The new report has 497 pages, 51 forecast tables, and 17 charts. The Serious Play Conference is the exclusive reseller of the report.

“The market conditions are very favorable for suppliers,” reports Sam S. Adkins, chief research at Metaari and author of the report. “The major revenue opportunities are in the corporate segments and the federal government agencies across the planet. The revenues are heavily concentrated in North America and the Asia Pacific. While China is the largest buying country in the Asia Pacific region, the US is the largest buying country in the world by a large margin. The most lucrative revenue opportunities are in the US throughout the forecast period.”

The demand is high and the barriers-to-entry are falling fast. Suppliers no longer have to develop expensive proprietary AI but instead “rent” AI from cloud-based AI vendors (like IBM Watson) and buy relatively inexpensive premade and pretrained components in the growing number of online marketplaces. Startups are now able to get products to market very quickly.

Metaari has revised our AI-based Learning revenue forecasts significantly upward from previous forecasts. The rapid uptake of AI-based Learning coincides with the rapid evolution of AI technology in general. The competitive landscape is fundamentally different than it was a little over two years ago.

“Legacy suppliers are ‘buying their way in’ via acquisitions of AI-based Learning startups,” comments Adkins. “The major compelling pattern in the recent M&A activity is the growing number of acquisitions made by very large educational publishers and by the technology giants.”

Very large education publishers like Wiley, McGraw-Hill, Pearson, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Daekyo, Elsevier, Follett, Cornerstone, VitalSource, and Course Hero have all acquired AI-based Learning startups in the last two years. Tech giants like Apple, Google, Medtronic, Microsoft, SAP, and IBM have scooped up AI-based Learning startups as well. These companies are tapping the massive revenues in the booming AI-based Learning market and have effectively “bought their way in”. Intense M&A activity is often a sign of consolidation but that is not the case (yet) in the global AI-based Learning market.

“Well-funded startups are coming on the market at a steady pace,” comments Adkins. “Hundreds of new AI-based Learning suppliers have entered the market since 2018. More than half (59%) of the 700 suppliers cited in this report have obtained private investment in the last two years. What is interesting is that a large number of these startups obtained additional rounds in 2020.

A breathtaking $10.6 billion was invested in 406 AI-based Learning companies in 2020. Eight of the top ten funded AI-based Learning companies in the world were US companies.

There are six sections in this report: an overview of the global market conditions, an analysis of the major catalysts driving the market, a demand side-analysis, and a supply-side analysis. There is also an appendix with Metaari’s definition of AI-based Learning and an index of over 700 suppliers.

The supply-side analysis provides five-year revenue forecasts for three types of commercial AI-based Learning products and services: retail packaged content, custom development services, and AI-based Learning authoring tools and platforms. Packaged content revenue is further broken out by ten content categories and platform revenues are broken out for nine distinct tool types.

About Metaari

Metaari (formerly Ambient Insight) is an ethics-based quantitative market research firm that identifies revenue opportunities for advanced learning technology suppliers. We track the learning technology markets in 126 countries. We have the most complete view of the international learning technology market in the industry. Metaari focusses solely on advanced learning technology research on products that utilize psychometrics, neuroscience, location intelligence, game mechanics, robotics, cognitive computing, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and augmented reality.

The press release Global AI-based Learning Market Surges to $34.9 Billion by 2026 comes from Xinwengao.com press release distribution and journalist media database service in China.

Global investment to learning technology companies surged to a breathtaking $36.38 billion in 2020, up dramatically from the $18.66 billion invested in 2019 and more than double the $16.34 billion invested in 2018. The number of deals spiked from 896 in 2019 to 1,251 deals in 2020.

This whitepaper breaks out investments made to ten types of learning technology products: three legacy products and seven advanced learning technologies. The legacy products include Self-pace eLearning (asynchronous courseware), Digital ReferenceWare (test prep, audiobooks, videos, manuals, etc.), and Collaboration-based Learning (synchronous live online classes and tutoring)

The advanced learning technology products include AI-based Learning, Mixed Reality Learning (Simulation, AR, and VR), Game-based Learning, Cognitive Learning (behavior modification), Mobile Learning, Location-based Learning, and Education and Training Bots (both physical and virtual).

“Despite the massive funding going to Chinese companies, the US accounted for the highest amounts of funding,” comments Sam Adkins, the Chief Researcher at Metaari. “Just over $16.15 billion went to 611 US learning technology developers in 2020. This is 44.4% of all global investments made in 2020.”

