The future is not now
The AI revolution in L&D may well be coming. But probably not as fast as you think...
Allow me to begin this week’s Dispatch with a hat-tip to your two favorite Rosses.
First, Ross G, who shared the following ‘missing link’ in last Monday’s newsletter:
😲 The most common training method is, wait, WHAT?!
AI chatbots, Learning Experience Platforms, adaptive learning. Technology sure has come a long way. But as D'Angelo Barksdale said, ‘the King stay the King’. In Hemsley Fraser’s 2025 L&D Impact Survey, the top training method was… in-person training.
Second, Ross S, who made this observation in a post on LinkedIn:
‘Am I the only one who finds it odd that a lot of companies AI upskilling programmes don't use AI in the experience?
I see a lot of static experiences.
Case studies talk about people poured into rooms with the sage on the stage and traumatised by 50 powerpoint slides about this century’s most transformative technology.
I don't see a LLM in sight or an AI assistant to support the experience.
Nothing.
Would we use sticks and stones to explain electricity or just turn on a light?
Seriously, am I missing something?’
Against a backdrop of newsletters and conference keynotes claiming that AI is about to revolutionize L&D, dismay at the persistence of traditional delivery methods is understandable.
But is it really that surprising?
Before we answer that question, it’s important to note that, as a breed, Rosses who work in L&D are a decidedly weird bunch.
They’re the kind of nerds who, even outside of working hours, spend their time tinkering with LLMs, listening to tech podcasts, reading research papers, and thinking about the ways AI will transform workplace learning.
In other words, Rosses are not representative of the L&D community as a whole.
Based on survey data from Don Taylor and Egle Vinauskaite, we know most L&D professionals are not that excited about AI’s potential applications in skills management, data analysis, or personalization. It’s not clear that they’re even all that excited about the new types of learning experiences AI might eventually enable.
What excites them most about AI is the ability to do what they’re already doing, but faster and at lower cost. And a lot of what they’re already doing is designing and delivering traditional courses.
Surely, things must look different over at OpenAI and Google, two of the organizations shaping what Ross S describes as ‘the century’s most transformative technology’?
Turns out, not so much…
Head to the OpenAI Academy, and you won’t find highly interactive, AI-powered learning experiences. What you’ll find is essentially a playlist of hour-long webinar recordings, walking users through different features of ChatGPT.
Over at Grow with Google, you can learn the basics of AI by completing their 5-module ‘AI Essentials’ course in ‘under 10 hours’.
One of the arguments Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor make in their essay ‘AI as Normal Technology’ is that, despite the rapid pace of development in AI, the diffusion of technology is generally ‘limited by the speed of human, organizational, and institutional change’.
Put differently, just because technological capability exists, that doesn’t mean it will be widely applied.
Most normal people inside and outside of L&D spend little time thinking about the ways AI will reshape workplace learning.
For these people (including many of L&D’s internal customers), learning is and will continue to be seen as something that happens in a classroom, through a course, or via a webinar.
Until that changes, L&D’s AI revolution may just have to wait.
Want to share your thoughts on The L&D Dispatch? Then get in touch by emailing custom@mindtools.com or reply to this newsletter from your inbox.
🎧 On the podcast
Remember 'performance support'? Amid all the talk of AI, adaptive learning, and skills, it's kind of been forgotten.
But not by us! Or by respondents to Don Taylor's Global Sentiment Survey, who ranked it 11th hottest trend this year (up two from last year).
In the first of a two-part series of crossover episodes with our partner Assemble You, Adam Lacey joined Ross G and Paul last week to discuss:
What makes great performance support?
What conditions make performance support effective?
What role does AI play in all this?
Check out the episode below. 👇
You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Spotify or the podcast page of our website.
📖 Deep dive — Manager Skills Framework (11 of 12)
We’re nearly at the end of our series exploring the 12 core skills in our Manager Skills Framework. This week’s focus is on guidance – the skill that reflects how effectively managers support their people’s development through relevant and meaningful learning opportunities.
In our own research, we’ve found that guidance is both essential and misunderstood. Most managers don’t step into their roles expecting to shape someone else’s career – but the reality is, employees rely on their managers more than anyone else to help them grow. That makes managers the most powerful learning advocates an organization has.
And this matters — not just for individual growth, but for business success.
Today, high turnover is one of the biggest challenges organizations face. When people leave, the effects are significant. Turnover disrupts teams, lowers morale, damages brands, and costs money. To retain top talent, managers need strategies that go beyond perks and pay. One of the most effective? Investing in employee development.
A systematic review by Hollar, Kuchinka, and Feinberg (2022) confirmed what many of us already know: job satisfaction is one of the strongest predictors of retention. And what many of us don’t know: a key driver of satisfaction is having access to development opportunities that feel purposeful and personalized.
Earlier in this series, we looked at managerial coaching and how it fosters learning and commitment. While coaching is one way to support development, guidance is broader – encompassing all efforts to connect employees with learning experiences that stretch, challenge, and grow them.
So why does guidance improve retention?
When employees are learning, they see the organization investing in their future – and they’re likely to invest back.
Learning creates a sense of progress and purpose, both of which are core drivers of intrinsic motivation.
Development signals that growth is valued, which builds connection to the organization’s values and mission.
That last point matters more than ever. Today’s workforce places a high premium on growth. So much so that more than half of employees say they’d leave their current job due to a lack of development opportunities.
As a manager, you may not always control promotions or pay – but you do have influence over learning. And that influence could be the difference between someone staying and someone walking out the door.
Hollar, N., Kuchinka, D. G. J., & Feinberg, J. (2022). ‘Professional development opportunities and job satisfaction: A systematic review of research.’ Journal of International Management Studies, 22(1), 10–19.
👹 Missing links
🤓 The Irony of L&D: We Often Forget Our Own Development
As David Kelly points out in this article, one of the most rewarding aspects of working in L&D is getting to help others develop new skills, form new habits, and advance in their careers. But we often forget to make time for our own development. This is a problem not only because it puts us at risk of falling behind, but because it shifts us out of the learner mindset. As David writes, ‘If we expect others to value lifelong learning, we have to show that we value it too. And not in theory; in practice.’
Through high-density EEG imaging, a new study from researchers at MIT explores the effects of using ChatGPT on the brain, in students writing SAT-style essays. Breaking the students down into three groups (brain only, search engine, and GPT-4o), the paper examines how engagement with technology influences what happens in our brains during demanding cognitive tasks. It’s a long read (I confess, I haven’t read it end-to-end), but the key findings have been helpfully summarized here by Jiunn-Tyng Yeh and critiqued here by Ethan Mollick.
⚡ AI alone cannot solve the productivity puzzle
Over the last few decades, new technologies have been introduced to the workplace, with the promise that they will fuel productivity. But these technologies have largely failed to live up to that promise, with productivity growth slowing from around 2%/year in the 1990s to roughly 0.8%/year today. Despite the fanfare surrounding AI, Carl Benedikt Frey argues that LLMs will be no different, offering efficiency over creative leaps forward: ‘Economic miracles stem from discovery, not repeating tasks at greater speed’.
👋 And finally…
I’m fairly confident Ross G was called a ‘high performer’ in his day.
👍 Thanks!
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