AI in Training: Insights from Training Industry’s Tom Whelan

The impact of AI on workplace learning continues to grow and evolve. In this episode, Tom Whelan, director of research at Training Industry, shares his latest research on AI in workplace learning and discusses how companies are using AI to enhance training personalization, streamline content creation, and increase employee engagement.

Show Notes:

Training Industry’s Tom Whelan shares his insights on the evolution of AI in L&D including these key points.

• AI in Learning is Shifting Towards Use Cases: Companies are moving beyond the hype of AI, focusing on practical applications like personalized learning, simulations, and content localization.
• Adoption of AI Varies Across Organizations: While some organizations are fully embracing AI for training, others are cautiously dipping their toes, often influenced by factors like infrastructure and readiness.
• Personalization is Key: AI can greatly enhance the personalization of training, allowing learners to engage with content tailored to their specific needs and previous performance data.
• Data is Crucial for AI Success: The effectiveness of AI in training depends heavily on the quality and management of data, including ensuring it’s clean and relevant for making meaningful decisions.
• AI Empowers Learning Designers, Not Replaces Them: AI tools can accelerate course creation and content development, but human expertise is still essential to guide and refine the final product.

Read about Training Industry's resources on AI

Get Training Industry's eBook: The AI Revolution in L&D: Tomorrow's Training Today

Powered by Learning earned Awards of Distinction in the Podcast/Audio and Business Podcast categories from The Communicator Awards and a Gold and Silver Davey Award. The podcast is also named to Feedspot's Top 40 L&D podcasts and Training Industry’s Ultimate L&D Podcast Guide.

Learn more about d'Vinci at www.dvinci.com.
Follow us on LinkedIn
Like us on Facebook

Transcript

Susan Cort: [00:00:00] Artificial intelligence has revolutionized the learning and development industry. It allows people to create personalized, adaptive learning experiences and automate administrative tasks, leading to more efficient and tailored education and training programs. 

Tom Whelan: What is promising, uh, is, is the, is the priorities that we see learning leaders have.

Tom Whelan: So they're, they're very interested in, you know, how to, how are employees using AI right now to do the tasks they're already doing? Um, how do we get best practices in their hands? How do we get them to abide by best practices so they can use more of it, um, and also making sure that managers are, are skilled enough at it to be able to implement, uh, AI as well.

Susan Cort: That's Tom Whelan, Director of Corporate Research at Training Industry. Tom will share his latest research about artificial intelligence in the L& D industry and discuss the importance of focusing on learners when leveraging AI. Next, [00:01:00] on Powered by Learning. 

Announcer: Powered by Learning is brought to you by d’Vinci Interactive. d’Vinci's approach to learning is grounded in 30 years of innovation and expertise. We use proven strategies and leading technology to develop solutions that empower learners to improve quality and boost performance. Learn more at dvinci.com. 

Susan Cort: Joining me today is d’Vinci's CEO, Luke Kempski and Tom Whelan, Director of Corporate Research at Training Industry.

Susan Cort: Training industry provides information, insights, and resources to help people effectively manage the business of learning. Today we are going to talk to Tom about the latest training industry insights on AI. Tom, it's great to see you again. Thanks for joining us. 

Tom Whelan: Yeah, look forward to talking to you, Tom.

Tom Whelan: Well, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. 

Susan Cort: Tom, to get us started, tell us a little bit about your background and your role with Training Industry. 

Tom Whelan: Sure. Um, so I'm the Director of Research at Training Industry. I've been with [00:02:00] the company for about a decade. Prior to that, I did, uh, consulting for, uh, the military.

Tom Whelan: A couple of years consulting in pharma. Also had a, had a stint in, in dig tech as well. So my, my background is, is. It's a lot of syllables, it's called Industrial Organizational Psychology, which is basically work psychology. They're, they're obviously psychologists, not marketers, uh, . But, but, but that, that's what it is.

Tom Whelan: So that, that's what my background is. And, and kind of one of the things that's part and parcel of that field of research is things like training talent, pipeline. So, you know, so I'm, I'm, I'm a duck in water, uh, talking about this, this stuff. This is, this is what my career's been. 

