[S1.02] AI Education Business Model

"Education is our Passport to the Future, for Tomorrow belongs only to the people who prepare for it today."
- Malcolm X

Malcolm X was an African-American revolutionary, Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figure during the civil rights movement. A spokesman for the Nation of Islam until 1964.

There is no better message for education than the above message, especially for the topic of AI. We are now seeing AI knowledge as a Golden Passport for anyone for a better future, something as similar and important as learning "language", a new language of the new world, to interact with and control AI model/robot. This topic is the 2nd topic of our Series AI Business Models, a detailed guide and explanation.

AI Business Model Blog Series

After years of serving our clients in the AI domain, we are impressed by the many different AI approaches on products/services from our clients. So we love to classify them as a Blog Series for AI Business Model, our 1st Blog Series (S1) to bring a summary on this topic and share it with any of AI founders or entrepreneurs out-there who dream to build their own AI kingdom. Some may already have their business but they can also refer to market research to grow their AI business.

Series name: AI Business Models, a detail guide and explanation
Series blogs:
- S1.01: AI Business Models Overview
- S1.02: AI Education Business Model (this blog)
- S1.03: AI Consultant Business Model
- S1.04: AI Development Agency Business Model
- S1.05: AI Software as a Service (AI SaaS)
- S1.06: AI Platform as a Service (AI PaaS)
- S1.07: AI Infrastructure as a Service (AI IaaS)
- S1.08: AI Business Models transition possibilities

Education always come first

We don't talk about something still in R&D nor do we talk about something still in a dream neither. AI is an official golden skill/competency, a special one which is been very hot in the resource market. Hence, there is no doubt that AI Education is a huge market.

Taking a quick google search of some AI courses at US University, Vietnam, we both can see that the "hot" of the course. In Vietnam, the 1st batch of AI Engineer who graduated from an official AI 05-year program will be ready in resources market by Summer 2024. This really brought success to Hanoi University of Science and Technology (HUST) for the first batch and the follow-ones.

Example of AI Education in Vietnam and US

AI Education at the university is just one of the business lines. There are so many business approaches that can bring you success in AI Education, example:

A teacher providing courses on an online education platform (example Udemy): today you can easily upload your course to the online platform and retrieve benefits from it.
A teacher providing Online/Offline course as freelancer
An institute providing Online/Offline course

Diversify of topics & contents

There is no limitation of AI topics & contents; from free contents in Youtube, to paid contents in Udemy (or similar platforms), and even the courses from big giants like IBM, Azure, Google, and AWS, there are thousands of choice out there for all need.

AI course in Udemy

There may be 03 categories of AI topics & contents we can see here:

How to use AI products (as a tools): contents, courses, guidances about how to use new AI tools, AI features inside some products.
How to build AI products (as a models): contents, courses, programs, certifications to capture AI knowledge, AI Engineer skill, AI technologies.
How to build AI business (all Business Model following this Series): contents, courses, and guidance about creating/building a new AI business.

Referring to the above 03 types of contents, there are very simple topics as guidance to use ChatGPT, Mid-journey,... until very complicated to training about Machine Learning, Neuron network,.... So depending on your know-how, you can choose a capable topic. From my point of view, the key success of this business model is only 20% related to your knowhow, the remaining of 80% is more related to your teaching/presentation skills, specially when you host the offline events, courses for many of participants. So if you are confident about your teaching/presentation skill, then you can explore the opportunity in this business model.

Highlight on market

AI in Education Market statistic (Source: P&S Intelligence)

Referring to the high-level statistic of this business model, we can see the big CAGR (considering as market growth rate) of 47.2%, the fastest growth rate among all AI business models. There is no-doubt that North America is Largest Region in term of market size for AI Education. Education costs are generally is very expensive in US, example for 01 AI&ML program may cost students about $22,000/school year, compared to just $2,400 in HUST, Vietnam.

But the most interesting part of the above statistic showing the Fastest-Growth Region is Asia-Pacific, this shows very promising potential growth for the region. AI is also been applied sooner in the Education roadmap, which is not only for the "After K-12" anymore, but the Largest End User Category is switched now to K-12 Education. It's a great opportunity now for children to capture AI technology soon, just like how English language is been applied before, AI will be "the second global language" around the world. This will give a clear picture of the new standard for professional & international employees: English communication skills & AI skills. Maybe in the future, with the help of AI in language translation, people may not need to learn English by the end.

Action Recommendation

Talking about AI Education, we can easily capture a lot of opportunities, as AI is still the new and frequently updated know-how, so this is likely to be a fair-game for all countries, all individual professional employees.

However, the opportunity is open not for everyone, this opportunity is just open to anyone who is open and starts having a clear plan to learn, experience, and practice AI for their bright future roadmap. This is really an option and we may need to be actively take it and seriously invest on it if we still want to stay in the working resources workforce.

On the other hand, this is actually the blue ocean for any individual, startup, or SMEs to jump into the AI Education business model. Remember that the secret to success here is still the quality of your content, and your output programs, this is always the key for any education business model, including AI.

Condition to start: just need to have deep knowledge about at lease 01 AI technical or 01 AI business user case, or even AI tool / product. From here you can provide courses to your end clients.
Condition to scale: knowing your capacity and find more resources to help you growing. In this state, process and quality control is very important to keep a standard quality for your services.
Condition to success: having your great client pipeline, marketing strategy, social recognization.
Skill needs: lot of soft-skills need but the top skill is communication, explanation, presentation skills.

Ready to start your own AI Education Business ? From Investidea, we would love to talk more with other AI Education company, teacher to open an AI Alliance, together we can ex-change our knowhow, update new AI technologies and better to collaborate for a better package to learners, maybe not only learning but also practicing AI technologies as a full package, why's not.