Amplify the impact of learning & development with AI tools

According to a recent SHRM survey on the use of AI in HR, “3 in 4 HR professionals agree that advancements in AI will increase the importance of human intelligence in the workplace over the next five years.” Not only is AI a powerful tool for enhancing employee engagement in learning and development, but it’s also highly accessible and user-friendly once you learn how it works and what’s possible.

Many learning designers are already use generative AI tools in their daily workflow, and the use cases are infinite. You can simplify a difficult passage, turn a step-by-step process into a memorable acronym, generate assessment quizzes, and the list goes on.

So how do you start incorporating generative AI in your learning and development workflow?

In this beginner's guide, you’ll learn:

• When to use AI in learning and development
• 5 benefits of AI in learning and development
• 3 potential limitations and challenges of AI
• Key strategies for integrating AI into your workflow

When to use AI in learning and development

Embracing AI helps you see your organization’s learning objectives with fresh eyes. This technology can give you game-changing text, imagery, and video recommendations. It can even inform your decision-making. It works by processing, analyzing, and creating patterns of large data sets called Natural Language Processing (NLP) models. You can learn more about how it works, but as a beginner, remember that AI is only as powerful as your strategy to incorporate AI-powered tools into your workflow.

Wondering what tools are right for your team? Here are the most popular AI tools for learning experts like you:

AI chatbots

AI chatbots can address many pain points throughout your learning and development process. For example, they can help you summarize course content for promotional messaging. AI chatbots can generate course outlines to get you started if you’re creating a course outside of your scope of knowledge.

You’ve likely had some fun trying the most popular AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT, Meta AI, or Google Gemini, so you know that writing effective queries takes practice. As a learning expert with experience communicating ideas to learners, you’re well on your way to mastering prompts that generate a specific, helpful response.

Pro tip: Allow your detail-oriented skills to shine when creating a prompt. Be sure to include the context, the task for the chatbot, specific information such as tone or benefits, and your objective. Try entering this example into an AI chatbot using your own learner and company information:

‘I’m writing an introductory video script for entry-level new graduates who start working at our consulting firm. Generate a script for a two minute long video that is friendly and informative and highlights the benefits of working at our organization. Include details promoting our mentorship program, the annual company retreat, and an overview of the upskilling programs on offer. The goal is to help new employees understand how to participate in our company culture.’

Content authoring tools

Do you experience writer’s block? Content authoring tools can drastically reduce the time it takes to create, re-purpose, and edit course content. These tools help you at every touchpoint of the content development process:

• Convert a PowerPoint presentation into an eLearning course
• Brainstorm ideas, research your topic, and create an outline
• Generate course content from scratch
• Add AI-generated voiceovers to narrate your courses

Content authoring tools like Absorb Create streamline your ability to leverage AI. You can generate content in the same place you analyze existing content and create or recommend new learning materials, simplifying and personalizing the content development process. To incorporate AI into your daily workflow, consider browser extensions and desktop applications such as LMS platform course builders with built-in generative AI tools to merge your use of AI and publishing tools into one platform.

Recommendation engines

Once you create your amazing content, it’s time to promote it, ensuring your content is seen by the employees who want it most. To boost employee satisfaction on your learning platform, use recommendation engines that make it easy to curate course suggestions for employees.

Did you know more than 80% of Netflix viewing is attributed to the recommendations engine? Netflix was one of the first platforms to make personalized content suggestions, and you can now give employees the same relief from content overload with platform recommendations based on their role, history, and interests.

Whether your learner is a project assistant hoping to earn a promotion to project manager or an HR team requesting a modification to a cybersecurity module, AI-powered recommendation engines can instantly audit your content, assess learners' needs across departments, and feed personalized learning paths to your learners.

Automated assessment creators

Sifting through your course content to develop ideas for learner retention can reduce the time you need to proactively respond to your learners' changing needs and expectations. The benefits of using automated assessment creators depend on your team’s goals for success:

• Do you have an urgent skill gap in your organization? AI-generated assessments can instantly analyze your course content and key learning objectives helping you quickly generate quizzes, tests, and assessment activities to drive real business impact.
• Want to improve your internal mobility? Only 1 in 5 employees feel ready to move to a new internal position. Automated assessment creators help you improve your employees' confidence by empowering them to track their progress and comprehension.
• Need to report on each assessment’s success? Automated assessment tools collect data based on learner’s profiles, allowing you to produce reports on time spent taking assessments, patterns in their responses, identifying the most impactful modules for retention, and much more.

Discover more ways to use AI in learning and development: Learn smarter with AI-powered learning

Benefits of AI in learning and development

The most powerful AI isn't a tool, but intelligence woven into your learning platform from day one. Aura, Absorb's AI agents for learning doesn't require copying outputs between apps. It checks what learners know, delivers real-time guidance, and measures business outcomes as part of the normal learning flow. The result is AI that proves its value continuously, not just when you're actively prompting it.  

