Creators find a new calling: Corporate AI trainers

Ansh Mehra, 27, is on the verge of reaching 1 million followers across Instagram and YouTube. But unlike other influencers, the computer science engineering graduate, who once worked at Swiggy, isn’t worried about follower count. Instead, he has found a booming niche: artificial intelligence training for top corporations.

- Shouvik Das

India’s largest private financial services group HDFC, Reliance Industries Ltd and British energy conglomerate Shell are among the world’s top 75 firms by market value that are increasingly enlisting experts with deep AI knowledge to train their employees. Surging demand for their skills allows creators and consultants like Mehra to secure up to ₹25 lakh in a few weeks.

Mehra has been running his AI training venture, The Cutting Edge School, for the past three years. He is currently conducting a workshop for over 1,000 employees for a top retail firm-he refused to identify the client, citing a nondisclosure agreement.

“Most companies that come to us have three key problems that they want solved: one, their employees are still using outdated tools for functions such as marketing, content creation and outreach; two, most of them are not using AI the way it should be; and three, giving the right prompts to ensure that privacy and security of individuals is maintained,” Mehra said.