Middle East embracing AI aggressively, Coursera CEO says
The Middle East appears to be moving most aggressively in training their employees to embrace and adopt artificial intelligence, Jeff Maggioncalda, chief executive of learning platform Coursera, has said.
In countries such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar, governments and companies are rapidly adopting AI, Mr Maggioncalda told The National.
Mr Maggioncalda, who was in Riyadh to attend the Leap 2024 technology conference, said he has been spending more of his time in the Middle East. According to a global survey from Boston Consulting Group last month, 11 per cent of executives in the Middle East indicated that their workers were training on generative AI tools, compared with 8 per cent in North America, 7 per cent in the Asia-Pacific region and 5 per cent in Europe.
“In workforce development, the Middle East is leading in upskilling efforts related to generative AI,” the study said. “This indicates a focused yet ongoing effort in the region to equip the workforce with the necessary skills for the AI landscape.”
Coursera has aimed to enhance AI learning. The company launched Arabic translations of more than 4,200 online courses, growing the overall upskilling and education trends reported in the Middle East. “It opens up a lot more accessibility to Arabic-speaking learners,” Mr Maggioncalda said.
According to Coursera, as of last year, 8.9 million of its 142 million global customers were from the Middle East and North Africa, a 25 per cent increase compared with 2022.
Coursera is using AI in most of its product offerings such as Coursera Coach, which can answer questions and share personalised feedback with the user. “If someone is struggling with the concept or why it’s relevant to their business or relevant to their job, they can speak to coach in whatever language they want,” Mr Maggioncalda said, adding that AI had made translations much quicker to develop and introduce.
Coursera will also soon be launching Course Builder, which will use AI to help instructors produce custom courses for their audiences.
“You can sit there and type in the kind of course you want to teach, and AI creates an outline for a course structure and then allows the instructor to modify it if they want to,” he said.
AI has prompted an increase in course sign-ups for customers wanting to train, retrain or learn about AI-related topics, Mr Maggioncalda said.
“Developing a habit of learning is going to be critical to maintaining good economic opportunities in front of you.” Mr Maggioncalda said generative AI could act as a learning assessor or a dissertation committee for users.
“It [Coursera] might eventually ask you, ‘how did you come up with this answer?’, or ‘show how you came to this conclusion’,” he said.
He also addressed the debate concerning the potential for job losses as a result of corporations using AI for various work processes.
On the potential effect of AI on teachers and educators, he said: “The curriculum might be affected, but there’s a human component for empathy, love and understanding that can’t be replicated.”