AI text generator ChatGPT, released to the public late last year, is so sophisticated that it has already demonstrated its ability to write coherent essays, generate sound legal documents and otherwise interact with humans in a convincingly conversational manner. One CEO even treats the tool from parent company OpenAI like a perennially available member of his executive team. "I ask ChatGPT to become aware of where my biases and blindspots might be, and the answers it gives are a really, really good starting point to check your thinking," Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO of online course provider Coursera, told CBS MoneyWatch. He said the tool helps him to be more thoughtful in his approach to business challenges, as well as look at topics from vantage points that differ from his own. For example, last week at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Maggioncalda entered the following prompt: "What should I consider when giving a speech to prime ministers at Davos?" Another useful entry for business leaders would be: "What should I consider when I am restructuring my company?"

When Coursera CEO Jeff Maggioncalda first "started banging" on OpenAI's ChatGPT, he couldn't believe what he saw. "It looked like magic," he told Insider's Cadie Thompson at the 2023 World Economic Forum. The former English major turned ed-tech executive said that he was impressed by how the buzzy chatbot was able to "recombine word patterns" to "create new ideas." "The first time I sat down in front of ChatGPT, I said'this is not possible,'" Maggioncalda said. He called ChatGPT a "game changer" that is "blowing my mind" -- so much so that he now talks to ChatGPT daily and uses it as a "writing assistant" and a "blog partner." His interest in the AI extends beyond personal use.

Teachers and students will discover by June that learning "will never be the same again" as people are increasingly using the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT, according to the chief executive of one of the world's largest providers of online education. ChatGPT is able to process large amounts of text and shares that information such as summarising it or explaining it "in a conversational way. The dialogue format makes it possible … to answer follow-up questions, admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect premises and reject inappropriate requests", according to its creators, OpenAI. If asked, it can create essays, poems and coding. Source material can be provided by a user or the technology uses available resources from the internet.

Jeff Maggioncalda was recently named CEO of Coursera. I have interviewed both founders of the company, Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, so I was curious about Maggioncalda's perspective on the company, education technology and the massive open online courses more generally, and his own background as an entrepreneur. Regarding the last point, Maggioncalda was previously the CEO of Financial Engines Inc, a company co-founded by economist and Nobel Prize winner William Sharpe and recently sold for $3 billion. During his 18 years as CEO of Financial Engines Inc, Maggioncalda had to pivot three times from his original idea before becoming a success. Financial Engines would go on to beocme the largest independent online retirement advice platform with more than $100b under management.

On January 16, a new course launched on the online learning platform Coursera with an unassuming name: The Google IT Support Professional Certificate. It promised to prepare beginners for entry-level jobs in IT in eight to 12 months. That day, it attracted the largest-ever group of first-time Coursera users, almost half of them people without college degrees. More than 18,000 people have enrolled in the $49-a-month program so far, 160 of whom have completed it. "Even as we were building it, even as it was about to launch, I never anticipated the success of it," says Natalie Van Kleef Conley, Google's product lead for the program.