Will AI Make Learning & Development Teams Obsolete?

Question: With AI taking over so many tasks in terms of script and content creation, will learning and development teams be a thing of the past?

Answer:

What a great question! And a very valid, and sometimes daunting one, at that. 

But rest assured that even with the use of AI, learning and development teams will become more vital than ever before.

Where we will see a shift is the role that the learning and development team will play alongside their latest "team member," Artificial Intelligence (AI).

AI can be an excellent partner in assisting with script-writing, even quickly generating content from a script, saving time and labor costs for your organization.

But AI needs the expertise of the learning and development team to create content that is fully accurate, well structured, and suited to its audience. 

Learning and development skills are honed with experience, and often trial and error. AI must also learn from the learning and development team, or it, too, will make mistakes. Whatever tools utilized, those tools must be studied and mastered so that the AI is prompted to share the correct information when creating a script or generating content. Asking the wrong questions, or giving incorrect prompts will lead to incorrect course content. Leaving more work for everyone and reducing efficiency overall. 

When creating content, AI also needs to understand the audience to whom the training will be administered, their level of understanding of the content, and what the goals are for the audience once the training is completed. Without these details, any training will fall flat. Developing a storyboard and gathering internal organizational policies, regulations, and data will help the AI tool to learn more about the content and how to best develop a course. The L&D team can then work with the AI to flag when policies or regulations change so that amending content is quicker and easier. 

While developing prompts for AI, the learning and development team can also be sure to remove any implicit bias in the tool, creating content that best fits a company culture and mood. The team must help structure training to best suit their audience, without any unexpected bias in the training material. Knowing colleagues, administering training to them in the past, and hearing feedback, can set up the L&D team for success because they will know how to be sure the whole audience feels included and learns most effectively.

In short, any L&D team using AI will take on a new set of skills. They must become the subject matter experts in prompting the AI to create the best possible content to meet company needs. This will require an adaptive L&D team, with excellent attention to detail, which so many of these teams inherently have already! By knowing a company well, knowing the internal policies, and learning a new AI tool, the L&D team will become the AI "gatekeepers," avoiding inaccurate content, and creating and updating courses to meet the needs and goals of the organization at any time. 

Of course, it goes without saying, but always check any work that is developed by an AI tool, and happy learning!

Blaise Stanicic

Associate Director, Compliance Training, TRACE