What we’ve done and where we’re going: May 2023

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We’re pleased to talk with you today about what’s been happening at Udemy and what’s to come. As we continue toward our goal of becoming the number one learning destination, we also want to pause, catch our collective breath, and reflect on what we’ve done so far. And we hope we get you a little excited about what we’re working on.

One of the biggest changes at Udemy is at the top. After four incredible years as CEO, Gregg Coccari has passed the torch to a different Greg, Greg Brown. Greg Brown did an amazing job leading Udemy Business, our enterprise learning solution, through its most successful years yet. And we’re happy he’s bringing that experience to the entire Udemy organization.

We’re also happy to report some good news about the overall health of Udemy, even in a challenging business climate. Our website traffic is very strong, with 35 million unique visitors every month. Also, total instructor payouts have grown year over year. These positive trends are the result of many things, not only the strong performance of Udemy Business and international expansion of Personal Plan, but also the way your courses are helping to answer the needs of learners around the world.

What we’ve done recently

We’ve been working on a number of things to make your lives easier and create better opportunities for learners. Here’s a brief rundown on some of what we’ve already launched.

1. Performance dashboard improvements – In order to make it easier for those of you with Udemy Business courses to track and optimize your content that’s in the collection, we added new ways to slice and dice data in the Performance dashboard. And for all instructors, we introduced insights about the devices learners use to take courses, a longer lookback period for course engagement data, and the ability to track engagement on courses that are only practice tests.
2. Revamped coding exercises – We think this is pretty big for those of you who teach courses in Development and Data Science. Coding exercises are now presented in an IDE-like interface, to more closely match real-world experience. Also, you can add related lectures, hints, and solution explanations.
3. Better community and communication – We’ve held several community events to foster collaboration and networking. You can look to the instructor community for more details and opportunities to participate. We’ve also been working on new educational campaigns for all instructors, including our email series offering tips and guidance for before and after you publish your course. Plus, our course on How To Create a Course is now available in more languages. 

What’s coming up

There are so many things we’re working on we won’t list them all here. But here’s a high-level look:

• Continued investments in practice – Building on the coding exercises work we discussed above, we’re continuing to work on practice by making it easier to create coding exercises, as well as exploring improvements to practice tests. 

• More instructor insights – We’re looking to provide even more insights to help you meet your learners’ needs, including visibility into engagement with practice exercises, better surfacing of in-demand course topics, and more guidance on creating and maintaining strong learning content.

• AI-enabled teaching and learning features – Your expertise remains at the heart of Udemy, but generative AI can make teaching and learning with Udemy easier, more personalized, and more powerful. We’re developing AI-powered tools to simplify the generation of coding exercises, and we’re exploring more AI-enabled features to amplify the reach and impact of your content. Stay tuned for more on this front.
• Badging – We know how important it is for learners to be able to demonstrate what they’ve learned with Udemy and use their new skills to propel their careers. To help them identify content that can help them earn industry-recognized credentials and show off their achievements, we’re working on implementing a badging system using the Open Badges standard from the leading member-based nonprofit community of educational providers and edtech suppliers.
• Learner motivation and guidance – Building on learning streaks which we introduced earlier, we’re continuing to invest in richer, more personalized guidance, based on learner career goals. We want to help learners make the most out of your content by expanding these features in tests over the next few months.
• Unifying Udemy – With free courses, course purchases, Personal Plan subscriptions, and enterprise learning options, Udemy has a lot to offer – but up to now, these have mostly been separate worlds. To help new visitors understand what they can do with Udemy, no matter where their learning journey is starting or taking them, we’ll work to bring these experiences together to tell the whole Udemy story. You’ll see this in big ways and small ways, both in the look-and-feel of Udemy and the investments we make to create a cohesive learner experience. Our goal is to make a seamless Udemy world for you and your learners.

As the world and the market keep changing, we’ll keep adapting — and letting you know what’s next. We’re proud of the progress we’ve made, excited about the work ahead, and grateful for all your partnership to improve lives around the world through learning.