Organizations spend millions on learning technology, yet frontline turnover remains stubbornly high and skill gaps continue widening. The culprit isn’t lack of content; it’s lack of engagement. Most digital learning platforms still treat training like a compliance checkbox rather than a competitive advantage.
I recently sat down with Hugh Newton-Hill, General Manager of Attensi North America, and Jon Fitts, Senior Simulation Designer, to understand how they’re tackling this differently. With 275 enterprise customers and net revenue retention consistently above industry benchmarks, Attensi has built something worth examining: a game-based learning platform that achieves four training repetitions per user on average, a metric virtually unheard of in corporate learning environments.
The Confidence Gap in Corporate Training
The challenge Attensi addresses isn’t about knowledge transfer; it’s about confidence building. When a global restaurant chain reduced staff turnover by 58%, the insight was that they lacked confidence in executing core service behaviors under pressure. When a retailer increased basket size by 5% through till-side recommendation training, it was because they were not confident enough to make recommendations during customer interactions.
This distinction matters because it shifts the conversation from content delivery to behavior change — specifically, the COM-B model of behavior change that requires three elements: capability (knowledge), opportunity (practice) and motivation. Traditional digital learning handles capability reasonably well. Attensi’s differentiation lies in addressing all three through game psychology and simulation.
Through our Excellence Awards program and research on the Brandon Hall Group Institute™ website, we’ve analyzed hundreds of case studies from organizations implementing learning technology. The submissions that demonstrate measurable business impact consistently share one trait: they solve for behavior change, not just knowledge acquisition. Attensi’s approach aligns with this pattern.
Competitive Landscape: Who Plays in This Space
The learning technology market segments differently depending on workforce type and training objectives. Here’s where Attensi encounters competition:
Axonify focuses on frontline workforce training with microlearning and reinforcement mechanics. Their platform emphasizes daily knowledge reinforcement and manager insights, but they’re increasingly positioning toward holistic workforce management rather than deep training capabilities.
Walkme and Whatfix operate in digital adoption, providing in-app guidance and workflow support. They excel at just-in-time help for software systems rather than complex skill development or behavioral training scenarios.
Mursion and ETU Simulation compete in people skills training through avatar-based simulations. Both offer conversational practice scenarios, particularly for professional services and healthcare. Their models typically require human operators behind avatars (Mursion) or more structured scenario frameworks.
Praxis Labs and Talespin play in VR/immersive learning, targeting soft skills like bias awareness and leadership. They deliver high-fidelity visual experiences that work well for specific use cases. The trade-off comes in deployment complexity, hardware requirements, and narrower applicability compared to platform approaches that span multiple training modalities.
Traditional LMS/LXP Vendors (Cornerstone, Degreed, others) offer game mechanics as features within broader talent platforms, but typically lack the depth of purpose-built simulation engines.
Organizations evaluating providers in this space often benefit from independent analysis of vendor capabilities against specific use cases. Our advisory services help learning leaders assess technology options based on their workforce characteristics and business objectives rather than feature checklists.
What Makes Attensi’s Technology Different
Attensi’s RealTalk product demonstrates its architectural approach to AI-powered simulations. Unlike many conversational simulators that simply re-skin ChatGPT, RealTalk uses multiple AI agents working in parallel:
- Pedagogical layer ensures learning objectives drive the conversation flow, not just natural language processing.
- Guardrail systems keep conversations on track without feeling restrictive, gently steering learners back when they veer off topic.
- Personality and behavior engines give AI characters consistent, realistic responses tuned to specific coaching frameworks or behavioral models.
- Real-time assessment evaluates learner responses against rubrics, providing line-by-line feedback on what worked, what didn’t, and why.
The practical result: learners can have genuinely different conversations each time they practice, with AI characters that surprise them (as Newton-Hill noted, having a simulated employee say “I feel like my team is coming behind my back” during a coaching scenario).
No-Code Platform Architecture
Creator, Attensi’s authoring platform that customers like Starbucks and YMCA use directly, spans a spectrum:
- Quick-build mode generates conversational scenarios in three minutes by selecting characters, coaching frameworks and auto-populating objectives.
- Advanced design mode provides granular control over every design parameter, conversation stage progression, assessment rubrics and feedback mechanisms.
