The Impact of AI on Learning and Development: Revolutionising Employee Training

Going back in time, workplace training, if it existed at all, broadly had to be in person from a training consultant or a more experienced member of staff acting as a mentor for fresh faces at an organization. This mentorship involved providing verbal instructional communication, group activities and paperwork to sign as onboarding training.  Over the last three decades or so though, digital technology in content creation, communication and documentation has seen innovations thought only possible in science fiction throughout a large part of the 20th century.

Artificial intelligence is transforming L&D

What was once seen in workplaces as a tedious but necessary part of work, with imperfect information retention success, can now be supercharged through the use of modern technology. Such technology, ranging from presentation recordings to interactive quizzes, has made L&D far more varied to accommodate individual company needs while being engaging to learn from, increasing the effectiveness of workplace training. Though looking back via hindsight, technology learning solutions prior to the 2020s were only just getting started.

With the rise and growing everyday use of AI technology in a personal and professional context, a million questions are asked daily on the existential threats or utopian benefits of what was until recently thought only possible in the far future. This optimism or caution, with some talking points more credible than others, can often be grounded by the known decisive benefits that have already been achieved with such technology. Such a notion therefore extends to L&D.

AI and its ability to redefine L&D

Even in the early days of its implementation for L&D, AI is already being seen as an increasingly beneficial asset for employee training. There is already evidence to suggest that firms using AI are seeing reported cost savings from its implementation, due to the flexibility it can offer in training. But what does redefining learning and development really mean?

Personalised, fast L&D, enabled by machine learning

With AI now being able to produce close-to-realistic voices in response to questions asked, L&D has the potential to be very personalised while still having a realistic touch that never ventures too far into the uncanny valley. With this, an AI model has the potential to carefully and clearly respond to long, detailed or uncertain questions an employee-in-training might have. From this, L&D can become extremely accommodating to a person’s individual learning style and provide real-time feedback on progress being made. Even if implementation of approachable real-time voice interaction with an AI model is still five years away from being widespread, in the short-term 24/7 AI Chatbots are still a viable option. If comprehensive and dependable for reliably answering questions, such real-time text communication of information has the potential to be a fantastic resource for L&D. 

With L&D content creation being supplemented with AI via these means, microlearning can therefore become a credible way to engage an employee in their training, while accounting for their speech patterns, questions, language and learning style in a time-effective way. This is without having to rely on a direct mentor, who may be presenting training work to dozens, if not hundreds, of people.  Whether it is a chatbot or interactive form of ChatGPT that can be directly spoken to with the expectation of a verbal response, AI has great potential to both supplement current L&D content and greatly enhance its effectiveness. This is before you even consider the potential of new highly immersive simulations.

The bigger picture with L&D and AI

Consideration of positive impacts, on both employer and employee, in the topic of AI within L&D, is vital when looking forward. From cheaper and faster training content cost–production to improved learning engagement and retention, it is worth acknowledging that AI within L&D is a potential decisive net positive. From live-feedback and personalised learning for each individual, AI could permanently change the way companies implement staff onboarding via L&D. 

Within this discussion though, it is worth considering that with such dramatic benefits being tested and implemented in L&D right now, there should be a universal awareness in training content changes as a result of AI. If such innovations are not being monitored by companies, then the cost and learning effective benefits for L&D are likely to only be a prominent feature of staff onboarding from competitors. What’s your view on the subject? Is AI redefining L&D? We’d love to know your thoughts.

Lawford Knight