The first major AI casualty is here — and it’s a warning signal for every knowledge-based business.
Chegg, once a $14.7B EdTech giant, has been economically destroyed by AI.
Its entire model was built on monetizing access to answers: homework solutions, study guides, textbook rentals.
Then AI arrived.
ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini gave users something radically better:
• Instant answers
• Step-by-step explanations
• Personalized learning
• Zero cost
The result?
📉 Stock down ~99% from peak
📉 Market cap collapsed to ~$110M
📉 2025 revenue: $377M (-39% YoY)
📉 Q4 revenue: $73M (-49% YoY)
📉 Over 56% of employees laid off
Core business? Shutting down.
Chegg is now pivoting to “Chegg Skills” — a corporate training platform targeting B2B clients.
Early growth exists. But the original business is gone.
This is a textbook example of AI-driven market destruction.
If your business depends on selling:
• Information
• Knowledge
• Answers
AI is your direct competitor.
And it doesn’t need funding, teams, or scaling.
It scales infinitely.
The implication for crypto & trading is even deeper:
AI will:
• Replace signal sellers
• Compress alpha
• Automate analysis
• Democratize edge
The only defensible moat?
👉 Proprietary data
👉 Execution speed
👉 Unique insights
Everything else is at risk.