There are thousands of generative AI courses online. Why do people still struggle to use it?
Online access to newer skills is available. But the learning isn’t.
Krishna Kumar has a simple answer to this: human interaction. The founder of Simplilearn says a video can teach you a skill like AI, but it can’t answer your worries: Will this save my job? Will it make me worth keeping?
“You need someone to motivate and handhold you, someone who says, ‘I’ve done what you want to do,’” Kumar says.
For that, he built Simplilearn, a live upskilling and reskilling platform for in-demand skills: AI, cybersecurity, data science, and more.
Kumar said a Simplilearn certificate is posted on LinkedIn every minute, with nearly 10,000 learners getting paid live training every month. And it all started 17 years ago, with a PMP blog.
The Free Blog that Led to a 15 Million Learner Platform
In 2009, after Kumar sold his last company, TechUnified, a software banking platform, he saw a need: learners who wanted to take the PMP exam could only prepare through offline preparation programs. To make it accessible, Kumar started a PMP prep blog.
Looking at the regular queries and clarifications, Kumar started offering structured PMP content, which he integrated into his blog. A year later, to check if people would pay for it, he added a PayPal button to his PMP blog. By morning, seven people had.
In the next few years, more learning platforms, like Coursera, launched. When people asked Kumar what his competitors would do to Simplilearn, he said it wouldn’t.
“The competitors are offering a book. I am building a classroom because the book isn’t enough.” — Krishna Kumar, CEO of Simplilearn
Today, multiple funding rounds later, and a majority stake from Blackstone, one of the largest investment firms, Simplilearn has had more than 15 million learners.
The 400+ program catalog has intensive and practical courses in AI, data science, cybersecurity, and more, taught alongside universities like Virginia Tech, Michigan Engineering Professional Education, UC San Diego Division of Extended Studies, University of Oxford, UC Santa Barbara Professional and Continuing Education, Cal Poly EPaCE, IITM Pravartak Technologies Foundation, IIT Bombay, IIM Kozhikode, and many more.
Plus, you get access to courses from global tech companies such as IBM, Google, and Microsoft across the US, India, and beyond.
The 1000+ instructors are experts and professionals in the fields they teach. And every live program is a minimum of a few weeks long, guaranteeing an immersive learning experience.
Kumar doesn’t stop at the content. He watches the learner just as closely: where they stall, why they quit, what they actually need. The team conducts a bi-annual survey to know about their learners: why they choose Simplilearn, what they achieve from it, and why they come back.
This helps Simplilearn build an ecosystem that nurtures anxious job searchers.
Listening to Learners Navigating the Current Job Market
“Tough”, “worst”, “grimmest”; that’s how top publications describe the current market. Fortune even has a series of posts titled, “The job market is so bad…; for example, “The job market is so bad, workers now think they have worse odds of finding a role than during the pandemic”.
AI anxiety persists, and it’s affecting how employees and students perceive job opportunities. Since more than half of the organizations don’t offer AI teaching support, Simplilearn is filling the gap.
“Our goal is to identify areas where there’s a demand-supply gap. There are opportunities, but there are not enough trained people,” said Kumar, “If there’s a demand supply gap, we will help you prepare for those areas and get high-paying, fulfilling careers.”
On Simplilearn, over 65% of learners updated their skillset. And nearly half got their certification credential, well above the ~13% typical completion rate. Over 20% of learners even switched to a new career track after a Simplilearn course.
We asked Kumar the reason for this, and it comes down to offering quality programs with career services, and free certificates for learners with limited resources.
Simplilearn’s SkillUP: Free Courses with Certificates
More than 1.5 million learners have gotten their free certificate from SkillUP, Simplilearn’s free certification platform. Since Krishna started Simplilearn with free resources, his biggest learning is making courses accessible to everyone.
More than 60% of Americans believe that a four-year degree is not worth the cost because people often graduate without specific job skills and with a large amount of debt to pay off. Add to that the inflated price of a degree, and it makes sense why people are steering away from traditional programs.
SkillUP’s self-paced courses are credential and skill-based, with 90-day access. Kumar believes that quality, free content is powerful. Simplilearn’s YouTube channel, where they put hours of free content (a 23-hour DevOps course, 46-hour Gen AI course, among others), has 6.5 million subscribers.
Today, ~150,000 learners get their certification via SkillUP every month. Kumar is seeing the demand grow.
