Online Learning,
according to AI
Every week we ask ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini the questions real UK consumers ask about online learning — and record exactly which brands they put forward. Right now, Coursera owns the conversation.
0 AI answers this run · 0 brands named · measured, never estimated
Coursera is the default answer.
Named in 25% of online learning answers, typically in position 1.9. Udemy follows at 20%, Open University at 12%.
Every brand AI names, ranked.
Visibility is the share of answers naming the brand; citation share is its slice of all brand-owned pages cited; read→cited is how often its pages convert a read into a citation.
| # | Brand | Visibility | Avg. position | Citation share | Read→cited |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Coursera | 25% | 1.9 | 15% | 27% |
| 2 | Udemy | 20% | 3.7 | 7% | 75% |
| 3 | Open University | 12% | 1.6 | 7% | 17% |
| 4 | FutureLearn | 10% | 2.7 | 2% | 25% |
| 5 | edX | 10% | 3.2 | 0% | — |
| 6 | LinkedIn Learning | 8% | 3.0 | 2% | 20% |
| 7 | Skillshare | 5% | 1.3 | 0% | 0% |
| 8 | Alison | 5% | 3.7 | 2% | 33% |
| 9 | Preply | 5% | 3.7 | 2% | 100% |
| 10 | italki | 3% | 1.0 | 5% | 100% |
| 11 | Solihull Approach | 3% | 1.0 | 0% | — |
| 12 | UX Academy | 3% | 1.5 | 5% | 33% |
| 13 | HubSpot Academy | 3% | 2.0 | 0% | — |
| 14 | The School of UX | 3% | 2.0 | 5% | 100% |
| 15 | British Council | 3% | 2.5 | 5% | 14% |
Online Learning is decided on attraction.
Being named is visibility. Underneath it, every answer describes a brand in three ways — how much it stands out, how much it belongs, and how much it is returned to. In online learning, Open University leads attraction at 111 against LinkedIn Learning at 89, indexed on the category at 100.
Each whorl lights one ring per index threshold cleared. See the full online learning desire edition →
Before it answers, it goes looking for British Council.
An assistant does not answer from memory alone. It runs its own web searches first, and whoever it searches for is the shortlist it then chooses from. Across 56 searches in online learning, British Council is named in 20% of the ones that name a brand at all. ChatGPT Web, Copilot do not report their searches, so these shares are measured against the ones that do.
These are the assistants' own searches, read from their answers — not what anyone typed into a search engine.
The referees of online learning.
The independent sources AI models cite when answering online learning questions — the places a brand needs to be seen, reviewed and ranked.
Udemy converts reads into citations. British Council doesn't.
When Claude or ChatGPT opens a brand's own pages while answering, does the page make the cited-sources list? Udemy converts 75% of reads; British Council just 14%. That gap is a content problem, not a visibility problem.
Full data table
| # | Brand | Visibility | Avg. position | Citation share | Read→cited |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Coursera | 25% | 1.9 | 15% | 27% |
| 2 | Udemy | 20% | 3.7 | 7% | 75% |
| 3 | Open University | 12% | 1.6 | 7% | 17% |
| 4 | FutureLearn | 10% | 2.7 | 2% | 25% |
| 5 | edX | 10% | 3.2 | 0% | — |
| 6 | LinkedIn Learning | 8% | 3.0 | 2% | 20% |
| 7 | Skillshare | 5% | 1.3 | 0% | 0% |
| 8 | Alison | 5% | 3.7 | 2% | 33% |
| 9 | Preply | 5% | 3.7 | 2% | 100% |
| 10 | italki | 3% | 1.0 | 5% | 100% |
| 11 | Solihull Approach | 3% | 1.0 | 0% | — |
| 12 | UX Academy | 3% | 1.5 | 5% | 33% |
| 13 | HubSpot Academy | 3% | 2.0 | 0% | — |
| 14 | The School of UX | 3% | 2.0 | 5% | 100% |
| 15 | British Council | 3% | 2.5 | 5% | 14% |
The models do not agree on who leads.
