $1.8 billion and earnings of $165.7 million by 2029, based on 18.3% annual revenue growth.
Coursera (COUR): A low earnings multiple meets the udemy integration test. Published November 6, 2026 at 6:40 pm EST We just published our list of the 10 Best Small-Cap Value Stocks to Invest In Now, and Coursera, Inc. ranked 6th on the list. The slide in AI stocks is prompting investors to explore beyond the market's leading companies. According to Reuters on November 2, more than 70% of S&P 500 constituents increased in October, despite steep drops in AI-related companies, while small- and mid-cap indexes also advanced. "Investors want to maintain equity exposure. But now they want to...
Coursera and Udemy bring job-aligned learning to Workday customers with certified integration. General Manager, Enterprise November 4, 2026 Today Coursera Inc. is excited to announce that Coursera and Udemy now offer a certified integration with Workday, making it easier for Workday customers to build the AI, technical, business, and leadership skills their organizations need. The integration brings high-quality learning from leading universities, expert practitioners, and industry leaders, including Vanderbilt University, the University of Michigan, Yale University, as well as Anthropic, and Google, directly into the Workday experience. AI is reshaping how organizations define roles and develop talent. As skills increasingly become the foundation for hiring, development, and career mobility, leaders need to understand what capabilities their employees have, which skills their organizations need, and how to close emerging gaps at scale. Yet only 55% of CHROs feel somewhat prepared to manage AI-driven workforce changes. For many organizations, a major challenge is that skill development programs operate on different platforms and away from where work actually happens. Learning data moves manually between systems, talent programs lack relevant development options, and completion reports say little about whether employees can apply what they've learned. Its integration with Workday bridges these gaps by connecting learning, skills development, and talent management into one connected experience. Here's how it works: Workday provides the workforce data, skills intelligence, and talent infrastructure, while Coursera and Udemy bring a wide range of learning content, combined with hands-on practice, role play, assessments, and recognized credentials that demonstrate progress and proficiency - all in one place. How Workday customers will benefit: * Develop the skills that matter - Connect Coursera and Udemy content to skills in Workday Skills Cloud, so employees and managers can find expert learning tied to specific roles and development priorities, within their existing workflows. * Track skills growth in Workday - Skills developed through learning can flow back into employee profiles in Workday Skills Cloud and Workday Career Hub, where supported. This gives leaders better visibility into current capabilities to inform career development, mentoring, mobility, and talent decisions. * Bring expert learning into the Workday experience - Employees can find and launch trusted learning experiences from universities, industry leaders, and expert practitioners on Coursera and Udemy, alongside company-specific learning, through newly launched Workday Learning, powered by Sana. * Measure verified skills, not just completions - Hands-on labs, role play, assessment, and recognized credentials show whether employees can apply what they've learned. Teams can develop a wide range of role-specific skills against a well-defined readiness rubric. * Scale programs efficiently - Expert-built content and automated data flows streamline internal curation, saving administrative time and effort. Workday customers are already seeing the benefits of connecting learning more closely with their skill priorities and the integration is enabling them to move faster. As the nature of work changes, the organizations that adapt fastest will be the ones that can see, build, and measure skill development and proficiency in one connected experience. Coursera Inc. is proud to work with Workday to help make that possible.
Building a university for the future. Ahead of the THE Arab Awards on 4 November, Hugh Martin has been speaking with those shortlisted for the AQ-sponsored Leadership and Management Team of the Year Award, hearing the stories behind their submissions and learning more about the people, ideas and achievements making a real difference across higher education. It's been a great opportunity to hear directly about their work and share the impact they're having across the sector. In this interview, Hugh spoke to Professor Essam ElKordi, President of Alamein International University (AIU), about their shortlisted submission. They spoke about the challenges of establishing a new university from scratch in Egypt's emerging city of New Alamein. In just six years, AIU has grown from an institution with 450 students and two programmes to a university of around 12,000 students, with eight faculties and more than 26 programmes. Its development has been shaped by an ambitious approach to international collaboration, student experience and its role in the wider community. Building a university with a clear sense of purpose When Professor Essam took up the role in September 2020, AIU was preparing to welcome its first students - the buildings were in place, but almost everything else had to be established, from classrooms and laboratories to the academic programmes and teams needed to bring the university to life. On top of all this, they had the additional challenge of the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and delays to the formal approvals required to begin operations. From the outset, Essam recognised that a new university could not simply try to replicate the established institutions in Egypt - it needed to identify a distinctive position and build its strategy around areas where it could offer something different. With his experience and existing international relationships, he placed international engagement at the heart of the university's development. This meant looking beyond traditional arrangements for student exchange and dual degrees, and exploring different ways for academics and students to work together. The ambition was to create a university with strong international connections, while remaining closely linked to the needs of its local community and the emerging city around it. Making international collaboration part of the student experience AIU has developed partnerships with universities in the United States, Canada and Europe, creating opportunities for joint programmes, student and faculty exchange, and