Luke Kempski: Well, that makes perfect sense how it plugs right into your, to your role, your background does.

Luke Kempski: And, um, you know, we definitely want to be talking about AI today. Uh, it's been about. Two years, I guess, since, uh, Chet GPT's public release and, um, we are starting to really see the adoption of AI really across the business world. And I know you've been researching specifically in the learning and [00:03:00] development and the adoption that's been happening there at this point.

Luke Kempski: You know, what kind of impact are you starting to see happen? 

Tom Whelan: So the type of impact we're starting to see, I think it, we're still in a space where it varies considerably. I think organization to organization, but the, the sort of the, the main throughputs of, of, or the trends that we're seeing tend to be focused around, around use cases.

Tom Whelan: So, so it's, it's less say, you know, AI is this big woo-woo thing in the sky and wow, isn't it neato and look at, you know, look at all the different things you can do with it. Um, yeah. I think some people have realized it's not quite the Swiss Army knife we maybe thought it was, but if you tune it, it's really effective at working on specific tasks or specific problems.

Tom Whelan: So what we are seeing kind of in both the market side of things and as well as how organizations are using it is things are starting to cluster around use cases. And the top three that we are seeing, um, because there's A [00:04:00] lot of them, you can use it for wide and varied things, but the main ones we're seeing are trying to use AI to personalize learning for learners, trying to use it to help with simulations, and also to use it to localize content to learners either in different geographies or regions or who speak a different language than whatever the original content was in.

Tom Whelan: And in these, in these, these use cases, the differences that we're seeing can come from a few angles, depending on how you're slicing the cake. Uh, so, so like the, the level of adoption that the organization has, you know, already, or, or how much they're willing to put their arms around AI tends to kind of shift.

Tom Whelan: I think how they're, they, they take their first steps. Um, and into working with it. So what we've seen, for instance, is like the, the lowest adopters when, when they're dipping their toes in the water, they're looking to use it for, for things like helping them put simulations together. Uh, they, they want to know, is there something they can do with, with learner support, um, and AI, uh, whereas, you know, on the high side, I mean, they're using it for, for.

Tom Whelan: [00:05:00] Pretty much everything. They're using it to personalize learning and they're using it to localize their training. They're also using it for content creation, uh, as, as well as coaching. And, and kind of probably where most people are, in the middle of the bell curve, um, kind of falls in line with, with what I said some of the top use cases are.

Tom Whelan: They're, those, those companies tend to be looking at, you know, how, how can we harness the power of AI to personalize, uh, training for, for learners. You know, especially for those operating at scale. If we have to get, you know, Training on X topic out everywhere and across all sorts of different international borders.

Tom Whelan: How do we do that? And how do we make sure that it's in the right language? It's regionalized to where to where the employee is and includes maybe what they need to know. 

Luke Kempski: Yeah, that's great. When you look at some of the organizations are much farther along in their adoption, what kind of impact are you seeing on the learning experience of it?

Luke Kempski: The employees who work there or the learners who participate in their learning programs. 

Tom Whelan: So it's an interesting question because I think there's [00:06:00] a, mismatch is the wrong word, but I think there's like an uncomfortable intersection where the organization is at with AI or trying to introduce AI solutions doesn't necessarily You know, correlate perfectly, or in some cases track at all with where employees are at with using AI.

Tom Whelan: Um, like anytime we do learner surveys and we're asking people, you know, how comfortable are you using these sort of technologies or how often are they? Are they engaging with them? We see a broad spectrum of where people are at. I mean, it's a rough and relatively balanced split between people who use it a lot and people who only use it a little.

Tom Whelan: Now, there's not that very many avoiding it completely, and as time goes on, it's hard to avoid it completely. But, but I think any kind of discussion of, of the learner experience, um, you know, we have to remember that the learners is not just kind of one unitary block of people with the same skills, the same exposure to these [00:07:00] technologies, the same level of comfort, uh, with using these technologies.

