Indian companies are ramping up investment in targeted AI and cloud capabilities as they seek clearer, measurable returns on learning spends, Udemy executives told BW Businessworld on Monday.
According to Udemy’s new research, nearly three-quarters of India-based employees already use AI at work, only three in ten feel confident in their capabilities. The report, based on a YouGov survey across India, the US, the UK and Australia, also found that 61 per cent of professionals in India believe their employers do not provide clear guidance on how to use AI in day-to-day tasks. Udemy called it a widening “enablement gap”.
During her India visit, Neeracha Taychakhoonavudh, Udemy’s Chief Customer Experience Officer, said the contrast with Western markets is stark. “In the US and UK we’re seeing a bit of complacency, people think AI is important but believe it won’t personally affect them,” she told BW Businessworld. “In India, everyone is embracing change, embracing learning and embracing new ways of working.”
Demand Shifts Back To Certifications Tied To Billable Work
While interest in AI courses spiked after the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, India is now reverting to its long-standing focus on technical certifications, said Abhishek Raj, Udemy’s Head of Marketing for India and South Asia. This trend was corroborated by data from Udemy’s 2026 Global Learning & Skills Trends Report, which shows the country is experiencing some of the fastest growth rates worldwide in AI, cloud and system architecture learning.
AI skills have become the strongest growth category on Udemy’s India platform. Demand for prompt engineering has surged 1,526 per cent year-over-year (YoY), while learning related to vector databases has grown 89 per cent. There has also been a strong acceleration in interest around AI productivity tools, Microsoft Copilot and role-play-based AI learning, indicating the speed at which Indian professionals are trying to integrate generative AI into day-to-day work.
Beyond AI, technical depth is accelerating. System design interview preparation grew 145 per cent and FastAPI learning expanded 108 per cent over the past year. Demand for quality assurance and automation tools has also climbed sharply with Pytest up 980 per cent and Microsoft Playwright up 217 per cent, suggesting an increased focus from IT services and GCCs on integration, reliability engineering and automation-heavy delivery models.
Cloud and DevOps training also remains strong, with cloud certification pathways growing 108 per cent YoY, primarily driven by AWS, Azure and GCP-aligned roles.
“Udemy is seeing strong, consistent demand for cloud certifications and deep technical upskilling from IT services firms and Global Capability Centres (GCCs). The country is also seeing unexpected pockets of growth in areas such as CAD and automobile design training, driven by India’s expanding manufacturing and engineering demand,” said Raj.
Taychakhoonavudh said Udemy’s largest customer segment is IT professional services, and India is the market where learning is most directly tied to business outcomes. “In IT services, people are the product. The question is how quickly someone can learn a new skill, become billable and get on a project. The business outcome—billable rates, utilisation, overall bookings—is very clear. And that industry is here in India,” she said.
Hiring Managers Want Proof Of Skills, Not Just Degrees
Udemy’s report also puts the spotlight on a growing mismatch between worker perceptions and employer expectations. While 67 per cent of Indian employees think a college degree is essential for entry-level roles, only 32 per cent of hiring managers agree.
Taychakhoonavudh said fresh graduates, in particular, are facing a painful transition.
“My heart reaches out to freshers who studied computer science because they were told it guarantees a good job,” she said. “Now they graduate and hiring is down. The answer is to go deep with skills.”
One trend tagging along with this shift is the rise in demand for human skills alongside technical ones. Data shows that skills such as relationship building and risk management have grown 90 per cent YoY among Indian learners, pointing to a maturing talent ecosystem where companies expect engineers and analysts to combine technical proficiency with cross-functional communication and decision-making strength.
India Pushes Employers To Adopt Structured, Role-Specific AI Training
One of the most important findings from the research is that employees want AI training but lack guidance on what “AI readiness” actually means. The company says organisations often misinterpret enthusiasm for AI as readiness to self-navigate.
Companies, Taychakhoonavudh said, often make the mistake of simply giving employees access to hundreds of courses. “You can’t just say ‘Here are 200 AI courses, go figure it out’,” she said. “Companies need a framework: What does AI literacy mean for your engineers? For your finance team? What is role-specific? When it’s structured, outcomes skyrocket.”
Udemy is asking employers to embed AI learning directly into workflows using tools like Model Context Protocol (MCP) to make training “applied, contextual and immediate”. This is especially important in India, where tens of thousands of employees in IT services and GCC environments transition onto new projects and new technologies every quarter.
Market Outlook: Stability Returning, India Remains Strategic
The global tech slowdown and budget tightening have forced companies to demand proof of ROI from learning platforms, leading to what Taychakhoonavudh calls a “revolution” in how skilling is evaluated. Companies increasingly expect hard metrics on skill adoption, certification completion, productivity gains and time-to-billability.
But Udemy expects 2026 to look stronger. “2025 was an unsettled year with the economic uncertainty, tariffs and trade issues,” she said. “We believe things are stabilising, and we are doubling down on key markets like India because demand will grow again.”
The San Francisco-based skills platform now has more than 17 million learners in India, supported by a base of 9,500 instructors and over 2,600 marketplace courses in Indian languages such as Hindi, Urdu, Tamil and Bengali. The company says this India-led local content strategy, driven by real-world experts creating native-language material rather than relying on dubbing or subtitles has become essential as organisations seek relevant, rapid and high-quality upskilling at scale
Udemy has expanded its India presence in recent years, including opening a Global Capability Centre (GCC) in Chennai and hosting large-scale customer events in Bengaluru and Mumbai.
“India is an incredibly strategic market for us,” Udemy CCO Neeracha Taychakhoonavudh says
“We have extensive teams in Mumbai, Chennai and Gurugram, and we also have an R&D centre in Chennai employing software and product development experts and helping local talent build emerging technical skills," said Taychakhoonavudh.
India’s online higher education and upskilling market was valued at Rs 30,000 crore in FY23 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 23.1 per cent to reach Rs 85,000 crore by FY28, according to a recent industry report.
“We are seeing instructors in India updating content in real time to reflect new AI tools, and learners across cities, industries and career stages are actively engaging to stay competitive, and we continue to focus on bridging the skills gap in India by strengthening our efforts across both the B2B and B2C segments,” she added. |