- Modality flexibility supports everything from 3D environment simulations (stores, oil rigs, ships) to desktop workflow simulations (emails, Excel, scheduling tools) to mobile-first game mechanics.
This architecture enables what Attensi calls their “high-impact” and “fast” product suite, using the same underlying platform to serve both immersive, weeks-long design projects and rapid content deployment for product launches or compliance updates.
Skills Assessment Backend (Coming Q1 2026)
Attensi collects granular behavioral data — every click, every decision, across an average of four training repetitions per user. They’re building a skills assessment layer that validates actual demonstrated skills rather than just completion rates. The system will:
- Track skill improvement across repetitions, showing decision-making evolution.
- Map to customer skills ontologies and frameworks.
- Provide skills validation that plugs into broader talent intelligence systems.
The challenge Newton-Hill identified: most learning organizations don’t yet know how to use this data effectively. They understand ROI studies, but struggle with translating skills data into workforce planning. This gap between data availability and utilization is something we address through our advisory services, helping organizations define what success looks like before implementing new technology.
Who Should Consider Attensi
Frontline-Heavy Organizations (Retail, Hospitality, Leisure)
Companies in these industries use Attensi where confidence-building matters more than knowledge transfer. Key benefits:
- Mobile-first delivery that resonates with younger, part-time workforces.
- Reduced new-hire turnover (particularly in the first 90 days) through confidence-building onboarding.
- Measurable operational metrics (basket size increases, service scores) tied directly to training.
Industry fit: Multi-location retailers, quick-service restaurants, hospitality groups, membership organizations
Professional Services Firms
Organizations with 5,000+ employees with dispersed consultant populations use Attensi for client-facing skills that require nuanced judgment. These organizations need:
- Sophisticated conversation simulations using firm-specific frameworks (like the EPIC coaching model).
- Customizable scenarios reflecting actual client situations.
- Granular control over design parameters to meet internal quality standards.
Manufacturing and Industrial
Companies in industries like energy and consumer appliances, which train on complex equipment or safety-critical processes, benefit from 3D environmental simulations without VR hardware requirements. Specific applications:
- Plant walkthrough simulations for new operators.
- Equipment operation scenarios before hands-on training.
- Safety protocol practice in realistic but risk-free environments.
Organizations With Non-Employee Workforces
Critical factors:
- Intrinsic motivation through game mechanics since compliance isn’t enforceable.
- Quick engagement that respects non-employee time constraints.
- Clear performance impact (sales lift) that justifies continued use.
Companies Requiring Rapid Content Deployment
Organizations needing both high-impact programs and quick-turn content (compliance updates, product launches) benefit from the dual-platform approach:
- Self-service authoring for learning teams to deploy content rapidly
- AI-powered tools to convert PDFs into bite-sized learning in minutes
- LXP integration (Attensi Engage) for unified delivery
Strategic Positioning and Market Outlook
Attensi occupies an interesting position: specialized enough to deliver genuine differentiation in game-based learning, yet platform-oriented enough to serve diverse industries and use cases. Their 70% growth from existing customers suggests strong product-market fit once organizations experience the approach.
The challenge ahead is one Newton-Hill acknowledged directly: helping customers understand how to leverage the behavioral data they’re collecting. As learning organizations face increased pressure to demonstrate business impact, Attensi’s granular data on skill development and decision-making improvement becomes more valuable, but only if customers know how to use it.
The AI-powered simulation space is attracting competition, with numerous vendors offering conversational simulators at low price points. Attensi’s institutional expertise creates a moat that purely technical offerings lack. The question is whether that expertise advantage remains defensible as AI capabilities commoditize.
For solution providers navigating this evolving market, understanding how buyers evaluate these capabilities matters. Our diverse offerings for tech providers help vendors position their offerings effectively by providing market intelligence on what corporate learning organizations actually need versus what they say they need.
For organizations where frontline confidence, behavioral consistency or client-facing skills drive business outcomes, Attensi merits serious evaluation. Their approach works best when training objectives connect directly to measurable business metrics and when organizations value engagement data beyond simple completion rates. The four-repetition average they achieve suggests they’ve solved a problem most learning vendors struggle with: getting people to actually want to train.
