And these partners really value the ability to reach college students more efficiently than they ever have before. And so it’s been a positive surprise for us, to be honest with you.
Jason Celino: Perfect. Thanks Dan.
Dan Rosensweig: Yes.
Operator: Next question, Brian Peterson with Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Analyst: Hi. Thanks for taking my question. This is Jessica on for Brian. I just have a little bit of follow-up on an earlier question. In terms of headcount, what kind of investments are you considering for a hiring strategy? Like in areas like AI and Skills, which are great growth areas for you, are you looking for more personnel, or are you having – are you looking for more partnerships like scale AI that helps cover help you need?
Dan Rosensweig: Yes. One of the things that we did earlier this year, which was very unfortunate, but back in June, we really began to understand the magnitude of what we wanted to invest in. And then we made the difficult decision to eliminate almost 90 jobs in the company so that we have the headway to be able to add jobs into our AI space. So, we have moved the majority of the personnel that we plan to move. We have opened up room to be able to add people as we need to add them. In terms of AI partnerships, one of the things that we have built is something internally is called the orchestrator, which allows us to work with any and all AI partners depending on which is the most efficient and relevant to produce the best result at the best price for us for our students, if we choose to do that.
So, we are not looking for – we don’t need many more partnerships in order to build what we want to build. It’s really about execution right now. So, we have always been judicious about adding heads. We don’t really add all that many heads per year. But the ones that we will add will be focused on getting all of these services rolled out the way we have discussed it on the call.
Unidentified Analyst: Great. That’s good to hear. Also, as a quick follow-up, are – so as you are rolling out further capabilities with your AI tools, are students receptive to having AI on Chegg being like a coach and lies beyond study help. Like could AI connect you to career guidance and mental wellness, is that helps keep them subscribed on Chegg even when they are done with classes? Thanks.
Dan Rosensweig: Yes, the answer is absolutely yes, and that’s precisely what we are building. So, in the short-term, the first step is to convert all the academic support. That is the single most valuable thing that we do and the most obvious thing that we do. From there, we are building the skills pathways, which is the ability to assess, do you have the skills necessary. So, just to envision the following scenario, you go to school A, we know that students that go to school A that major in finance end up going into the following 10 companies in your state and the skills that you need outside of academics to be proficient and/or these things, we will be able to tell all the students that. Then we will be able to assess you versus your other classmates or against an assessment test, and then we will be able to offer you the ability to learn those skills.
Those kinds of things will be not only make Chegg more valuable while at school, but also be able to stay with you once you are outside of school. The second area that we are working on are the areas that were originally were Chegg Life, which is financial literacy, mental health, those kinds of things. And so the ability to use a coach precisely, as you say, it’s internally is called the coach. It will not only encourage you to do things academically and skills, but also acknowledge when you are not getting enough sleep or when you may want to talk to somebody. So, it’s precisely the kind of things that we want to do. When I joined the company, 14 years ago, we said we wanted to go from four days a year return to 365 days a year. Well, we have gotten a halfway there, a third of the way there, I should say.
And we think these new capabilities will continue to expand the region to just stay annually on Chegg. We really have not offered an annual subscription in ages, but one of the things that once we roll out these perks and roll out these other capabilities, we do think there is going to be an interest in an annual subscription because you will use Chegg more and more each day for things beyond just academic support. You use it for mental support, you will use it for skill support, for coaching, for time management. There is a whole host of things that we will be able to do that we have never been able to do before that we are always on the original desire and roadmap to do, so yes.
Operator: Thank you. Next question, Alex Fuhrman with Craig Hallum Capital Group. Please go ahead.
Alex Fuhrman: Hey. Thanks very much for taking my question guys. I wanted to ask about the marketing strategy. Has your marketing needed to change at all over the past couple of quarters as AI has emerged as a little bit of a competitive threat? And as you look into next year, is it pretty much the same playbook, or are there any differences in how you go to market with your customers that we should expect to see next year?
Dan Rosensweig: You can expect to see differences in the messaging and differences in the format and differences in the vehicle. So, I will take each one. The first one and the most important one is we will be able to start to message the new capabilities. Remember, we get millions of students that come in a month, but because you come up against the paywall from day one, we will now have more valuable messaging and differentiated messaging that we think will improve conversion. That’s what it’s opportune to us, without even bringing in any other customers into the funnel. But of course, we want to expand the funnel and we should be able to expand the funnel because the kinds of things that we can do will now be relevant to students well beyond just the stem-B categories.
