How AI makes training more effective
Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the way companies operate, including learning and development (L&D). The global value of the learning and development industry is now over $350 billion. In cloud-native organizations, employees must constantly learn new skills due to the pace of technology change, distributed work, and shortening skill half-lives. AI-powered learning tools aim to address long-standing issues of inflexibility, irrelevance, and lack of measurable impact.
Hyper-personalized learning experience
The traditional “one size fits all” approach to training is no longer suitable for a diverse workforce. AI can analyze an individual’s skills, career aspirations, and learning style to provide highly personalized training [1]. Such platforms can update content in real-time and provide recommendations based on an individual’s performance. A public health agency’s introduction of an AI-powered platform helped it reduce training time by 40% while providing relevant content to employees. Another study of workforces across multiple sectors found that AI-powered training offers significant benefits in terms of efficiency and retention.
AI-powered personalized learning is not limited to knowledge-based training. Walmart’s experience with AI-powered immersive training modules reduced training time by 96% and increased employee satisfaction by 30%. Examples like this show how AI-powered adaptive training platforms can provide significant benefits to organizations, aligning with individual needs and organizational goals.
“Platform engineering is more than just infrastructure. It’s the connective tissue that aligns technology with business goals. We’re turning operations from a bottleneck into a product that developers actually want to use,” said Segun Onibarusi, CEO of Detutu Media, emphasizing the need for learning platforms that people enjoy using while achieving strategic goals. The same idea applies to AI-powered training. Treat learning tools as products, integrate them with cloud-native workflows, and design them around the user experience.
Real-time guidance with AI assistant
But AI does more than just suggest what to learn. You can also provide real-time coaching to your learners. AI teaching assistants can answer questions and provide explanations to learners. PwC uses ChatGPT Enterprise to create AI mentors that can provide feedback to employees on leadership and communication skills, helping them advance their careers in these areas. AI can also assist collaboration tools to provide relevant policies and procedures to learners in real-time.
Immersive simulation for hard and soft skills
AI combined with virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technology brings training to life. For example, Walmart’s virtual training program for employees puts employees in situations where their behavior is monitored by AI technology. This helps greatly improve efficiency. Another example is provided by Accenture’s simulation, which uses AI to put managers in critical leadership situations and provide instant feedback on tone of voice, facial expressions, and decision-making skills.
In addition to virtual reality headsets, simulation platforms use behavioral intelligence to create realistic sales or customer service scenarios that resemble real life. We also use simulation to map training results to performance goals in cloud-native environments.
Learning analytics, skill gap detection, ROI
The first benefit of AI is that it helps measure and shape training. This is done by using AI-based analytics to track trends, detect gaps, and fine-tune training programs. This helps demonstrate the ROI of your training by relating it to your organization’s goals. Data literacy and AI literacy are increasingly recognized as having a significant impact on ROI. A DataCamp survey of over 500 business leaders revealed that only 20% of companies are currently achieving a high ROI on their AI investments.
This number more than doubles for companies with strong upskilling efforts. According to World Economy Form, most employees are already using AI technology and are seeking training support [2]. This is important because hiring new employees is much more expensive than training existing employees.
Ethical considerations and inclusivity
There are also ethical issues with the use of AI. For example, there are concerns that while AI can help organizations become more efficient, there are other issues that need to be addressed. According to the World Economic Forum, there are concerns that the adoption of generative AI technology may be slow in some parts of the world. For example, people in richer and better-educated countries appear to be adopting this technology faster than others. Therefore, organizations should encourage the use of this technology to avoid a two-speed employee situation.
Looking to the future
For cloud-native professionals, AI-powered learning tools provide a continuous and scalable means of talent development. Hyper-personalized content, real-time coaching, immersive simulations, and analytics provide the means to reduce training time, increase retention, and ensure alignment with business goals. Leadership is critical in ensuring learning platforms are integrated products rather than isolated systems and investing in AI literacy and ethics.
In the words of Segun Onibalusi, it’s important to “align technology with business objectives.” With thoughtful adoption of AI-powered learning tools, cloud-native organizations can leverage technology to transform employee training from a necessary evil to a business advantage.
References:
[1] How AI will shape the future of corporate training in 2025
[2] The majority of workers want AI training from their companies. we have to empower them