Tom Whelan: And so how they react to them, their willingness to use them, Can differ, you know, so, so I, so again, I think it's, what do I use? Uncomfortable intersection between like, where's the organization at? What are they trying to do and kind of are all the learners ready for it? And you're going to have some that, you know, we're like hip, hip, hooray.

Tom Whelan: Why did it take you all so long? Um, but you know, there, there's guaranteed, there's going to be some people that, that you, I mean, you don't want to drag them along. Screaming and kicking. Uh, you, you want to try to get them up and convince them gently to come along with you so that they can benefit from it as much as, as the people who are more eager to engage with AI.

Luke Kempski: Absolutely. And when you, when you talk about personalization, what might a learner, um, I guess, Almost automatically experience, and then what might they gain more out of by participating and engaging more in it? 

Tom Whelan: So I think the story of personalization, I mean, AI didn't suddenly birth this idea of, ooh, we can personalize [00:08:00] learning to learners.

Tom Whelan: Um, I mean, there were, there have been, you know, attempts for years to, to use algorithmic methods to match content to, to a learner. Um, I think what, what we are, or what AI enables those technologies to do is, is to rapidly accelerate all that. So that you can take performance data from that person. You can look at their past training data and rather than kind of a person sitting in a chair looking at a spreadsheet going, um, does Jimmy need this training or not?

Tom Whelan: You know, you're just, an AI is doing it. And, and, and so how much training do they need? What particular, you know, are there modules within a larger training where they don't need the whole thing, but they really need these four modules to personalize learning to, to that individual, um, and, and at that.

Tom Whelan: That level of granularity and detail, um, that, that's, that's, I think, one of the, the most exciting things that we say we see AI being able to do for training right now. 

Luke Kempski: And it sounds like if you're a leader in a learning organization, [00:09:00] uh, that you, that the data that you're collecting is really important to help inform and, really uh, power any of the personalization applications or any of the AI applications?

Tom Whelan: Yeah. To me, at least the data is, is key to this. Um, you know, and, and also having a plan for, for what it means and what to do with it, you know, cause, cause this might be my bias, you know, like for, for as great as an AI might be. At doing the task, you still have to tell it what the task is, you know, so it's like, it still has to know what incoming data is good, you know, like, does it have any sense of what an outlier is?

Tom Whelan: You know, does it have any sense of, of, is there, you know, I mean, because anybody that works with data knows no data is clean data. There's, there's always mistakes and, and, you know, coughs and all sorts of things in it. So can the AI clean the data? Can it recognize patterns of mistakes? Um, You know, and I'm sure there's solutions that, that do all this stuff.

Tom Whelan: But, but to me, [00:10:00] the, I don't know, I, I, I, I think there's, there's a bit of like a, a sinister banality, uh, with, with ai, you, you know, where, where we can, we can abdicate some of these decisions to, to the ai, um, but we're still ultimately responsible for them. Mm-Hmm. , you know, so, so if, if, if we have. Learning data coming in and we're just putting it into the magic box and then taking what the output says and going, all right, act on it, you know, go forth and do things, give this training to that person and that, you know, without any, any checks in it, to me, that's, that's potentially asking for trouble down the line, because I think where we are right now, the tools are fantastic.

Tom Whelan: Um, but, you know, again, there's, there's a, um, a sinister banality behind it, you know, like, like, to, to the extent that employees know that they're, they're interacting with, with, uh, an AI solution and learning, or, or they know AI is driving things and suggestions behind the scenes, everybody has varying understanding of, of how that works or what, what goes into that.

Tom Whelan: So I think in terms of like both the [00:11:00] visible and the invisible to, to the employee, and, and then, you know, wha, what data that, that generates and also their, their cognizance of the facts that someone is. You know, everything that they do, everything they click creates a data trail somewhere. And so, you know, like if, if you just suspect that they're looking at what you're doing in the background, like you might alter your behavior a little bit.

Tom Whelan: If you know an AI is tracking everything you're doing, you know, then, then how might that lead, uh, behavior of employees, at least, you know, in a digital space to alter their cookie trails intentionally, you know, so the AI picks up or doesn't pick up. Yeah, I mean, so there, it's, it's like for as great as the data is, it's, it's always a two-way street.

