Kevin Fleming
Kevin Fleming had a friend try out his early models in 2022. It changed direction for his fledgling startup company Writing.io.
“I remember using the (2022 AI model),” said Fleming, founder and CEO of Writing.io. “And then I got home on Friday and started working again on Monday, and the company plans and views are completely different.
Later, Writing.io became a business creating AI education courses and tools, selling subscriptions in various price ranges. This is one of the swarms of online AI education platforms due to the widespread use of tools like ChatGpt. Florida Southwestern State University's corporate and community education website promotes the $230 artificial intelligence and machine learning suite course. California-based Coursera offers AI courses for AI for $49. Maine-based CertStaffix Training also sells AI referral courses for $200.
The Grand View research firm estimates that the global AI education industry, driven by investments in e-learning platforms and educational technology startups, will increase by about 31% from $5.9 billion in 2024 to $32.2 billion in 2030.
“There was a huge need for rapid education to help people who were in this transition, transformation, and speed up,” Fleming said.
Fleming has now made the company's introductory course, usually available to Gulf Shore business staff, at $200. When each of those short modules lasts a few minutes, most people can snip it through in a few hours, and come to mind with basic knowledge of what generative AI tools are suitable for, what they lack, and how to use them. The module comes with a link to a paid subscription to write.io.
Writing.io's courses are designed to help staff from almost every industry, including small and medium-sized businesses, quickly increasing the speedup of AI and enhance their workflow, Fleming said. “(a) I feel that many teams and businesses are not positioned internally as they should be because of the rise of AI. Our mission and our goal is to help your team speed up as quickly as possible.”
One of the challenges of the Writing.io team is to keep up with fast-moving technology by regularly updating services and products.
“My philosophy is that we need to let you do that yesterday,” Fleming said.
The company offers 10,000 subscriptions to introductory courses in Lee, Charlotte and Collier counties, and 10,000 subscriptions to small businesses with less than 10 staff and nonprofit staff. Writing.io partnered with Fort Myers' charitable nonprofit Collaboratory to distribute subscriptions to a network of local nonprofits in Lee, Charlotte and Collier Counties.
“I thought it was a really good intro (for AI),” said Dawn Belamarich, president and CEO of Collaboratory. “I had knowledge of AI baselines, but it helped me to give me further understanding. I think it's a really good high level 'How to Use AI' is a way to use it better with people who are afraid to use it. ”
Before write.io, 38-year-old Fleming founded Creditforums.com, a managing partner for startup incubators and an online credit information community. Contenta is a content writing platform, according to LinkedIn. Fleming and his wife, Amanda Schevener, the company's chief learning officer, moved from Philadelphia to Naples in 2018 and quickly fell in love with the area.
“We're more enjoyable here winter, as people often find,” he said.