That same intelligence reshapes how content works, too. Generative AI doesn’t just speed up creation, it makes learning responsive. Content adapts to what learners need in the moment, stays relevant as skills evolve, and integrates directly into workflows instead of sitting in a catalog.  

1. Personalization: Generate content that enables tailored learning experiences and catering to diverse learner profiles, learning styles, and knowledge gaps, and use Absorb Engage to incorporate relevant social media posts and news articles right in every learner's dashboard.
2. Efficiency and cost reduction: Automate and streamline the content creation process with Absorb Create, reducing the time, effort, and resources required for manual development.
3. Adaptive learning pathways: Analyze the performance data of users in real time and modify the learning content or suggest next steps accordingly, ensuring a continually relevant and engaging learning experience.
4. Scalability: Use AI-generated content to rapidly scale your training programs, addressing new topics or reaching additional employee groups without overtaxing resources.
5. Continuous improvement: Algorithms learn from the data they process, built to learn from every interaction, it refines recommendations based on what works, for each learner, in your specific business context.

Learn more about AI-powered learning experiences: How to implement adaptive learning in 3 easy steps

3 potential limitations and challenges of AI

Despite the numerous benefits, there are some potential limitations and challenges to consider when incorporating AI in learning and development:

1. Quality control for AI tools

Working on a first draft? AI chatbots work a treat! But we know fleshing out that first iteration and developing quality training content is another story. Your hard-earned expertise is valuable here. Quality assurance processes are essential for reviewing and refining content before publishing. You’ll still need to fact-check, create a delivery schedule, implement pedagogical principles, and make your organization’s brand voice shine.

Quality assurance efforts in AI can look like:

• Working with an external partner: AI chatbots make it more tempting for your manager to request that you generate content on a topic outside of your expertise. An external SME can ensure that any content outside of your purview is ethical, compliant, and accurate.
• Revisiting your peer review process: Build an AI audit into your review process to fact-check generated information, ensure the content is contextually accurate and relevant for your learners.
• Establish detailed learning outcomes: Modifying your prompts is much easier when you know the most important information required to award completion to a learner.

2. Bias and inaccuracies

AI algorithms are built on human data, so your generated content could propagate biases, stereotypes, or inaccuracies. At times, Generative AI can also base its content generation on problematic data sources, because the data processing models do not have a built-in fact-checker.

You can minimize bias and inaccuracies by:

• Finding attributions to any facts that do not have a credible source.
• Learning about the biases from the AI tool’s website and independent reviewers.
• Consider any stereotypes or overgeneralizations regarding race, gender, ethnicity, or other communities.

3. Ethical and privacy concerns

To ensure regulatory compliance and minimize potential issues, your team will need to consider ethical and privacy considerations such as data security and user tracking. Suppose you want to pull analytics from your LMS and create a report in a generative AI tool based on user data. In that case, it’s crucial that your process complies with regional law and international standards of ethics.

From an external perspective, you must collaborate with your organization’s data experts to ensure that users will be confident they have full control over how their data is used. Internally, you can use a content authoring tool to build an AI training course or purchase pre-built content that can be distributed among teams.

Want to learn more about data security standards? Discover the different types of compliance standards

Strategies for integrating AI in learning and development programs

With the right learning management system, your AI content strategy can seamlessly fit into your existing content development process. We recommend picking one or two SMART goals to inspire your team to participate in your integration plan:

• Analyze and identify learner needs: Assess your target audience and their unique learning requirements to understand which AI tools and features might benefit them the most. Polls—a key feature of Absorb Engage—help you sample data and give you instant access to learner feedback.
• Develop a phased implementation plan: Design and execute a realistic implementation plan that allows for gradual integration of AI technologies and features within your existing training programs to minimize the risk of disruption.
• Monitor and evaluate success: Track the effectiveness of AI-generated learning content, measuring factors such as user engagement, content quality, and learner performance. Gather feedback and systematically refine your AI tools and processes for continuous improvement.

Start the conversation

AI makes it easy to personalize content for learners, boost efficiency among teams, and adapt to ever-changing compliance standards. Thorough planning, monitoring, quality control, and the right AI tools and technologies can be the difference between impactful learning experiences and basic learning requirements. By choosing a powerful, AI-integrated learning management system like Absorb LMS, your organization can leverage the potential of AI-generated content and stay ahead in the competitive corporate learning space.

Proving that value to stakeholders matters. Absorb's AI in learning report found that 37% of L&D professionals say stakeholder resistance — not a lack of technical expertise — is their biggest barrier to AI adoption. The most effective way to break that resistance down is to show AI working inside tools stakeholders already trust, delivering results they can see.