OpenAI and Udemy Team to Add Online Courses to ChatGPT

The new arrangement will embed Udemy’s content directly into OpenAI’s interface via an app in ChatGPT, the companies announced Wednesday (Feb. 11). This integration combines Udemy’s catalogue of more than 290,000 courses from 90,000 instructors, with ChatGPT’s conversational AI capabilities, the announcement added.

“For approximately 800 million weekly active users of ChatGPT, one of the most common use cases is learning,” Udemy said in the release. “With Udemy’s app in ChatGPT, users will be able to access cutting-edge technical and soft skills content on Udemy directly from the AI tool, eliminating traditional barriers to content discovery and engagement.”

Aside from the course content itself, the companies say the platform offers things like interactive assessments, practical labs and competency validation.

“What sets this apart from traditional AI tutoring is our focus on building real expertise through trusted content, practical assessments and validated skill development rather than just providing answers,” said Hugo Sarrazin, Udemy’s president and CEO.

The partnership comes amid increasing AI adoption among both consumers and businesses, as PYMNTS Intelligence research has found.

Findings from “From Assistive to Agentic AI: Consumers Wade Into Autonomous Commerce,” shows that consumers are increasingly comfortable letting artificial intelligence (AI) “sense, decide and act on their behalf,” PYMNTS wrote Wednesday.

The research shows that 71% of consumers are interested in using agentic AI for health and wellness management, 70% for travel planning, 69% for tasks like grocery shopping and meal planning, and 66% for managing their bills.

“The headline finding is not adoption alone,” that report added. “It is a conditional adoption. Consumers want agentic AI to reduce friction in daily life, manage complexity and handle recurring decisions. At the same time, they insist on controls, reversibility and recognizable payment credentials once money is involved.”

Research from another PYMNTS Intelligence report, “CFOs Push AI Forward but Keep a Hand on the Wheel,” showed similar caution in the business world.

As covered here Wednesday, agentic AI promises to shift much of the chief financial officer’s function away from time-consuming, manual numbers crunching in favor of big-picture tasks such as scenario modeling and strategic analysis.

“But allowing an algorithm, not your finger on a mouse, to send millions of dollars to a supplier in an instant is a high-stakes, high-risk endeavor,” PYMNTS wrote. “So is allowing an agent to pull the trigger on shifting big dollars from one budget bucket to the next. That’s why CFOs aren’t yet all-in on turning over the reins.”