In a global first, Masters’ Union, one of India’s leading business and technology schools, today announced an AI Royalty Model for educators – a new compensation framework where its professors will be paid royalties every time their AI avatar teaches a student.

Under the model, faculty will earn a flat fee per unique learner per subject and a one-time honorarium will be paid to each professor licensing their likeness. Alongside this, a reward programme has been designed to recognise and reward the most-streamed digital twins. 

The model will also be extended to the visiting faculty and practitioners who wish to monetise their AI avatars through Masters’ Union. Inspired by models used by Spotify and YouTube, this framework treats educators not as employees, but as IP holders, whose teaching continues to generate value at scale.

This royalty model has been designed to support Masters’ Union’s larger vision of offering free, high-quality business education online. To make this possible, the institution is launching the Masters’ Union AI Institute (MuAI), a platform that will host its entire business curriculum, available to learners worldwide, free of cost. The learning experience at MuAI will be powered entirely by AI avatars of Masters’ Union’s in-house professors.

Scheduled to go live in July, 2025, MuAI will offer self-paced courses in business communication, marketing, strategy, technology, venture capital, and more; delivered entirely through AI avatars of the school’s own professors.

To ensure a high-quality and truly interactive learning experience, the avatars are being trained on hundreds of hours of classroom delivery, one-on-one mentorship, case walk-throughs, and live discussions of the original faculty. Built using various open source models and proprietary technology, they mimic the faculty’s voice, content, and unique teaching style and are capable of responding to learner queries in real time; while maintaining the faculty’s tone, reasoning, and pedagogy. Learners can engage with these avatars conversationally. They can ask questions, probe deeper, and repeat lessons – all on their own time, from anywhere in the world.

Some of the faculty members whose digital twins will soon launch on the platform include of Manoj Kohli, chairman, Masters’ Union and former CEO of Bharti Airtel; Rajat Mathur, managing director, Morgan Stanley & Master at Masters’ Union and Rajeev Soni, former director of product management at Gartner. 

Comments Kohli, “The idea that my digital twin can continue to mentor learners long after class is over and possibly even long after I have stopped teaching – is incredibly powerful. This model respects the educator’s role while scaling their impact in a way that has never been done before.”

MuAI represents a fundamental shift in how open courses (MOOCs) are delivered. By combining content with interactivity, this model will bring online learning closer to personalised, one-on-one tutoring. Instead of passively watching recorded lectures, learners will be able to engage in real conversations with faculty AI avatars, ask follow-up questions, revisit complex topics, and learn at their own pace. 

Whether it’s a student in a remote town revisiting a marketing case at midnight, or a working professional clarifying a concept between meetings, the experience will be deeply personalised and available on demand.

Pratham Mittal, founder, Masters’ Union said, “The future of online education won’t be static or one-size-fits-all. It will be intelligent, responsive and deeply personal. Instead of just uploading lectures online which puts the entire onus of learning on the students, we are creating living, thinking versions of our faculty – available anytime, anywhere. And we are doing it while respecting their intellectual rights, just like any modern creative economy. We believe this will redefine both how MOOCs are delivered, and how effective they can be.”

Learning on MuAI will be self-paced, designed for working professionals, entrepreneurs, and lifelong learners – intended purely for the pursuit of knowledge, without the constraints of certification or credentialing.

Founded in 2029, Masters’ Union is a premium tech & business school based in the corporate district of Gurugram. To learn more, visit https://mastersunion.org/. 

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