End-to-End Support with Resume and Career Coaching
Over 85% of learners have reported a career impact from a Simplilearn course. A reason for that is the platform’s Career Services with resume support and 1-on-1 career coaching (on selected courses only).
Kumar wants learners to outsource their upskilling/reskilling journey to the instructors, who handhold them and offer feedback on every project. The resume-building process is equally detailed.
“We help the learner organize the content, help them highlight their achievements, and key multiple projects that we offer as part of the course,” he said. “Even though a learner might not have work experience, we teach them how to showcase the projects they do with real datasets. Plus, we help them build an impressive LinkedIn profile.”
Simplilearn’s team also aggregates jobs on two platforms: one in India and one in the US. Plus, you get a 1-on-1 career coach (for FSA Bootcamps only) who conducts mock interviews with the most asked interview questions.
Expert Live Instruction for Job Seekers
“A good ‘human’ expert offers motivation with direction. AI has some way to go,” said Kumar. “Experts give you the confidence that you have signed up for the right course. They’re working in a role that most of the course takers aspire to get into.”
The platform has strict guidelines and selection procedures for instructors. A team continuously identifies, interviews, and onboards trainers, and the bar to enter the pool is high. For instance, trainers need a minimum of 10 years of work experience and a certification as a project manager to teach the courses.
“The live class helped me piece together what I may not have gotten from the self-paced portion. So the two together gave me a better understanding.” — Reddit Review
Most certifications go on for months: PMP Plus for ~2 months, Advanced Cybersecurity for 8 months, so the trainers need to be vetted for all kinds of doubts.
From there, candidates move through a defined process:
- Subject matter interview. This confirms they know the subject and hold the credential they claim.
- Train-the-trainer. Internal team members sit through a part of the training to judge how well the candidate engages a room and handles doubts.
- Trial classes. Cleared trainers run one or two classes with real learners. Strong feedback moves them forward.
- Progression of trainers. Trainers are slotted into silver, gold, and platinum tiers and rated continuously.
“The examples of smart homes, healthcare monitoring, and transportation systems showed how IoT is transforming everyday life. What stood out most was the way theory was tied directly to real-world applications, which made the learning process engaging and relevant.” — Trustpilot review
Offering In-Demand Skills for Busy Professionals
The most in-demand skill right now is generative AI.
Simplilearn runs multiple variants of gen AI courses, with hyperscalers like Microsoft, Google, and other leading universities.
Kumar believes in catering to the market. Since it’s moving quickly, and the shelf-life of new skills is limited, Simplilearn’s courses are getting shorter. US programs once ran for six months. Not anymore.
“In a world of AI, nobody has six months’ patience, and in six months the AI itself is changing.”
— Krishna Kumar, CEO of Simplilearn.
Catering to Flexibility
Simplilearn caters to three levels of users: first-time job seekers who are more prone to changing job environments, mid-career professionals who are looking at reskilling and upskilling, and senior professionals keeping pace with the change of technology.
Simplilearn’s policies are designed for professionals. Sign up for one cohort, and you get every cohort that year. If a work crunch or emergency comes up, you can move to a later cohort, so your progress doesn’t reset. And you can attend two cohorts at once, to learn the same topic from two instructors and get varied perspectives.
“The skills I gained by doing this will help me to apply for jobs where cybersecurity skills are a requirement. … not many can afford to go to a university or college to study for such programs. Offering it online and in a flexible manner will give many a chance to achieve these skills.” — Simplilearn Review on Trustpilot
Building the Future of Learning with Human + AI Tutoring
Simplilearn’s newest AI assistant, Alby, tracks where learners stall or fail, so it can help where needed. It answers questions and nudges learners mid-lesson, offering to summarize a topic just finished or quiz them before they move on.
Many learning platforms have integrated AI for bots, tutors, and even video generation, but Alby is born out of Simplilearn’s focused approach to using AI in learning.
Kumar strongly believes AI will shape the future of learning, and they are rightly investing in it. But interactive learning will always be his priority. He believes that ‘human + AI’ is the most holistic approach to teaching.
“Whatever we do, it’s going to be interactive and…engaging that drives better outcomes. Maybe eventually AI will take over. Who knows?” said Kumar. “But right now we still believe that AI + humans are much more powerful than AI alone or human alone.”
Explore Simplilearn’s Live Career-Focused Programs.
This article was produced by the Class Central Report team in partnership with Simplilearn.
The post Each Minute, a Simplilearn Certificate Goes on LinkedIn; Here’s How Krishna Kumar Built It From a Blog appeared first on The Report by Class Central.