There were very large investments made to online learning companies in China, but only to a few companies. A full 31.6% ($11.52 billion) of all global investments in 2020 went to just 125 Chinese companies. Yet, this funding was highly concentrated in just two companies: Yuanfudao and Zuoyebang. Combined, they garnered 50.8% of all funding going to Chinese learning technology developers in 2020.

“Combined, the US and China accounted for 76.0% of all global funding in 2020,” comments Adkins. “Yet, there are major differences in the investment patterns in China and the US. In China, investors pumped very large amounts into a relatively small number of companies and most of them offer live online classes.”

Investments in the US were much smaller than China but went to a large number of companies. The one striking thing about the investment patterns in the US is the keen investor interest in AI-based Learning companies. A total of $8.45 billion was invested in 287 AI-based Learning companies in the US in 2020. To put this in context, a full 83% of all global investments in AI-based Learning went to US companies. In sharp contrast, “only” $534.6 million went to just 22 AI-based Learning companies in China; a mere 5.3% of the total global investments made to AI-based Learning companies.

Investment in corporate-facing companies in 2020 nearly doubled compared to 2019; investment reached a breathtaking $10.39 billion in 2019. A massive $17.22 billion went to 702 corporate-facing companies in 2020.

Funding declined for consumer-facing learning technology companies in 2019 but rebounded dramatically in 2020. Funding dropped to $6.67 billion in 2019, but spiked to $13.48 billion in 2020.

In 2019, there were only 84 deals made with PreK-12 learning technology companies and investment fell to $855.32 million. This changed dramatically in 2020, with $4.39 billion going to 107 companies serving the PreK-12 segment. In 2020, funding to learning technology suppliers serving the global higher education segments surged to $1.09 billion.

The big winners in 2020 were AI-based Learning developers, Collaboration-based Learning (live online tutoring) providers, Mixed Reality Learning developers, and Mobile Learning edtech companies. But it was AI-based Learning that attracted the largest amount of funding by a wide margin.

An astonishing $3.67 billion was invested in 120 AI-based Learning companies in 2019. This pales in comparison to the $10.17 billion that went to 359 AI-based Learning companies in 2020. The vast majority (83%) of funding went to US startups.

Corporations (particularly healthcare firms) are the top buyers of AI-based Learning followed by federal government agencies across the planet. Companies and agencies are using AI-based Learning in cybersecurity training, pre-employment assessment, intelligent business simulations, augmented predictive analytics (also called insight engines), big data visualization, knowledge graphing, digital twins and digital employees, and a relatively new trend, AI-based IT operations and support (AIOps). AI has essentially reinvented the call center industry.

AI-based Learning is used in five major ways in healthcare: pathology, analytics, diagnosis, etiology (causation), and treatment (therapy). When enhanced with AI, platforms designed for all five become knowledge engines.

“Perhaps the greatest impact on AI-based Learning in the healthcare industry are the advances being made in precision medicine, clinical decision support, and in imaging diagnostics,” adds Adkins.

There was a sharp spike in investments made to PreK-12 learning technology providers in India. Just under $3.0 billion ($2.96 billion) in capital flowed to 114 learning technology companies in India in 2020, but 38% of this went to just one company; the online education juggernaut BYJU’S raised $1.11 billion in five rounds in 2020.

Learning technology investments spiked in the UK and Germany in 2020 but declined in France and Canada compared to 2019. Investments rebounded in the Nordic Cluster, Israel, and Australia after declines in 2019. Investment activity is inherently unpredictable and nowhere is that more apparent than the rebounds and declines in 2020.

Latin America is again a hotbed of investment in edtech startups after three years of decline. In 2019, only $98.7 million was invested in just 12 learning technology companies in the region. That changed dramatically in 2020 with 23 companies raising $346.0 million in funding.

Eighteen edtech companies in Southeast Asia raised a combined total of $327.8 million in funding in 2019, up more than four times from the $75.5 million invested in 2018. This spiked dramatically in 2020 with $595.9 million going to 41 edtech companies in the region.

About Metaari

Metaari (formerly Ambient Insight) is an ethics-based quantitative market research firm that identifies revenue opportunities for advanced learning technology suppliers. We track the learning technology markets in 126 countries. We have the most complete view of the international learning technology market in the industry. Metaari focusses solely on advanced learning technology research on products that utilize psychometrics, neuroscience, location intelligence, game mechanics, robotics, cognitive computing, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and augmented reality.

The press release Metaari Reports Massive Surge in Global Edtech Investment in 2020 comes from Xinwengao.com press release distribution and journalist media database service in China.