Investigating the role of AI in e-learning and ILT strategic comebacks
Dr. RK Prasad has decades of experience in corporate training, university education and e-learning. Today he talks about how AI is bringing classrooms back to fashion, returning to human unalterable roles, preparing for the future of L&D with AI, and more.
We are still resisting adopting AI in the e-learning industry. What do you say to L&D experts who believe that AI is a human alternative?
Last month I was talking to a group of learning and development leaders about the future of educational design. One senior manager said, “I’m excited about the possibilities of AI and wondering if I’ll have a job in five years.” That tension? It’s real and growing.
Artificial intelligence has already redesigned how learning is created, delivered and evaluated. At first glance, it sounds like a dream come true: faster content development, personalized learning paths, real-time analytics. However, when you scratch the surface, a larger shift is ongoing. This challenges our assumptions about what makes the L&D team essential.
The question we should ask is not whether AI will replace us. That’s this: what still clearly requires human touch? And how can you protect and amplify it?
Based on real-world experience, how does AI currently affect the field of education design?
The AI Tsunami has already been a hit in teaching design. Do not sugar coat this. Educational design, a craft to build effective and engaging learning experiences, has improved head-on to automation.
Tools like ChatGpt, Midjourney, Vyond, Synthesia, and Canva AI suites have now been able to create scripts, narration, visuals and storyboards for just a small portion of the time they used to film their teams. Adaptive learning engines such as Maxlearn and Docebo personalize large-scale experiences. Translation tools like SmartCat reduce turnaround time and cost by more than 50%. It’s thrilling. But that’s also uncertain.
If junior designers can use AI to generate basic onboarding modules in two hours, what happens to senior designers that took two weeks? What happens if an internal business unit realizes that it completely bypasses L&D and still gets “good” training?
What’s even worse, what happens when the intellectual property (your secret source) of your training material is absorbed into AI training data or leaked through unsecured platforms?
What are the limits of AI when it comes to learning content development and distribution?
Despite the power of these tools, AI cannot replicate everything. You cannot mentor someone through harsh conversations. It is not possible to notice that high potential leaders are withdrawing during classroom activities. Don’t hesitate to hear someone else’s voice while playing roles.
They don’t understand the messy, beautiful nuances of human behavior in real time.
This is why I believe instructor-led training (ILT) and live facilitation will make a strategic comeback. Not as the default mode, but as the premium layer. Some of the learning strategies are reserved for high stakes transformation, leadership development and cultural alignment.
No matter how elegant it is, there are no modules generated in AI, so you can replicate them like this:
Building interhuman trust in global teams contextualizes the ability to read rooms, pivot into the middle of sessions, and create safe cosmic judgments that have been honed through decades of experience.
In short, AI is great with content. However, transformation occurs in the context, and the context is still human topography.
How can organizations adopt AI possibilities and prevent them in the future?
hedge. Rather than rejecting AI, by doubling what makes us unique. This is what we think we need to do:
1. Save and prioritize your live experience. ILT and classroom-based learning provide a depth of relationships that digital cannot touch. Use AI to automate “What” and reserve humans for “why” and “how.”
2. Increases judgment and ethics. Who determines what behavior counts as “success” in the Leadership module? Who prevents bias from sneaking into DEI training data? These are not algorithmic tasks. They demand human surveillance and ethical reasoning.
3. Build emotional intelligence as a core skill. AI doesn’t know how to mediate conflict, coach anxiety, or encourage trust. you do. And it makes you extremely valuable.
4. Create a genuine learning community. Everyone else automates LMS to send Nudges, but you can create content as well as internal networks, mentoring circles, and feedback forums where employees learn from each other.
5. Protect your intellectual property. Do not upload your own content to public AI tools. Supports secure enterprise-grade AI systems. Educate your team about “quickly leaks” and the risks of using Shadow AI.
Here are five questions to find your human edge. Ask yourself and your team:
What part of our L&D work relies on emotional intelligence and live interactions? Which stakeholders trust us for our judgment, not just our output, but for our own judgment? What training moments did not work in the AI-Only format? Where do you create not only compliance, but also psychological safety? Which parts of our experience are contextually rich and are not possible to simulate or replicate?
These are fault lines where AI cannot cross. And they are where our future is.
What do you think the future is for AI in learning, especially when it comes to collaboration with humans?
It will be a hybrid future, not a binary future. AI is not an enemy. Although wisely used, it’s an incredible ally, we need to wake up. Use it to scale, simplify and speed up. But draw a line around the work that defines your humanity.
Commlab India integrates AI into its translation and rapid development pipeline. However, we also run high-touch leadership labs, feedback-intensive performance coaching, and experiential workshops that AI has failed to lead.
The final bet is that people will become more important. AI comes for its reproducible scalable, impersonality. Let me do that. What it can’t touch – yet, perhaps never – is what makes you human:
Your ability to hear deeply your instincts to protect learners Your talent to turn friction into growth
The winner of the next decade at L&D is not the one who used AI the most. They will be those who knew what would not be handed over. So lean on your humanity. Design with empathy. It promotes presence. And teach others to do the same. Ultimately, if no one trusts the hand of using them, then the smartest tools in the world don’t matter.
What role does human qualities still play in educational design?
Thoughtful counterpoint: Be exceptional, not just humans. Let me offer a gentle challenge to everything I just said.
Yes, human qualities such as empathy, judgment, and trust. However, you need to be careful not to romanticize it as permanently safe from the confusion. AI is moving faster and faster than most of us are prepared. I’m learning to mimic emotional nuances, adapt conversations in real time, and simulate facilitation dynamics. It analyzes behavior, speech inflections, and decision patterns with already creepy accuracy.
So, while it may feel safe on today’s “human edge,” the edges are quickly narrowing. That’s why it’s not enough to simply become a human. AI needs to be extremely human to bring about depth, creativity and originality that it cannot replicate or predict.
In other words,
Building relationships beyond polite professionalism not only designing and guiding moments of reflection and guiding with curiosity, but also “does it really provide something irreplaceable?”
The truth is, AI is quickly successful enough in many areas of L&D. If we settle for being sufficient, we lose the lead.
Yes, I still believe that human connection is more important than ever. But only if you raise the bar about the meaning of appearing as a leader, designer, or facilitator.
I’ll summarize
We would like to thank Dr. RK Prasad for talking to us and sharing his valuable insights. RK is listed on the eLearning Trailblazers list and you can read his articles by visiting his author profile on his site.
