🎉Announcement: The AI Assistant and Skills Mapping and AI-powered learning paths are live!🎉

RyanJaress
RyanJaress Posts: 319 Udemy rank
edited November 1 in Community News

Hey Instructors,

Today we’re thrilled to share that we’ve officially announced Udemy’s newest AI features: Udemy AI Assistant, Skills Mapping and AI-powered learning paths. These transformative features are now accessible to learners and leaders  within organizations, providing them a way to offer more personalized learning programs at scale.

For more information, check out the full press release and blog post.

Thank you to all of the instructors who have contributed to all of the ongoing product discovery work. As we continue to innovate, we will remain true to our mission, now enhanced by the power of AI, with humans at the heart.

Teach on,

The Udemy Instructor Team


Comments

  • ValentinDespa
    ValentinDespa Posts: 56 storyteller rank

    I agree with @ScottDuffy. These kinds of announcements may be good for getting investors excited and raising the stock price, but they do very little for us instructors.

    I feel totally disconnected from how these features are supposed to work as so far we have only seen mock-ups or screenshots. We should get the chance to be one of the first ones to try this out, report issues, and help you build a better product.

  • GenefaMurph976
    GenefaMurph976 Posts: 43 traveler rank

    Agree @ValentinDespa - this is something Scott and I have been discussing with regards to how we make this happen.

  • FrankKane
    FrankKane Posts: 1,823 rolemodel rank
    edited October 30

    I noticed that the AI Assistant was described in today's earnings call as featuring summaries of courses and lectures.

    Is that the assistant's primary purpose?

  • Veasna, M.
    Veasna, M. Posts: 173 storyteller rank

    Useless!

  • MarinaT
    MarinaT Posts: 2,040 Udemy rank
    edited November 1

    Hi @FrankKane,

    Great question! While summarizing content is one of the AI assistant's features, it also leverages its understanding of Udemy instructor content to recommend relevant courses, explain complex concepts, and more.

  • FrankKane
    FrankKane Posts: 1,823 rolemodel rank
    edited November 1

    I went back and reviewed the GenAI Product Preview demo and slides, and didn't see any mention of course and lecture summaries. It was toward the end of the FAQ only:

    When will the AI Assistant’s “summarize course/lecture” feature show up? How will it impact course watch time and instructor revenue?

    Summarization of a course or a lecture will only show up if a learner  asks for a summary during  content discovery. For in-course, there will be a prompt that learners  can click to summarize the lecture or course. These summaries are intended to be brief and act like the Course Landing Page to drive learners to consume more lectures, rather than to replace the lecture.

    I feel like this feature was downplayed to us. If it is widely used by learners to quickly skim through courses in a way that doesn't credit us with minutes and moves consumption to a place with zero revshare, then instructors who did not opt out will find themselves at a disadvantage. Is it still the case that these summaries will be too brief and unspecific to be used as a replacement for the actual content? Can UB learners mark a lesson as viewed if all they did was read the summary? It would be really helpful to see it in action to allay our fears.

    Also, the opt-out terms said they would go into effect at the end of 2024. Have AI features been deployed into production using data from opted-out instructors?

  • RyanJaress
    RyanJaress Posts: 319 Udemy rank
    edited November 5

    Hey there @FrankKane

    Thank you for your feedback! We value your input and understand your concerns. To clarify, the AI summarizing feature is designed to enhance, and not to replace, the learning experience.   It offers students a brief and high level overview of each lecture, encouraging deeper engagement with the course content. If students are looking for specific information, the AI assistant can direct them to the relevant video, thereby enhancing overall course engagement. A lesson is not marked as viewed just by reading the summary, as our goal is to maintain the integrity of the learning experience and ensure that instructors are credited appropriately.

    We want to emphasize that the summarizing tool is designed to help our busy learners quickly and conveniently locate the specific video content they need, ultimately boosting video engagement—and, in turn, increasing revenue for instructors. 

    Also for further clarification, we won't use opted-out instructor content. We honor instructor opt-outs as outlined in Section 6 of our Instructor GenAI Policy.

  • FrankKane
    FrankKane Posts: 1,823 rolemodel rank

    Thank you for the response, @RyanJaress

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