Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a career differentiator in India, and increasingly, a financed one. As demand for AI credentials rises, so does borrowing to pay for them. Graduates and young executives are queuing up at the counters of personal and educational loans for a course in AI. And, these go well beyond the technical, science education backgrounds.
Non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), upskilling platforms and recruiters note that one could be from any educational background but an AI stamp on the resume will ensure higher success at bagging a job.
NBFCs have noted the demand for loans where the money is spent on an AI-related course. They have tie-ups with skill learning platforms and are, therefore, aware that graduates and young executives are taking loans of anywhere between ₹50,000 and ₹2 lakh for courses on AI.
“In 2025, the loans taken for educational courses was around ₹2 crore a month, of which 60% is for upskilling courses, largely AI-related. In 2026 January, the loan amount became ₹9 crore, and again 60% was taken for a tech-related upskilling course,” said Ankit Mehra, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of GyanDhan, an NBFC specializing in education loans.
Propelld, another NBFC in the segment, has noted how upskilling courses are getting tweaked to include more AI-related teaching that is expected to prepare candidates for a higher success rate.
“Most of the programmes are redesigned and remarketed as AI programming. A data science and data analytics programme will now include more AI-related skillsets and are then offered to students,” said Victor Senapaty, chief executive officer of Propelld. The NBFC offers loans for upskilling to about 150,000 students a year and the median ticket size is ₹1-2 lakh per student.
“Taking loans for upskilling has consistently been a key use case among customers availing personal loans from us,” said Ajay Pareek, chief business officer at SMFG India Credit.
The company said it is now seeing increased demand driven by AI-led upskilling, particularly among salaried individuals earning between ₹30,000 and ₹75,000 a month.
Recruiters have noticed the rising demand for candidates with some proficiency in AI.
“Clients have asked us if we can test whether the candidates have a basic understanding of AI and are comfortable with vibe coding, and can use a NotebookLM for research, business analyst roles. None of them are tech-based profiles,” said Anshuman Das, CEO and co-founder of recruitment firm Careernet.
Vibe coding uses regular speech to come up with prompts and NotebookLM is a Google-developed AI tool used to upload and analyze documents.
Mint spoke to upskilling platforms who have noticed that those employed as marketers, finance executives and operations managers are enrolling for the more expensive high-ticket upskilling programmes.
Early-stage investor India Quotient-backed Masai School saw around 10–15% of its AI enrolments include some form of financing, with working professionals in the ₹1 lakh-plus loan bracket increasingly opting for equated monthly instalments (EMIs).
“It’s not borrowing for a degree; it’s borrowing for a raise. Financing is not pushing people to enroll, but it is removing friction for the ones who are serious about it,” said co-founder and CEO Prateek Shukla.
Upskilling platforms like Great Learning, Masai School and Coursera point to the sudden uptick in AI courses, especially from candidates without any engineering, science or technical degrees.
“Nearly one in three professionals enrolling in its AI programmes now comes from a non-STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) background,” said Great Learning’s co-founder Arjun Nair. Enrollments in generative AI, wherein one can create text, visuals, etc. using data and machine learning models, grew 22% in 2025.
Masai School is seeing a similar mix. “About 20-30% of recent enrollments are coming from non-tech backgrounds,” said co-founder Shukla.
On global platforms such as Coursera, India recorded more than 1.8 million generative AI enrolments in 2025, with growth of 57% between the first and second half of the year.
According to Ashutosh Gupta, managing director for India and Asia Pacific at Coursera, India accounts for over 4 million cumulative GenAI course enrolments on the platform to date, the highest globally.
And the thrust on AI expertise isn’t just at the entry and mid-level, it is reshaping leadership priorities too.
Mint reported last week that over the past 12 months, companies have announced at least 50 senior AI-focused leadership hires, including chief AI officers, across fintech, banking, manufacturing, logistics, media and enterprise technology, citing data from executive search firm Longhouse.