Tom Whelan: There's always, you know, an, an interactivity somewhere, you know, in, in the system, um, that, that I think, you know, injecting AI into it, cause, cause also some of the stuff I just mentioned like that, all that stuff happened before. Like, again, AI didn't create a lot of these problems. Um, but, but I, I think it, you know, AI introduces this, this new [00:12:00] variable, um, into things that at least I think from, from the learner side, We're, we're starting to pick up on, but, but I don't know that there's been enough, uh, discourse on it yet.

Luke Kempski: Yeah, that makes sense. And then how about for the learning leaders, um, right? How are you see, I guess, the adoption among, uh, the listeners to this program, uh, for instance, that, uh, how are they including it in their roles from the highest levels to the, you know, the, uh, more mundane or routine tasks? 

Tom Whelan: Well, where, where we see kind of learning leaders using it is, is a little bit of everywhere.

Tom Whelan: Like it almost seems like anywhere they can, they're, they're going to use it. From, from the, the, some of the data that I've collected, like lack of buy in is, is not a big problem. It seems like with, with, with these technologies, you know, I, either from the stakeholder side or from, from the learning leader side.

Tom Whelan: I mean, we, we don't get. Um, a lot of fear and trepidation, I think, from, from learning professionals on, you know, like, what is AI going to do to, to [00:13:00] training? I think more people are just like, how do I use this and what neato stuff can I do with it that maybe I couldn't do before or was too expensive for me to do before.

Tom Whelan: But, but now I, now I have much easier access to, to do something, you know, innovative or, or engaging and attention grabbing, uh, in, in training. For what we see coming from, from leaders though, like the problems that they're grappling with, or I think what they're, what they're trying to work through, uh, are, are things like.

Tom Whelan: You know, data privacy, protecting intellectual property. Uh, if you are, if you are asking AI to help you with compliance training, like, does it really know what, you know, what, what is in compliance and what is out of compliance, you know, cause like if, if ISO comes to slap you on the wrist, the AI doesn't care, you know, like it's, it's not paying a mortgage, like it doesn't whatever, you know, so, so.

Tom Whelan: Do you want to trust it that much? You know, I mean, there's also, do you have the infrastructure? Do you have the in-house expertise? You know, cause you can be excited about it, but do you have people on your team, you know, or maybe does learning [00:14:00] professional themselves, are they skilled enough to be able to push some of these things through?

Tom Whelan: And so that tends to be, I think, what, what, uh, at least what the data tells, tells us, um, what a lot of learning leaders are kind of working with right now. I mean, of course, almighty budget is in there somewhere. Um, but it's, but it's not leading the pack in terms of, you know, what, what is, what is keeping them up at night?

Tom Whelan: Um, now what I, what I think is, is, uh, And if any of that was, was maybe like, Hmm, what is promising, uh, is the priorities that we see learning leaders have. So they're, they're very interested in, you know, how to, how are employees using AI right now to do the tasks they're already doing? How do we get best practices in their hands?

Tom Whelan: How do we get them to abide by best practices so they can use more of it? And also making sure that managers are skilled enough at it to be able to implement AI as well. And out of that, what was most interesting to me is kind of the, of a handful of different considerations. The lowest one was, [00:15:00] Making sure decision makers know how to build strategic plans around AI.

Tom Whelan: So, so I'm not totally sure what that says. There's part of me that says, I think what it is, is different organizations trying to pick a different point of entry. You know, or if a learning leader is looking at the You know, the cafeteria of AI solutions that are out there and trying to think, you know, okay, how does company X where we are basically jump in the jump in the pool?

Tom Whelan: Where do we begin? That I think is the riddle for some of them to solve. The optimistic side of things. I wonder if if You know, some of the, I guess, lack of emphasis on, on strategic planning is, is partially they don't need it that much. Like, they're folding it into, I mean, cause, cause they're, any company that is integrating AI, it's not like they, they lack a learning technology strategy.