collaborative teaching. One of its partnerships is with the University of Louisville, through which students can study across both institutions and gain degrees from each. Initially established as a 2+2 arrangement in selected subjects, including computer science, computer engineering and bioengineering, the partnership has since developed into a 3+1 model. The university has also explored more collaborative approaches to teaching. Through its work with Virginia Tech, students from both institutions take part in joint, project-based courses, working together throughout the semester under the guidance of academics from each university. The collaboration has already achieved success, with one joint student project taking first place in a Virginia Tech competition involving more than 26 entries. For Essam, successful partnerships depend on more than formal agreements, they need commitment and trust on both sides, with individuals in each institution willing to champion the relationship and make it work. This international outlook is also reflected in AIU's approach to quality and accreditation. He made it clear from the beginning that its programmes should seek accreditation as soon as the first students graduated. The university has secured ABET accreditation for computer science and accreditation for its School of Business, with further applications and reviews under way. Preparing students to keep learning Alongside the development of its academic programmes, AIU has placed considerable emphasis on giving students opportunities to develop skills and interests beyond the formal curriculum. The university has introduced an extracurricular transcript, recognising students' wider achievements and activities alongside their academic results. These activities can also contribute additional credit towards their overall grades, giving students the opportunity to demonstrate abilities that may not be captured through examinations and coursework alone. AIU has also become a Coursera Campus partner, making a wide range of online courses available to students free of charge. The university has worked to match these courses with its own curriculum, helping students explore subjects in greater depth and develop the confidence to learn independently. For Essam, this ability to keep learning is increasingly important; knowledge in almost every discipline is changing rapidly, and universities need to prepare graduates not simply to retain information, but to find, understand, interpret and apply it. That thinking also informs the university's approach to AI; AIU has developed policies and procedures to guide its use, with Essam describing AI as an assistant to support learning and academic work, rather than a replacement for students' own thinking. The university also monitors how students engage with online learning, including checking their understanding of course outcomes before awarding credit. A university connected to its community AIU's location in New Alamein is central to its wider purpose, as the city is part of Egypt's development of new communities, with universities and other public services intended to attract residents, support local development and create new opportunities. Essam believes the university has already made a tangible difference to the area, with around a third of its students come from Alexandria, with many travelling to New Alamein or choosing to live there rather than make the journey every day. The university also provides access to academic programmes and services that would otherwise require local people to travel to larger cities. Community engagement is built into its activities, with the university organising medical convoys each semester, visiting schools and communities in the surrounding area, and has established dental clinics and other health services, which now serve more than 1,500 patients each month. The university has also taken steps to widen access for local students. While places are highly competitive, with around 15,000 applicants each year for approximately 3,000 places, students from the surrounding governorate can be admitted on the basis of the minimum entry requirements set by Egypt's Supreme Council of Universities. Its wider commitment to health and wellbeing has also been recognised through its designation as a WHO Health Promoting University, which he described as an important distinction for the institution. Looking ahead: research, industry and continued development Having established its undergraduate provision, AIU is now entering a new phase of development. This academic year, it introduced its first two postgraduate programmes, at master's level, in computer science and computer engineering, including quantum computing. The longer-term ambition is to develop doctoral provision and strengthen the university's research activity. The university has begun providing funding for senior undergraduate students and early-career academics to undertake research, while encouraging them to compete for external funding and publish in leading journals. It has also appointed a Dean of Postgraduate Studies and is developing its research and innovation infrastructure. Links with industry will be important to this next stage. Each programme has an industrial board, bringing together representatives from business and industry, as well as academics from outside Egypt. These boards help the university understand changing skills requirements, review its curriculum and ensure programmes remain relevant to the needs of employers and the wider economy. For Essam, this is an essential part of building a university that can continue to develop. Its strategy is not fixed: it must evolve as the institution grows, as the needs of students and employers change, and as new opportunities emerge. His advice to other young universities is to be innovative and identify areas where they can make a distinctive contribution, rather than trying to compete directly with institutions that have been established for generations. AIU's experience demonstrates what can be achieved through a clear vision, the right people and a willingness to explore new approaches to international collaboration, teaching and community engagement. As the university looks towards its next phase, its challenge will be to build on the foundations established in its first six years, developing its research and postgraduate offer while maintaining the ambition and sense of purpose that have shaped its growth so far.
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Industries
Company Size
5,001-10,000
Company Stage
IPO
Headquarters
Mountain View, CA
Founded
2012
Find jobs on Simplify and start your career today
Don't see your dream role? Check out thousands of other roles on Simplify.Browse all jobs