For learning and development (L&D) leaders, emerging technologies disrupt their strategies and priorities every three to five years. A decade ago, enterprises were scrambling to train their employees in digital transformation. Five years later, the focus shifted to data and analytics, as well as power skills like communication, leadership, and problem solving.
Today, the executives responsible for L&D at large enterprises are sprinting to stay ahead of the AI avalanche. This breakthrough stands out from previous technologies because it’s taking place on two fronts: AI itself is a new skill that employees must understand and acquire, but AI is also changing the way L&D leaders design and execute their programs.
These leaders are experts in learning, content, and facilitation, but they rarely specialize in the technologies they need to help people learn. With AI, L&D leaders don’t necessarily know which skills are crucial, how much of each skill employees need to develop, and in what order. The key to success is to partner with best-in-class thought leaders and distribute their content internally.
Let’s look at both fronts in the AI campaign and lay out how L&D leaders should prepare for the next three to five years of innovation.
How AI Changes L&D Strategies
AI is having a seismic impact across the L&D industry, primarily by making it much easier to create new modules and personalize the learning process for each individual employee.
AI enables individuals and organizations to generate content faster than ever before, using conversational language that is unique to every learner. This level of scale opens up a world of possibilities: Instead of previous systems in which large groups of people are accessing the same material on the same prescribed learning plans, AI can now create the equivalent of a 1:1 tutor tailored to the needs and knowledge of each employee. Everyone in the organization can now benefit from the individual attention and guidance of an AI teacher.
Generative AI and large language models (LLMs) also make it much easier to create video content, offering a new way to engage with employees who may prefer visual learning to traditional text-based content. Educators can deploy everything from AI avatars to auto-generated slide presentations based on written scripts.
AI is also changing the learning management systems (LMS) that enterprises use. An LMS is the white label platform companies provide to employees with guided learning pathways informed by managers. In an LMS, AI makes it easier to create useful, easy-to-understand visualizations — particularly for employee skills data — which L&D leaders can refer to when making strategic decisions on which employee should be learning what concept. Leaders are beginning to grasp AI’s value for content creation, but there’s still untapped potential in using AI for talent strategies.
Upskilling Employees in AI Domains
One of the key tasks for any L&D leader is deciding what employees need to learn — wading through the oceans of available content to determine exactly what materials are relevant for their teams. Employees have three questions:
- What skills do I need to learn?
- How much do I need to learn of each of these skills?
- And in what order do I need to learn them?
L&D leaders provide answers for each employee while aligning those skills with business goals. An employee might want to learn prompt engineering, but if that skill isn’t relevant to their role, they shouldn’t waste their time with it.
The growing importance of AI means that L&D leaders must determine which skills are relevant to each role.The most important starting point for any organization is going to be upskilling employees on GenAI tools like ChatGPT for productivity. These tools will be relevant for everyone from entry-level employees to experts; even someone advanced in AI needs this fundamental ability to help them produce more in the same amount of time. Everyone is going to be an AI employee to some degree, and AI for productivity is a horizontal skill — a baseline every employee needs that they can then apply to their role-specific skills.
But what about the other operations in the company? What tailored skills does your finance team or HR department need? Using tools like Workera for assessments and benchmarks, L&D leaders can identify the specific skills and skill levels needed for every employee in the organization.
Embracing the Next Phase of AI Innovation
As companies invest in AI, they’re discovering the many ways in which it can augment their existing processes, as well as the key projects that might be made possible by embracing AI. While we’re still in the early stages, some companies are already operationalizing AI at a company-wide level.
The AI-enabled future is just beginning. NVIDIA is now one of the world’s most valuable companies, which signals that organizations are investing heavily in the compute power needed to support new AI applications. The technology and skills landscape is going to look very different in five years.
For L&D leaders, this changing landscape means that they must embrace AI now, upskilling their employees and providing the tools people need to learn faster. The faster an organization’s learning velocity, the faster they’ll be able to acquire new skills as they come onto the scene.
For more, read our recent blog post to learn about Workera’s precision upskilling, learning velocity, and why learning velocity matters.
