Employee development has always been stuck between two unsatisfying options: deploy hundreds of people through a single workshop and hope something sticks, or invest in intensive coaching programs that reach a fraction of the employees who need support. Too many organizations still default to one-size-fits-all webinars and video libraries that deliver neither engagement nor measurable skill development.
Last week, I sat down with Tom Griffiths, CEO and co-founder of Hone, for a detailed briefing on their platform and their newly launched AI capabilities. Griffiths brings an interesting dual background to this space: a master’s and PhD focus in AI and machine learning (about two decades before it became ubiquitous), combined with firsthand experience scaling a hyperscaler business where he couldn’t find adequate solutions for rapid upskilling across management and broader employee populations. That gap led him to found Hone nearly eight years ago, and the company has since trained over 50,000 learners across organizations like Indeed, Zoom, Subway, and Dow Jones.
What caught my attention in this briefing wasn’t just another company adding AI features to an existing training platform. Hone has built something more deliberate: a hybrid model that combines live, coach-led virtual classes with three distinct AI-powered modalities: AI lessons, AI practice environments, and AI coaching. They all work together as a continuous learning ecosystem. The timing is significant: they launched these AI capabilities publicly in September 2025, after nine months of development with several dozen pilot customers.
The Human Skills Development Market Gets Crowded and Confusing
Organizations shopping for employee development solutions, whether for managers, individual contributors, or senior leaders, face an increasingly fragmented market. Understanding who does what — and what they don’t do — matters more than ever. (This is exactly the kind of vendor evaluation challenge we help organizations navigate through our advisory services and strategic consulting engagements.)
BetterUp and CoachHub focus primarily on scaling one-to-one coaching relationships between certified coaches and employees, plus AI coaching offerings. They excel at personalized support but lack curriculum-driven group training experiences.
LifeLabs Learning delivers traditional live instructor-led training with strong facilitation and research-backed frameworks, but their model relies on scheduling cohorts and doesn’t incorporate on-demand AI learning or practice environments for skills reinforcement between sessions.
Yoodli and Second Nature have built specialized AI practice platforms for verbal communication and role-play scenarios, offering realistic simulation environments. However, they lack the curriculum design, live coaching components and broader learning ecosystem that ties practice back to comprehensive skill development journeys.
Skillsoft (Percipio) provides extensive content libraries with strong technical and compliance training, now incorporating some AI capabilities. Their breadth covers many topics, but they haven’t traditionally specialized in the development that requires live facilitation and coaching methodologies.
Valence and Pascal concentrate on AI-powered coaching conversations, delivering 24/7 support for workplace challenges. They’ve made coaching more accessible but generally don’t include structured curriculum, live human instructors or the kind of scenario-based practice environments that skills development requires.
The pattern becomes clear: most vendors excel in one modality, live training or AI coaching or practice simulations, but struggle to integrate multiple approaches into cohesive learning journeys.
How Hone Combines Human Expertise with AI Scale
Hone’s architecture rests on two foundational pillars that work in tandem. First, they’ve built one of the largest libraries of live online coach-led classes — over 100 different sessions covering management and leadership fundamentals, universal workplace skills like communication and collaboration, and functional skills including project management and client relations.
These generally are small-group experiences (10-20 people) with live discussion, breakout room practice, and real-time coaching feedback. Organizations can deploy them in two ways: as private cohorts for specific audiences, or through “Hone Membership,” essentially a Peloton-style schedule where the company runs 50+ classes weekly and employees drop into the sessions that fit their schedules and needs.
The second pillar, launched publicly just weeks ago, consists of three integrated AI experiences:
- AI-led training (AI lessons): Interactive 5- to 10-minute learning sessions where the AI acts as a personal tutor, teaching specific skills through voice, text, and visual elements. This isn’t passive video consumption—learners can ask questions about frameworks, apply concepts to their own situations, and practice techniques within the lesson itself. Think of it as voice-first e-learning that maintains the engagement benefits of live interaction but delivers the convenience of on-demand access.
- AI practice: Realistic simulation environments where employees role-play challenging workplace scenarios, such as difficult feedback conversations, delegation discussions and performance reviews. An AI partner responds dynamically. Learners can repeat scenarios as many times as needed, immediately after learning a skill or right before walking into an actual high-stakes conversation. The practice sessions are personalized based on the learner’s role, industry and company context.
- AI coaching: An open-ended coaching experience available 24/7 through voice or text (integrated with Slack and Teams for workflow access). Rather than following a script, the AI uses established coaching frameworks to help employees work through challenges, make decisions, and develop their own solutions. It’s contextually aware of both organizational details (leadership principles, competency frameworks, company values) and individual factors (role, team dynamics, learning preferences).
