Demand for generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) courses has surged about threefold in the past one year with working professionals rushing to make themselves adept in the new technology, said industry executives.

The trend is being driven by professionals seeking to stay competitive in a fast-evolving job market and to safeguard themselves against layoffs by future-proofing their careers through upskilling, said executives of edtech companies such as Upgrad, Great Learning, Simplilearn and Coursera.

“Rapid advancements in artificial intelligence and automation are reshaping industries, creating a pressing demand for professionals versed in AI-related skills… Professionals are proactively future-proofing their careers by acquiring expertise in generative AI,” said Hari Krishnan Nair, co-founder, Great Learning. “Our AI-ML (machine learning) programmes have a generative AI component for which we have seen a 33% increase in uptake over the last six months, and for programmes that are specifically on Gen AI, we have seen 2.6 times growth in the last four months.”

The demand for Gen AI courses in India increased 195% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2024, according to Kashyap Dalal, chief operating officer at Simplilearn. “We have seen over 300,000 professionals skilled in Gen AI through our various programmes over the last year,” he said. “All companies are rapidly adopting Gen AI in areas like content writing, workflow and process automation, customer support, data analysis, etc. These are all large teams in most companies and professionals in these domains need to learn Gen AI to stay relevant and grow in their careers.”

Mayank Kumar, co-founder of Upgrad, said demand for Gen AI courses has increased sharply in the past year. “Both professionals from tech and non-tech functions are looking to learn about the Gen AI field,” he said. “Over 95% of our enrolments come from professionals with over eight years of experience, reinstating the demand for continuous learning,” he added. Enrolments across free courses in Data, ML/AI and GenAI have been over 70,000 in about a year, added Kumar.

Experts said the increasing integration of AI into business operations is fuelling the surge in demand for AI expertise.

A recent report by Amazon said professionals upskilled in AI can earn up to 47% more in compensation.

Edtech platforms have also seen a sharp increase in women learners in the past six to 12 months, according to executives.

“Women participation in AI/ML programs have increased by 120% in the past year, while overall enrolments have grown by 100%, indicating shifting dynamics and greater acceptance of continuous learning,” added Kumar of Upgrad.

Dalal of Simplilearn, added: “As per our internal data for all the courses pertaining to Gen AI, we have witnessed over 220% increase in women enrolments from 2022 to 2023.”

Raghav Gupta, managing director, India and Asia Pacific, Coursera, said, “Gen AI is a technology not just meant for technologists and technical people. It’s a general-purpose technology… It’s the single largest skill spike that we have seen in terms of the number of people coming to Coursera.”

Dalal cited two major reasons for software developers prioritising learning Gen AI. “First, it is becoming a core requirement for productivity as a developer. Software teams are moving to low code, no code methodology, where Gen AI tools write the code for software engineers, making it faster and avoiding bugs. Secondly, the future of applications is Gen AI dependent and all product teams are innovating in this area on how to embed Gen AI into their software products,” he said.