Your employees check their messaging apps every three to seven minutes. They check their learning management system once every six to twelve weeks — if you’re lucky. That’s not a typo: we’re talking about a 2,000x difference in attention between where your people actually spend their time and where you’re trying to train them.
I recently connected with Ryan Laverty, whose company Arist is taking a radically practical approach to this problem. Rather than building yet another learning platform that employees need to remember to visit, Arist delivers bite-sized training directly through SMS, Microsoft Teams, Slack, and WhatsApp. The result? Fortune 500 companies are seeing completion rates above 90%, with measurable behavior change that actually impacts business outcomes.
The $5 Billion Race to Capture Workplace Attention
The microlearning market has exploded to nearly $3 billion in the United States alone, with projections suggesting it will exceed $5 billion within five years. This growth isn’t just about shorter content — it’s a fundamental shift in how organizations approach workforce development. Companies are abandoning the “build it and they will come” mentality of traditional LMS deployments in favor of meeting employees where they already are.
The competitive landscape reflects this evolution, with platforms taking distinctly different approaches to the microlearning challenge:
Axonify has built its reputation on gamified learning for frontline workers: • Delivers personalized daily microbursts using AI and spaced repetition • Achieves engagement rates up to 83% through sophisticated gamification mechanics • Operates in 60+ languages with robust analytics for measuring ROI • Requires employees to access a dedicated app, creating an additional digital touchpoint
eduMe takes a social media-inspired approach: • Creates TikTok-style vertical videos optimized for mobile consumption • Integrates with Microsoft Teams, Workday, and proprietary apps • Focuses heavily on frontline and deskless workers • Limited AI capabilities for content generation compared to newer entrants
TalentCards leverages the simplicity of flashcards: • Delivers training through digital flashcard sets on mobile devices • Works offline, critical for field workers without consistent connectivity • Uses gamification with points, leaderboards, and badges • Constrains content to flashcard format, limiting pedagogical variety
SC Training (formerly EdApp) emphasizes mobile-first design: • Provides 80+ templates for rapid course creation • Includes offline mode for areas with limited connectivity • Offers a free tier with paid upgrades for advanced features • Lacks deep integration with existing messaging platforms
7taps prioritizes speed of content creation: • Enables course building from templates in minutes • Integrates with Unsplash and GIPHY for visual content • Supports text-to-speech for easier development • Limited to web-based delivery without native messaging integration
Why One-Click Access Changes Everything
Arist’s core innovation isn’t just about microlearning — it’s about eliminating the friction between employees and the knowledge they need. Consider the typical journey to access training in a traditional LMS: remember the portal exists, find the login credentials, navigate through multiple screens, search for the right course, wait for it to load, and hope you have time to complete it before your next meeting. That’s seven to nine clicks before learning even begins.
Arist reduces this to one click — or zero clicks if content is pushed proactively. Here’s what makes their approach technically distinct:
- AI That Actually Ships: Their content generation engine can transform existing PowerPoints, PDFs, or SCORM files into complete courses in under three minutes. More importantly, the output requires less than 2% editing before publication—a claim I verified during our demo when Ryan built a pharmaceutical training course from scratch while we talked.
- Message-Native Learning Architecture: Rather than embedding web views or requiring app downloads, Arist delivers native experiences within SMS, Teams, and Slack. Videos play inline, responses are processed in real-time, and the AI grades answers to route learners to appropriate follow-up content — all without leaving the messaging interface.
- Behavioral Science at Scale: Drawing from Stanford research on spaced repetition and behavioral nudges, the platform optimizes not just for completion but for retention and application. In studies with Brown University and the WHO, learners retained information for 90 days without reinforcement and demonstrated 88% better capability in applying learned concepts.
Who Needs Their Sales Reps Trained Yesterday?
Arist’s customer concentration tells a clear story about where this approach delivers maximum value. With 80-85% of their clients coming from the Fortune 500, the platform clearly resonates with specific organizational profiles:
Pharmaceutical Giants Racing Against Product Launches • Companies like Eli Lilly, Moderna, and Novartis use Arist to train thousands of sales reps on new drugs within days of FDA approval • Medical science liaisons receive role-specific versions automatically translated into local languages • Field teams access training on personal devices without compliance concerns thanks to Arist’s secure, HIPAA-compliant delivery
Manufacturing Leaders Managing Distributed Workforces • Ford and Ecolab deploy safety protocols and product updates to factory workers who don’t sit at desks • Supervisors receive manager-specific versions of the same training, ensuring aligned understanding • Multi-language support handles diverse workforces without creating separate training tracks
Technology Companies Navigating AI Transformation • HP and Microsoft use the platform to rapidly upskill entire organizations on AI tools and best practices • Content updates happen in real-time as AI capabilities evolve, avoiding the obsolescence problem of traditional training • Sales teams receive competitive intelligence and product updates the moment they’re available
Sales Organizations Demanding Immediate Impact • Companies seeing 20-21% increases in meeting bookings after SDR training via Arist • CRM integrations trigger contextual learning based on deal stages or lost opportunities • Harvard Business Publishing partnership provides validated leadership content for manager development
The Analyst’s View: Disruption Through Distribution
Arist represents a fascinating case study in how distribution innovation can be as powerful as product innovation. While competitors focus on making better content or more engaging experiences within their platforms, Arist has essentially eliminated the platform altogether. They’re not asking organizations to change employee behavior — they’re adapting to behavior that already exists.
This approach has particular implications for three strategic considerations:
First, the integration question becomes inverted. Instead of asking “how do we get employees into our learning ecosystem,” organizations can ask “how do we get learning into our employees’ existing ecosystem.” This shift fundamentally changes the ROI calculation for learning initiatives.
Second, the AI arms race in content generation may matter less than the distribution advantage. While every platform is adding AI capabilities, Arist’s ability to deliver that content where employees actually are creates a moat that’s harder to replicate than technology features.
Third, the platform’s success metrics — 120% net revenue retention and 2-4x annual growth — suggest that solving the engagement problem upstream (getting people to actually consume training) may be more valuable than optimizing the learning experience downstream.
Looking ahead, Arist’s biggest challenge may be market education. Many organizations have invested millions in traditional learning infrastructure and may resist the notion that the answer lies not in a better LMS but in abandoning the LMS paradigm entirely. However, as younger workers who live in messaging apps become a larger portion of the workforce, Arist’s approach may shift from innovative to inevitable.
The question isn’t whether message-based learning will become mainstream—it’s whether organizations will adapt quickly enough to capture its benefits before their competitors do. For companies facing rapid product launches, sales enablement pressures, or transformation initiatives where speed truly matters, the choice may already be made.
Brandon Hall Group™ provides independent HCM research, advisory services, and insights to help organizations make strategic talent and technology decisions. For more analysis on learning technology trends and vendor landscapes, visit brandonhall.com.
