The Learning Management System market has witnessed significant growth due to the rising demand for eLearning solutions. Within this market, the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology has emerged as a transformative force, enabling LMS platforms to deliver personalized learning experiences, automate administrative tasks and provide intelligent analytics for enhanced decision-making.
Proper Use of AI for Learning and Development
Despite the potential benefits of AI in the LMS market, some challenges need to be addressed. One major complication is the ethical use of AI in learning, such as ensuring fairness, transparency and avoiding biases in algorithmic decision-making. Another complication is the need to strike the right balance between human intervention and AI automation to maintain the human touch and preserve the instructor-learner relationship.
When evaluating LMS providers, companies should consider:
- What are the most important capabilities for our needs?
- What is their approach to AI and how are they ensuring safe use?
- What does the product roadmap for a provider look like in the near term and longer term?
- What level of customization will a provider support in terms of look and feel and learner experience?
- What level of services and support do we need to ensure a successful implementation?
Learning Pool as the Answer
We recently sat down with Learning Pool, a Brandon Hall Group™ Smartchoice® Preferred Provider.
Learning Pool has spent the last year focused on repositioning, reimagining and reintroducing themselves as the solution provider of choice for both learning platform and learning content. By offering both sides of the coin, so to speak, they have crafted a strong value proposition for enterprise organizations. They accomplished this through an accelerated product roadmap bringing more than 90 new and updated features to market.
From the experience and ease of use perspective, there is an updated UX design that is customizable, able to be personalized and features common navigation. Within this updated UX is the inclusion of more branding elements in the system meaning customers can configure landing pages, color schemes and navigation terminology to suit the preferences and needs of the company. They have also moved to a single, integrated profile inclusive of all products and offerings and SSO access for administrators.
Learning Pool has also integrated some new capabilities through the acquisition of their Skills Builder platform. Skills Builder maintains a library of over 22,000 skills pulled from job role data and tracked across markets for 10 years. The library is machine learning-enabled and human-curated. The machine learning engine pulls skills from resumes and based on user self-evaluation, evidence of expertise and the proof point (showing where the skill came from), creates a skills profile that can be used in a variety of applications. One key difference is the inclusion of a measure of user preference for using a particular skill.
This measure factors in learner preference, so when the system recommends learning paths, courses or job opportunities, it will do so through the filter of the individual’s preferences, not just historical career path. The Skills Builder platform also enables development in a variety of ways — including recommended learning paths and projects — which is a marketplace approach to short-term assignments within the company that provides on-the-job experience to grow skills, as well as opportunities — which are permanent positions in the company that help match skills and customized development plans related to skills needed for a targeted role. Future releases will integrate performance data into this process as well.
The Manager View within the Skills Builder tool allows managers to understand both the current and aspirational skills profiles of their team. The tool can also highlight the ease of replacing a skill from the team should a team member move on to another role mixing both internal and external insights. Managers can also keep track of their team’s readiness based on the skills data in the system. The tool can be integrated with an MS Teams chatbot allowing reminders, notifications, and content searches.
Learning Pool has also added an AI-driven chat-based coaching tool that will be launching in Q4 2023. This ChatGPT integration utilizes custom scenarios and personas to allow individuals to practice conversations before they happen. Using the tool, you can either participate as the manager or the employee to experience both sides of the scenario to help learn what to do. Once you complete the scenario, the tool generates a feedback score based on the interaction. The difference between Learning Pool’s AI-driven coaching tool and other products on the market is the ability to fully customize the scenarios and the personas for the simulations to your environment. It is a completely bespoke configuration based on customer preferences.
What Learning Pool has brought to life in their offerings is a modern learning and development platform solution that leverages smart technology to enable the execution of a solid, data-driven and skills-focused learning strategy in an easy-to-navigate ecosystem.
To learn more about the Learning Pool solution, value proposition and expertise, you can download our full report here.
– Matt Pittman, Principal Analyst, Brandon Hall Group™