Tom Whelan: It's not like they just started cooking dinner out of nowhere and suddenly, you know, they have to make an AI [00:16:00] dish. It's like they were already cooking something and now they just have like a new spice that they can add into things, you know? So, so I think to some degree, we don't see a lot of, a lot of activity, uh, around, uh, You know, we need to make sure people are boned up on this, um, because it, it dovetails into what they're already, already doing.

Tom Whelan: Now, on the other side of that coin, it could also be that, you know, they're still trying to figure out, you know, what are the best use cases? How can we get employees to, to use this? Um, so, so the strategy part is not far behind, but, you know, maybe the implementation isn't mature enough yet. Um, or, or, or maybe they're still piloting a few programs before they, they really solidify maybe what they're, what they're.

Tom Whelan: The ultimate long term strategy is where they're going to use it and where they're going to realize cost savings, you know, because also at the end of the day, the name of the game here is it has to buy you some sort of efficiencies. It has to buy you some sort of gains and effectiveness. If not, you're just doing something neat.

Tom Whelan: And, you know, but are you saving time or [00:17:00] is, is the, is the output of what you're doing higher quality, you know? So it's like just to use AI, like, yeah, that's cool, but that, that's not enough. And, and, and so I think in terms of, you know, where, where learning leaders, um, Uh, need, need to look. It's, it's, it's that, like, what, what is, what are the use cases that, that work for me?

Tom Whelan: Um, and also, how do you navigate around, you know, some of those concerns, like privacy and compliance and infrastructure and things? 

Susan Cort: You mentioned that your research is, uh, when you look at learner use, that some are all in and some are still cautious. And of course, some of that is just time and getting used to using AI tools.

Susan Cort: But if you're a learner, Uh, and you feel that your, uh, your learning leader, your employer, has been very open about the use of AI and how they're using it to be more efficient, to be more innovative, you know, does that conversation, you know, help the learner feel more at ease and help advance the use of AI?

Tom Whelan: Um, I, I think it does. I think kind of, kind of to [00:18:00] your point, the, the key linkage, I think maybe the learning leader needs to make to the learner is, is what is this AI going to do for you? You know, so, so whether it's, it's sort of visible. So is, is it like an AI coaching bot that the, the employees directly interacting with and they know it's an AI?

Tom Whelan: Um, yeah. Or is it, you know, kind of a, a, a nefarious behind the curtain thing, personalizing their training. And so they never see it. They don't know what the name is. They don't know maybe what the IT team curses about and calls it, uh, when nobody's looking to all they know is my learning gets personalized.

Tom Whelan: I get these good suggestions for things and I even take some of these suggestions. So to, to me, it's, it's a little bit of like, where, where is the learner in that? And, and what is their level of comfort in that? Um, and, and I think for the learning leader, it's, it's maybe trying some pulse surveys, but, but, but trying to take the temperature of, of the, of employees in some way.

Tom Whelan: And, and it could be just like looking at usage even, you know, but, but trying to get a sense [00:19:00] of, of where are people at and where's their, their comfort level. Um, cause, cause ultimately any of these solutions we introduce, we want them to be embraced. I mean, usually they ain't. D'Vinci Interactive, Luke Kempski, Kempski, L& D, dvinci.

Tom Whelan: com. Up and down the entire silo from the top to the bottom, not only is there buy in, and recognizing there's going to be varying levels of buy in, um, but I think making sure that the learning leader and the learner are both at least somewhat on the same page in terms of what is the ultimate desired outcome of this?

Tom Whelan: You know, what are we ultimately trying to accomplish? You know, so because maybe the learner might be like, what is it? You know, it's like, no, no, no. Here's why we're doing this. Like, here's why we want you to talk to this. [00:20:00] coachbot. Here's why it's gonna pop up on your screen and maybe be annoying. Or why you're doing something that's gonna make suggestions.

Tom Whelan: Or, or if you have this type of question, we want you to go directly to this tool to try to answer it. Or at least, you know, use it as your second line of defense. Whatever it might be. Um, that, that I, I think to, to make sure those channels of communication are, are open. You know, so, so that anything that gets introduced and implemented to the employee population, uh, by L& D, uh, doesn't It doesn't fail, you know, because, because we were all rah rah to roll it out and, you know, oh, this is going to revolutionize our training and all that sort of stuff.

