In the age of AI, while machines learn faster and faster, people have to find time to learn how to use them. A new tool can alter the way of working, programming, analyzing data, or creating content in a few months, often faster than one can learn. And this is increasing a need: to retrain while professional life continues.
In Barcelona, this need has also shaped companies, such as Founderz or Learning Heroes, focused on training in new technologies, with a particularity: they are not only aimed at those who want to become specialists, but go further, and many are professionals who need to understand what they can do with AI and how to incorporate it into their professional lives.
Founderz was born in 2021 from the hand of Pau García-Milà and Anna Cejudo, with the aim of transforming online training and bringing it closer to the professional world. In five years, the business school specialized in AI has trained more than 700,000 professionals and has worked with more than 1,700 companies internationally. With headquarters in Barcelona and presence in 170 countries, it expects to exceed 11 million euros in turnover in 2026, after having gone from 2.1 million in 2023 to 7.6 million in 2025.
The growth of Founderz accompanies a change in the type of person seeking technological training, and that is that AI is no longer a matter reserved for technology departments; it has entered all fields, from marketing, finance, health, education, sports, and even creative professions. The school has been expanding its offer in this direction, with programs in applied AI, productivity, leadership, or specific training for specific sectors.
It has also evolved towards companies. Its new B2B platform, Frontierz, seeks to bring training to the field of daily work. With this objective, the platform incorporates adapted exercises, situations based on real challenges, and AI assistants that accompany employees. The company has also closed an agreement with Blanquerna-Universitat Ramon Llull to promote an online training model in AI and personalized learning.
The need for training that Founderz promoted is the same that launched Learning Heroes in 2023. "There was a part of the population underserved at a training level," defends Arnau Ramió, co-founder along with Xavier Recio of the project that ended up shaping Learning Heroes. They did it with one premise: to incorporate technology into professional life, it is not necessary to become an engineer, but to understand its potential.
Today, more than 20,000 students have gone through their programs, with people from 16 years old to over 60. The bulk, however, is between 35 and 55 years old, with professionals seeking to incorporate technology into their work life, or transform it. To do this, Learning Heroes combines content, trainers, coaches and tutors with a technological platform that incorporates AI agents, a proposal that led it to bill some 20 million euros in 2025, with growth of close to 50%.
However, new technologies, with AI at the forefront, evolve so rapidly that training in this area can quickly become obsolete. Therefore, as Ramió defends, "the most important thing is not to memorize tools, but to understand how to use AI to solve problems."
Beyond the training of active professionals, the Barcelona training ecosystem also looks at those who seek to start their professional career. And here universities come into play, with a leading role. In Barcelona, the UPC and the UAB are some of the universities that offer specific degrees on AI.
Whether to understand its fundamentals or to apply it in daily work, AI transforms processes within companies and also in training, both for those starting their career and for those incorporating it into theirs. And while machines and computers continue to learn at an increasingly rapid pace, universities, schools and companies work to ensure that professionals can keep up.