The Coursera–Udemy Deal and AI’s Quiet Disruption of Education
Udemy and Coursera are coming together. In a landmark deal valued at about $2.5 billion, Coursera has agreed to acquire Udemy in an all-stock transaction, combining two of the world’s most recognizable online learning platforms. The merger, expected to close in the second half of next year pending regulatory and shareholder approvals, creates a single company spanning individual learners, enterprise customers, and professional instructors.
But do not bank on this merger. The real challenge facing Coursera and Udemy is not competition from another education platform. It is disintermediation by AI. When anyone can generate structured learning content through prompting, the value proposition of hosting static courses weakens. When software can be built without traditional coding, the incentive to pay to “learn Python” diminishes. The scaffolding that once made these platforms indispensable is being quietly removed.
This merger may slow the descent, but it does not alter the trajectory. Over time, without a radical reinvention of their business models, these platforms risk becoming zombies, Yes, alive in form, but irrelevant in function. That is unfortunate, because they served an important purpose in the pre-AI era, democratizing access to knowledge and skills.
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Good People, this is the new normal. Just as the web reshaped physical retail, AI will reshape many industries. Some companies will adapt and thrive. Others will fade, regardless of how large they once were.