In January each year, Class Central publishes a list of the most popular online courses released by major course providers in the previous 12 months. The most popular course in the latest list turned out to be Google AI Essentials, launched by Coursera in April, 2024. More than 900,000 learners have enrolled, more than the combined total of all new courses launched on edX, FutureLearn, and Swayam in the same year. What’s even more surprising is that (unlike the vast majority of Coursera course

This year, Duolingo announced a major strategic shift: from monetization to user growth, with a target of 100 million daily active users by the end of 2028. To get there, it needs to grow about 25% year over year, every quarter. In Q2 2026, daily users grew 23%, to 58.7 million, the first time growth has sped up in two years. Duolingo also disclosed a roughly $10 million bonus that pays out if Q4 growth hits 25% or more. Paid subscribers grew by about 200,000 in the quarter, the fewest since 2

Coursera announced job cuts on July 6, eight weeks after its merger with Udemy closed. The company didn’t say how many people were affected. The only number it gave was a cost, $8 million to $11 million. After digging around California’s website, I found that 59 people were laid off: 31 from Coursera’s Mountain View headquarters, and 28 from Udemy’s office in San Francisco. California only requires these notices for jobs in the state, so that isn’t the whole number. Based on what the two compa