Humanizing the use of AI in learning and development

Ever find yourself wondering if AI is going to take over your job – or worse, take over every job? We get it – new advances in technology can feel unsettling, especially if you're not well-versed in how the technology works.  

The reality, though, is that AI's role in learning and development isn't a case of humans versus machines – the truth is far less daunting, but also far more exciting. By integrating artificial intelligence into L&D, humans and machines can work together to revolutionize learning for employees and lighten the workload for L&D professionals. 

As the L&D industry increases its AI use, we’re seeing AI function not as a replacement to human expertise but as an assistant that helps L&D teams work faster and more productively. In fact, organizations that have adopted AI for their learning programs have seen a 57% increase in efficiency on average! 

While AI can help streamline tasks and reduce human error, it isn’t fully autonomous. Humans still play a vital role in learning and development, and human knowledge is necessary for AI to successfully improve the learning experience. 

Keep reading to explore just a few ways that L&D is using AI in collaboration with human proficiency to ensure learning and development programs meet real human needs. 
 

Course creation 

AI-powered course creation is enabling L&D admins to build higher-quality courses faster. Note that AI isn’t creating courses on its own – AI is simply a tool that helps teams make content more effectively. 

This human approach to AI is widespread across L&D. In the promotional video for their AI-powered learning management system, LMS365 says, “To us, AI is not about replacing people. It’s about making people better, more engaged, and more successful.”  

With course builder tools like LMS365’s AI-assisted course creation, L&D admins can prompt Gen AI to create a course based on a specific piece of educational content, like a video, document, or presentation. After the course is created, admins can then further prompt the AI to customize the course for the unique needs of their employees. 

At first glance it may seem like AI is doing all the work here, but human involvement is vital for a high-quality outcome. Without an L&D admin’s specific knowledge about their company’s upskilling needs, the AI would simply create generic content. The admin’s expertise takes the course to the next level by tailoring it for their organization. 
 

Improved recommendations 

L&D companies are releasing many AI tools and features focused on content search and recommendations – and for good reason. If you’ve ever been asked to find a course on a topic you’re not an expert in, you know how much time it takes to gain a baseline understanding of that topic before you can even start looking for content. With AI, there’s no need to spend hours researching and digging for just the right course. 

About 35% of L&D organizations are using AI to improve search and simplify tasks. Many of these organizations are migrating from traditional keyword search to AI-enhanced search for smarter content recommendations. How does it work? Rather than searching for a term like “business development” and getting results for every course that has the words “business” or “development” in the title or description, AI-enhanced search can better understand what you’re actually looking for and surface more relevant results.  

Absorb takes AI search one step further with intelligent ranking. This feature ranks search results in what the AI determines to be the best order according to the user’s history of searching for and enrolling in courses. While the AI determines the ranking, it makes its decisions based on real human data and behaviors. 
 

Quicker curation 

Personalization is another key L&D element that has been aided by AI in several different ways. First, AI is creating personalized learning pathways with help from L&D admins. Rather than browsing an entire catalog of content and selecting individual courses, admins can now tell the AI their learning goals and receive a personalized learning pathway in seconds. 

AI is also beginning to take its place in content curation. At Go1, for example, our content curation team uses generative AI programs as a starting point in their curation efforts. They might ask, “What’s a recommended pathway for new leaders?” or “What topics do you recommend for new leaders?” However, knowing that new leaders’ needs differ from one organization to the next, they then take the ideas and customize curated content. 

Take it from Shannon Herrera, Head of Content Curation at Go1: “AI is about enhancing human intelligence, not replacing it. It's a great tool to help us get started on things that can often be time-consuming, like research or building a basic program, and then, as L&D experts, we can go in and add the human elements to our programs, ensuring we’re meeting the unique needs of our employees and organizations.” 

It takes human expertise to successfully curate content – AI merely acts as the foundation that saves our experts time. 

But the relationship between Go1 and AI doesn’t stop with our internal teams. With Go1 AI, admins can now create personalized learning experiences for the entire workforce with support from our unique AI solution. Go1 AI gives Go1 admins access to some of the features we’ve already discussed, including AI-enhanced search, smart recommendations, and personalized playlists, plus additional features like AI chat and content evaluation, which we’ll review in more detail below. 
 

Content evaluation with Go1 AI 

Let’s say you’ve run an AI-enhanced search on Go1 and found a few relevant courses. Normally, you might spend hours sampling the content to decide which one best fits your employees’ needs – but with Go1 AI, this is no longer necessary.  

Instead, Go1 AI gathers data through machine learning and uses it to supply learning outcomes, course summaries, topics and skills covered, and course ratings for all Go1 content. It can also use this information to compare courses on similar topics and evaluate which pieces of content are top contenders based on what you’re looking for as the admin. These evaluations come from real learner experiences – we simply use the data from AI to connect the dots. 

 
Embracing AI in L&D 

We hope this has helped you feel more confident about working alongside AI, instead of against it. Ultimately, AI isn’t going to replace the human element of L&D. AI may bring speed and productivity to learning and development, but it’s real humans who bring the heart to L&D. Embrace AI, and you’ll have more time to do what you do best – human-centered work. 

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