GenAI courses and leadership skills dominate learning landscape: Report

In 2023, GenAI content emerged as a focal point of study for Indians, experiencing a four-fold increase in searches compared to the previous year, according to data analysis by Coursera. The online learning platform examined data from 22.2 million registered learners in India, highlighting GenAI content and the Leadership Skills courses offered by IIM Ahmedabad as the most sought-after topics.

Coursera reported that Indian learners were actively enrolling in GenAI courses approximately every three minutes throughout the year. To address this surging demand, global universities and industry experts introduced over 35 courses or projects related to GenAI on Coursera, resulting in 196,000 enrollments in India. A particularly notable course in this domain, “Generative AI for Everyone,” authored by the renowned AI pioneer Andrew Ng, became the fastest-growing course in 2023, securing the second-highest enrollment from Indian learners within six weeks of its launch.

Following GenAI, the second most popular course was IIM Ahmedabad’s Leadership Skills programme, covering topics such as influence, authority, power dynamics, stress management, and drawing lessons from the epic Mahabharata.

In addition to advanced courses, there was a noticeable rise in entry-level professional certificates, catering to individuals without a specific background or college degree. Approximately 50 per cent of the top courses in India, including Google’s “Foundations: Data, Data, Everywhere” and “Foundations of Project Management,” fall under these accessible programmes.