Tom Whelan: And then you push it out there and it lands with a whimper, um, you know, because you never bothered to kind of check in on what do learners think about this? Like, where, where is our, our organization, you know, the, the region we're in, the particular industry we're in, like how, how do people react to this?

Tom Whelan: Are they, are they scared of it? Are they excited about it? You know, or are they kind of like, Hmm, this is another thing I'm gonna have to [00:21:00] learn and, you know, my manager's gonna ask me questions about, and like, and we're all learning, so it's not like they're gonna know the answers either. I kind of, you know, like, like what, what's their, their general, uh, I guess, temperament, uh, about it.

Luke Kempski: That's good. And, uh, I guess, you know, for your typical instructional designer, learning creator, where are you seeing the adoption there? What kind of use cases have, have you seen. 

Tom Whelan: So I think for, for like creating content and structural design, um, the, the, the best place that we've, we've, we've seen it is, is in just like creating a course outline, you know, I mean, it's, it's, it's not science fiction anymore to be like, you know, I have this, you know, this, this manual of training material that people need to learn.

Tom Whelan: And I have to create a course out of this somehow, you know, so like, all right, you can sit there and read it and drink untold numbers of cups of coffee, or you can just give it to an AI and be like, make an outline for me based off of this, you know, and, and hit, hit all the, all the high points. Um, and, and [00:22:00] it'll do a pretty good job.

Tom Whelan: It'll, it'll, you know, get you at least 50, if not 75 percent of the way there. Um, it's probably not going to be. Perfect. Ultimately. Um, but, but, but that, that's one of the things that, that we, we have been seeing, uh, and I feel like seeing successfully is, is the, the acceleration of, of content creation, or at least I don't feel yet like, like a lot of the, the, the things are good enough where you'd want to trust them in the last mile, um, where you, where you wouldn't want to have a subject matter expert.

Tom Whelan: Check over the material or at least see if there's anything missing. Um, but, but in terms of idea generation, uh, are you covering enough possible angles on a, on a topic? You know, like, it's, it's fantastic for, for helping with, with those sort of things. Um, it's kind of, uh, admittedly a little bit of a training industry favorite to talk about.

Tom Whelan: Um, but, but we've been trying to push people like use it for your internal marketing. campaigns. You know, like if [00:23:00] you're trying to get employees interested in taking training, you're like, well, what's the course description look like? Is it drab? Is it exciting? You know, like, does it, does it make you, you know, feel like, oh, this is going to be an hour and a half-wasted time, you know, or, or is the description compelling?

Tom Whelan: Are you sending, you know, are you messaging your own training to your employees in a compelling way? You know, and AI is great with, with helping like craft the, that sort of language. You know, so, so I think from, from an instructional designer standpoint, we see it as a fantastic tool, but not at all a replacement, you know, so, so I think it can, it can accelerate the process.

Tom Whelan: It can add to the process. It can allow instructional designers. Maybe more time to experiment with things and try interesting ideas. Um, but it is, it's not at all yet, you know, it's to allay anybody's fears. It's not at all to the point yet where, where I think anybody, you know, with expertise in instructional design, it's not coming for your job.[00:24:00] 

Luke Kempski: It's impacting their role, though. Right. I mean, it is changing. From being maybe, you know, the person who has to dig through all that content, to write that first outline, to being the person who's editing what's output and, and checking accuracy and, um, and really leveraging the ability to, to have more capacity in that way, taking something that used to take eight hours, making it one hour, but then also being able to do more.

Luke Kempski: Either higher fidelity output, like you were talking about with simulations or, you know, more volume of short learnings that can be integrated into the workflow of the, of the team to enhance productivity and, or have more personalized experiences, all those things that are, that seem to be more possible than they were when you're looking at the amount of time that it took before to create all of that.

Tom Whelan: Yeah. Yeah. And, and kind of that, that reminds me of, I, I can't remember. I wish I could give credit to where I heard it, but [00:25:00] I don't remember where it's coming from, but I heard somebody make a great point, um, about kind of exactly this topic, where they're like, to the extent that organizations want to, you know, save time and cut costs and things like that, it's like, you know, Okay.

