Chief Executive Officer, President & Director, Coursera
Coursera CEO on Earnings, AI, Pending Udemy Merger | Bloomberg Businessweek
Coursera, a leading global online learning platform, last week announced financial results for its fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2025. The company's shareholder letter noted significant progress in "AI-native product innovation and data-driven decision making across the business." For full year 2025, Coursera reported revenue growth to $757 million, an increase of 9% year over year, and a record $78 million of Free Cash Flow, up 32% over the prior year.
Greg Hart, the company's CEO, discusses the key drivers behind the rise in Coursera's core subscription and course offering...
About Gregory Hart
Greg Hart, who became president and CEO of Coursera in February 2025, has said that the platform is experiencing a surge in demand for AI-related courses. He stated that AI course enrollments on Coursera have risen from about 15 per minute a year ago to nearly 20 per minute, or roughly one every three seconds. Hart described the growth as "phenomenal" and said that "everyone around the world needs to upskill and reskill in this age of AI." He also noted that the company is in the process of combining with Udemy, an acquisition announced in December 2025, and that he expects the deal to close in the coming months. Hart has emphasized the value of expert-created content in the age of AI, stating that "in an age where it's easier than ever to create content, the value of expert human-created content from the leading universities in the world... is even more valuable." He highlighted Coursera's partnerships with technology companies including Google, Microsoft, Meta, AWS, and Anthropic, and discussed the platform's AI tutor feature called Coach. Hart also mentioned Coursera's partnership with the Indian government on Karmayoga Bharat, saying that India's ability to upskill its population will be key to realizing the government's forecast that AI could add about 40% to the economy by 2035.
Transcript (16 segments)
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Carol Masser0:02
Bloomberg Audio Studios podcasts, radio, news. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Massar and Tim Stenc on Bloomberg radio.
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Tim Stenovec0:14
The Department of Justice probing Netflix tactics amid the Warner Brothers Discovery Deal investigation. This according to the Wall Street Journal. The Justice Department investigating whether Netflix engaged in anti-competitive tactics. It's probing the streaming network's proposed acquisition of Warner Discovery Studios and HBO Max streaming service. The department looking at whether Netflix's planned Warner deal could enrich or entrench its market power or lead to monopoly in the future. It's also reviewing Paramount's proposed acquisition.
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Carol Masser0:44
Yeah, stock off its earlier highs. It just still up though about 5/10 of a percent here in the Friday trade. Hey, we want to get to Coursera. Company did report earnings last night. Forecast revenue for 2026 with the guidance beating the average analyst estimate. Stock has swung quite a bit today, up about 7% at its highs, off more than 4% at its lows. Key Bank and RBC both lowering their price targets on the stock today. And we just mentioned about this Warner Brothers Discovery waiting to get this deal done. There is also an M&A story to Coursera as well. It is about an $1 billion market cap company, online education company. It is down about 19% year to date. 12% Tim of the float is short.
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Tim Stenovec1:26
I want to bring in Greg Hart, president and CEO of Coursera. Greg joins us from San Francisco. Greg, I want to start with the merger. Carol mentioned it in December, an all-stock merger between Coursera and Udemy. What is the status of that right now? We understand it's going to close in the second part of the year. The integration, how does it go? What does it mean in terms of the customer and user experience? And who's the boss?
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Gregory Hart1:53
Thank you Tim for the question. So we are going through the regulatory approval process right now. Nothing to share on that front. But we're moving through the paces and then we'll hope to move through that and then go through shareholder approval. In terms of who's the boss, first of all the customer is always the boss. In terms of the actual governance of the company, I will be the CEO of the combined company. And we are excited about that combination because of the opportunity to bring together two businesses that are really quite complimentary.
Udemy, the companies are roughly the same size in revenue, so the combined revenue of the companies would be about $1.5 billion for 2025 with about 10% adjusted EBITDA margins. We also announced at signing that we would deliver $115 million of synergies post-close within the first two years and so a nice improvement in the operating margin that we have as a combined company. We are focused as we go through the planning process on exactly what that integrated company and platform will look like. So, how do we think about pricing and packaging and promotions? Of course, how do we think about the leadership team? And then how do we bring the companies together to really drive not only better margins through the synergies, but also really over time drive much higher revenue growth and do a better job of addressing the massive market opportunity in front of the companies.
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Tim Stenovec3:27
Greg, there have been many examples of mergers that have been announced that haven't actually gone through for a whole multitude of reasons. Some of them have been regulatory, some of them have involved other factors. What happens if this doesn't go through?
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Gregory Hart3:41
Well, I'm very confident that it will. I mean, we operate in the education space, which is a massive space, 2 trillion plus dollars that encompasses physical education. So, K through 12, universities, vocational schools, it encompasses the online sector that we happen to be a part of and Udemy also is a part of. And then of course it encompasses all the other ways that people learn today and increasingly that is through things like LLMs or YouTube or TikTok. We believe we have a very differentiated offering but we are a very very small player within that massive space and we believe that the combination actually delivers more value to every one of our constituents. To our learners, they'll get access to more content. Not only the 375 different university and industry partners that Coursera has, but the 85,000 plus subject matter experts that Udemy's content creator community has. And so it'll bring more choice, more learning opportunity. It'll be better for our content creators because they'll have access to a worldwide learner audience that's approaching 300 million registered learners across the two companies. And it's better for our enterprise customers because we're able to deliver them the breadth of that content coming from that content creator network across Udemy and Coursera.
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Carol Masser5:07
Hey, listen. One of the things, well, first of all, I have to just follow up on the deal, the combination with you and Udemy. Is it still though, you said you're pretty confident about regulatory, Greg. So maybe still on track to close this deal in the second part of 2026.
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Gregory Hart5:22
Yes, we've heard nothing that would change our belief that it will close by the second half of 2026 and remain confident in getting all the regulatory approvals we need to do so.
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Carol Masser5:32
One of the things I thought it's interesting, I always think about your business, you mentioned university industry partners. You've got these subject experts. How are people most using it? Is it your corporate partnerships where people want retraining for their employees? Is it people on their own? Is it people who are just interested about different topics? Like tell us where the growth is. Is it all of it or certain parts of it?
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Gregory Hart5:56
Fantastic question Carol. So our business as Coursera, an independent company, we are two-thirds consumer, one-third enterprise from a revenue perspective. Udemy is the inverse. They are two-thirds enterprise, one-third consumer. For both companies there is a huge focus on and growth in technology and specifically AI right now. And so for Coursera last year we saw enrollments in Gen AI related content at a rate of 15 enrollments per minute.
In 2024 that was only eight enrollments per minute. And so a real burgeoning interest that I believe will continue in 2026 as well. And we are really focused on delivering not just learning but delivering skills so that people can advance their careers. 86% of the learners who come to Coursera come here to advance their careers. And so we are very focused on delivering them skills that they can use to advance their careers and that they can demonstrate real mastery of as they are in the workforce.
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Tim Stenovec7:02
Hey Greg, really quickly, 30 seconds. Are people in it, train and then that's it, you don't see them again or how much of it is return business that the platform is sticky and they're constantly coming back to learn more? And forgive me, only about 25 seconds.
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Gregory Hart7:16
Well, more than 50% of our consumer revenue is around Coursera Plus which is our monthly or annual subscription. It's the best value for learners because they get access to all of that content and those learners tend to stay obviously for longer than a single course learner might.
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Carol Masser7:30
Cool stuff as always. Stay in touch. Love talking with you. Greg Hart, president and CEO of Coursera, joining us from the West Coast.