Ask about online learning and the brand you are shown depends on the assistant: Claude → Coursera, Gemini → Coursera, ChatGPT → FutureLearn. Their top-five lists share just 22% of names.
Brands whose visibility swings most between models — the bar per model, widest gap on the right.
The data behind this chart
| Brand | Claude | Gemini | ChatGPT | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coursera | 25% | 40% | 10% | 30pp |
| edX | 15% | 15% | 0% | 15pp |
| Udemy | 15% | 30% | 15% | 15pp |
| FutureLearn | 5% | 5% | 20% | 15pp |
| LinkedIn Learning | 15% | 5% | 5% | 10pp |
| Alison | 10% | 0% | 5% | 10pp |
| Open University | 5% | 15% | 15% | 10pp |
| New Skills Academy | 0% | 10% | 0% | 10pp |
| DataCamp | 5% | 0% | 0% | 5pp |
| UXPortfolio.co | 5% | 0% | 5% | 5pp |
Editorial carry online learning.
Every page AI opened while answering, classified by what kind of page it is. Editorial supply the most citations; Comparisons convert best — 100% of the ones models opened were actually cited.
The data behind this chart
| Page type | Cited | Read but not cited | Conversion |
|---|---|---|---|
| Editorial | 44 | 14 | 76% |
| Product pages | 41 | 6 | 87% |
| Listicles | 23 | 2 | 92% |
| How-to guides | 19 | 1 | 95% |
| Comparisons | 18 | 0 | 100% |
| category-page | 16 | 0 | 100% |
| Documentation | 13 | 8 | 62% |
| Other | 13 | 14 | 48% |
Structured data is what separates cited from ignored.
Of the online learning pages models actually opened, how much more often each feature's pages ended up in the cited sources. Structured data is worth 16 percentage points; hard statistics pages fare 16pp worse. Measured within the read population, so selection can't flatter it.
The data behind this chart
| Feature | Pages with | Cited % | Pages without | Cited % | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Structured data | 178 | 86% | 100 | 70% | +16pp |
| Named author | 120 | 84% | 158 | 77% | +7pp |
| Answer up front | 137 | 81% | 141 | 79% | +2pp |
| Comparison table | 50 | 74% | 228 | 82% | -8pp |
| Updated this year | 115 | 71% | 163 | 87% | -15pp |
| Hard statistics | 69 | 68% | 209 | 84% | -16pp |
Arden University builds pages AI can quote.
Readiness scores each brand's own pages on the structure models reward — a direct answer up front, tables, hard numbers, named authors, structured data, recency, specifications. edX is the widest gap: well-built pages that still aren't converting into citations.
| Brand | Readiness | Pages cited | Pages profiled |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arden University | 42 | 33% | 3 |
| Great Learning | 41 | 25% | 4 |
| edX | 38 | 0% | 25 |
| freeCodeCamp | 34 | 0% | 4 |
| Preply | 34 | 75% | 4 |
| Simplilearn | 33 | 0% | 3 |
| UX Academy | 29 | 14% | 7 |
| DataCamp | 27 | 0% | 26 |
| Coursera | 25 | 5% | 129 |
| LinkedIn Learning | 23 | 2% | 128 |
Readiness is the share of eight measurable structural signals present on a brand's profiled pages. It is a build-quality measure, not a ranking of the brand.
The questions online learning pages have to settle.
Read straight off the pages AI cited: the consumer questions cited content answers most often. Content that fails to settle these is content models have no reason to quote.
Nineteen more categories.
Method: 20 unbranded consumer prompts per category, spread across the buying journey, run weekly against ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. Read→cited uses Claude and ChatGPT only (Gemini does not separate the two). Correlational observations of model behaviour at the time of the run. Data from the run completed Mon, 12 Oct 2026 07:21:00 GMT.