Tom Whelan: If you have a team of 25, like, are you trying to chop your team of 25 down to five people because they can use AI? It's like, that's, that's a race to the bottom. Seems like kind of a backwards way or like a short term, like, let's save money way of thinking, because instead you could take those same 25 people, keep them, get them all up on AI.

Tom Whelan: And then those 25 can do the work of 250, you know, you got the same people, you know, like, and so, so I, I think a lot of it is, is, is, is also a case of like, How organizations are looking to use it, but also just how we're conceptualizing what it can do, um, and what, what it will allow an L& D department to accomplish and how that can potentially evolve.

Luke Kempski: So many ways we're all [00:26:00] tasked with improving the performance of the organization that we work for in a way that makes it more competitive, more of a leader, more valuable to its members or to its customers. Absolutely. 

Susan Cort: Tom, you mentioned that you and your team members just published an e book on AI. What have you published recently at Training Industry that our listeners can check out?

Tom Whelan: Yeah, I'm happy, more than happy to talk about it. So we, we just very recently released another e book on AI that talks a lot about Uh, upskilling and, and, and some of the upskilling needs, uh, for, for ai and at least like, what, what organizations are doing now. One, one of the, the things that we've started to explore, uh, and I'm very interested in is taking a, a deeper dive into learner reactions to, to ai.

Tom Whelan: Um, you know, 'cause, 'cause kind of like, like I said, I, I feel like that that's a, a piece of this whole. You know, how do we use AI in training inside organizations, um, that there, there hasn't been enough discourse around, you know, like, I feel like there's been [00:27:00] plenty on what are learning leaders need to do.

Tom Whelan: And we've talked about this already in this episode, you know, like, what are learning leaders need to do? What are some of the considerations need to take into account? You know, how do you talk to stakeholders about it? Like, what is it you're trying to do with it? What are you trying to accomplish? So I've watched all these discussions.

Tom Whelan: And at one point, suddenly it hit me. I'm like, there's, There's another variable in here that it seems like we're, we're missing, you know, like we're, we're leading all these horses to the water, you know, we've built this very expensive tech, technologically enabled watering trough for them, but are any of them going to drink once we get them there?

Tom Whelan: You know, like how, How willing are they to, to, you know, unburden themselves to an AI, uh, coaching bot and, and, you know, because, because they're going to get something back that seems human like, but they, if they know it's an AI, you know, like how, how do they feel about it? You know, and I feel like there's like, Like, I've brought this up and had long conversations about it that have all ended with, like, Hmm, nobody knows.

Tom Whelan: Like, it's like a good question. It could go [00:28:00] either direction. And I'm sure, like, all answers are valid, depending on the employee you're talking about, too. 

Susan Cort: Well, and funny, too, because we always, here in the industry, you have to focus on the learner. And here we are, you know, finally getting around to that with AI. But it's an important question to ask, that's for sure. 

Luke Kempski: Yeah, I think we covered a lot today. Uh, Tom, in the sense that we have a very optimistic future and we also have a lot of challenges and risks out there that we'll be navigating as well and, um, you know, we're all in it together and there certainly are lots of opportunities for us to enhance performance and to enhance learning and, um, provide new experiences for, for learners that really power their organizations and to new progress.

Luke Kempski: Yeah, so really appreciate your time and your insights on your research and certainly, um, encourage you to continue to do it and publish it so that, uh, we can know the latest and greatest as we move forward. 

Susan Cort: Thank you, Tom. Thank you for helping us navigate this and we'll look forward to sharing, uh, some links in the show notes about the e book and the other things that you've written about AI.Thanks, Tom. 

Tom Whelan: Pleasure to [00:29:00] be here.

Susan Cort: To check out Training Industries new e book, How to Boost Human Skills to Succeed in an AI World. Look for the link in the show notes. If you have an idea for a topic or a guest, please reach out to us at poweredbylearning@dvinci. com and don't forget that you can subscribe to Powered by Learning wherever you listen to your podcasts.