Chegg’s student subscription business has struggled since generative AI became widely available. Meanwhile, companies such as Scale AI, Mercor, and Turing have built valuable businesses around the people, data, and evaluations used to improve AI models.
Now Chegg is recruiting AI consultants and says it is using its subject matter expert network and academic content to help train and evaluate models. That seems like a plausible opportunity: it already has experience coordinating experts who solve difficult questions.
So what would stop Chegg from building a billion dollar AI services business? Is its existing expert network a real advantage, or are customer relationships, quality control, and competition much harder to overcome than they appear?
I’m curious what people who have worked for these platforms or followed their businesses think.