Netwealth
2026 Regional Winner | AI Pioneer
Industry
Financial Services
Company HQ
Melbourne, Australia
Number of Employees
700+
Office Locations
Australia
How Netwealth built an AI-fluent workforce with Udemy
Business outcomes
33%
Improvement in AI skills and confidence
506
Active users, up from 65
30 minutes
Policy review time, down from 7 hours
Challenge
Closing the gap between AI use and AI capability
Netwealth Investments Limited (NWL) is an Australian wealth management platform listed on the Australian Securities Exchange and headquartered in Melbourne. Founded in 1999, Netwealth provides investment, superannuation, and managed account solutions primarily to financial advisers and their clients across Australia. The business operates as a platform provider, sitting between fund managers and financial advice practices, giving advisers tools to manage client portfolios, access a broad investment menu, and deliver reporting and administration services. In addition, Netwealth is known for its technology-first approach, consistently ranking among the highest-rated platforms in adviser satisfaction surveys.
At Netwealth, leaders faced a paradox: nearly all of the company’s staff had experimented with AI, but few could use it well. Approximately 250 Udemy licenses existed, concentrated in IT, leaving the rest of the organization without structured access to AI upskilling. The company’s own baseline data confirmed the depth of the gap.
A whopping 99% of staff had used AI in some form, yet average self-rated AI knowledge stood at just 2.65 out of 5, and 42% named lack of knowledge and training as their single biggest barrier to using AI effectively. In a regulated financial-services environment, the stakes were higher still. Team members needed to use AI productively and safely, exercising judgment about data privacy, verification, and knowing when not to use it. The company saw an opportunity timed to its Workday Learning rollout, creating a single moment to embed AI learning enterprise-wide.
“Our people were already reaching for AI tools, but without structured learning they had no reliable way to build real capability, and Udemy gave us the foundation to change that,” said Dot Kennedy, Head of Learning & Development.
“Our people were already reaching for AI tools, but without structured learning they had no reliable way to build real capability, and Udemy gave us the foundation to change that.”
Solution
Space-themed pathways from explorer to pioneer
The company built three role-graded AI pathways on Udemy, each themed around a stage of space exploration and anchored to the Microsoft 365 Copilot tools its people use every day.
Explorer for beginners focuses on personal productivity with Copilot across Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams. Voyager for intermediate learners covers advanced prompting, the Copilot app, prompt engineering, and Researcher and Analyst agents. Pioneer for expert learners teaches staff to build custom agents in Copilot, turning consumers of AI into creators.
The design is distinctive in five ways:
- Diagnostic placement: a Pathway Placement assessment scores each learner’s AI literacy and routes them to the right pathway, removing guesswork
- Measurable by design: pre- and post-assessments quantify knowledge gain, confidence uplift, and practical skill at every level
- Self-paced and capacity-conscious: modular content of 2.5 to 3.5 hours respects people’s workload
- Progressive ambition: the Pioneer pathway teaches staff to build their own custom agents in Copilot, turning consumers of AI into creators. This is supported by people skill modules embedded in the pathways, such as creative and innovative thinking.
- Responsible-use guardrails: the company worked with its Risk and Governance team to embed AI policies directly into the pathways
At Netwealth, the rollout was wrapped in engagement mechanics that turned upskilling into a visible, organisation-wide movement. A “Learn Big, Win Big” competition — a four-week launch challenge with weekly $50 Work Perks vouchers for the top 10 on the leaderboard and a $300 grand prize — digital badges were shareable on LinkedIn and Viva Engage, backed by physical lanyard pins for each pathway completion, and a dedicated Viva Engage community gave staff a place to share wins, prompts, and use cases.
Delivery through Workday Learning placed the pathways alongside daily workflows rather than in a separate portal. The result: upskilling became something people talked about, competed in, and shared publicly — even the Exec team had a competition which they shared — not something pushed onto them.
“Udemy’s AI-powered skills mapping let us build and align these pathways in a fraction of the time it would have taken manually,” Kennedy said.
AI pathway creation and skills mapping were key to Netwealth creating these pathways in a short time frame. The team was able to collaborate with a working group to align the content.
“Udemy’s AI-powered skills mapping let us build and align these pathways in a fraction of the time it would have taken manually.”
Results
Eightfold growth and a 33% knowledge uplift
In three months after the pathways launched, leading into the company’s busiest end-of-financial-year period, the results exceeded expectations. Active users grew from 65 to 506, an almost eightfold increase, with 1,210 hours of learning logged across 339 active courses. The company issued 137 digital badges, and learners rated the content quality 4.25 out of 5.
The learning translated directly into measurable capability gains. AI knowledge rose from 2.65 to 3.53 out of 5, a 33% improvement, and AI skills and confidence rose from 2.84 to 3.47, a 22% improvement. 99% had used AI beforehand, yet 42% cited knowledge gaps as their top barrier — validating the need. Post-pathway, 69% of learners now use AI daily and 91% use it at least weekly.
Employees also began applying their new skills immediately. Staff built seven custom agents through the Pioneer pathway and deployed them in the business. One agent transformed a policy review process that previously took seven hours, reducing it to 30 minutes.
Training has also translated directly into behaviour change. Confidence by task:
- Summarizing documents/reports — 92%
- Drafting emails/communications — 90%
- Creating learning materials/presentations — 84%
- Analyzing data — 76%
- Using AI agents for productivity — 61%
- Automating repetitive tasks — 60%
Prompt engineering was repeatedly called out by learners as especially useful, leading to noticeably better Copilot outputs in their daily work. The Sales team has also now been enrolled in mandatory pathway learning, extending AI integration across the business.
“With Udemy, our people went from experimenting with AI to building real tools that save measurable time,” Kennedy said.
“With Udemy, our people went from experimenting with AI to building real tools that save measurable time.”
Looking Ahead
Extending and scaling
At Netwealth, leaders plan to extend mandatory pathway learning beyond the Sales team to additional functions and to scale the custom agents built through the Pioneer pathway into broader business use.
“Udemy Business gives us the foundation to keep building on this momentum as AI becomes part of how we work every day,” Kennedy said.
“Udemy Business gives us the foundation to keep building on this momentum as AI becomes part of how we work every day.”
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