The technical foundation matters here. Hone trained their AI on three distinct layers:
- Organizational context (leadership principles, mission, industry language, competency models)
- Individual context (names, roles, personality, learning styles, team structures)
- Hone’s own frameworks developed through hundreds of thousands of hours delivering employee development.
That multi-layered training allows the AI to tailor every interaction — whether teaching, coaching, or facilitating practice — to feel relevant rather than generic.
Why the Integration Actually Matters
Where this becomes strategically interesting is how these modalities connect into learning journeys rather than operating as separate tools. A frontline manager cohort might start with a four-class live program covering coaching, feedback and delegation fundamentals, supported by ongoing AI coaching whenever challenges arise. Meanwhile, the broader employee base accesses AI lessons and practice for communication and collaboration skills, with the AI recommending relevant live classes for deeper development.
Senior executives might participate in facilitated strategic discussions (a different live format focused on peer exchange) and receive follow-up AI coaching. Individual contributors working on project management or analytical thinking can access targeted lessons and practice without waiting for scheduled training events.
The analytics layer spans both human and AI interactions. Right now, Hone tracks Kirkpatrick levels one through four and performance impact surveys. They’re reporting strong numbers: 90% of learners leave classes feeling motivated and capable of applying what they learned, 88% report improved performance in follow-up surveys, and 72% indicate increased intention to stay with their organization.
The roadmap for the next 6-12 months includes capabilities that could shift this from interesting to strategically significant. Most notably: skills validation through AI assessment of how learners demonstrate competencies during coaching sessions and practice scenarios, custom lesson and practice creation so organizations can build company-specific learning for initiatives like merger integration or performance review preparation, and advanced analytics that surface themes emerging across coaching conversations without breaking individual confidentiality.
That last piece deserves emphasis. Because AI coaching interactions are digitized, Hone can use AI to identify organizational patterns. Think of teams struggling with a specific initiative pr common challenges during a change management process, for example.
This gives companies visibility into employee concerns and development needs they’ve never had access to before. This kind of capability —translating learning data into strategic workforce insights — represents exactly the type of measurement maturity we explore in our research on learning effectiveness.
Which Organizations Benefit Most from This Model
Hone serves mid-market and enterprise customers, typically brought in initially for manager development but increasingly deployed company-wide with the AI capabilities making broader access more feasible. Based on their customer base and solution architecture, several profiles stand out:
- Mid-sized technology companies scaling quickly and needing to upskill across all levels—from newly promoted managers to individual contributors taking on expanded responsibilities to senior leaders navigating strategic challenges.
- Financial services and professional services firms where interpersonal skills, client relationships and professional presence directly impact business outcomes at every level.
- Distributed and hybrid workforces struggling to create consistent development experiences across time zones and locations for their entire employee population.
- Organizations consolidating vendors and looking to reduce program complexity. Companies tired of stitching together separate contracts for manager training, employee skill development, executive coaching, practice tools
and learning platforms find value in a single integrated solution.
- HR and L&D teams stretched thin and needing to demonstrate ROI. The dual benefit here: AI scales coaching and practice that previously required expensive one-to-one human resources, making quality development accessible company-wide, while the analytics demonstrate measurable behavior change and business impact in ways that justify continued investment.
Market Position and Strategic Assessment
From an analyst’s perspective, Hone occupies an unusual position. They’re not the established learning platform trying to bolt on AI features, nor are they the pure-play AI startup without practical training expertise. That combination of nearly eight years delivering live skills development with deep AI technical shows up in the product architecture.
The competitive differentiation crystallizes around integration and specialization. While larger learning platforms offer broader content spanning technical and compliance training, Hone has gone deep on the human skills domain, such as leadership, communication, coaching, feedback, collaboration and time management. AI voice interactions and practice scenarios deliver genuine value rather than feeling like technology for technology’s sake. And while pure AI coaching vendors have focused on conversation interfaces, Hone maintains that live human element for cohort learning and relationship building that certain development experiences still require.
The timing of their public AI launch (September) means market awareness remains low, but that creates opportunity as much as challenge. Organizations evaluating employee development solutions in 2026 are actively looking for AI applications that deliver practical value. The combination of AI lessons (a genuinely new modality), realistic practice environments and coaching support, all connected to live training, addresses the “continuous learning” requirement that most vendors talk about but struggle to operationalize across diverse employee populations.
It’s worth noting that Hone has been recognized through Brandon Hall Group’s HCM Excellence Awards for their innovation in this space, validating that their approach resonates with organizations seeking measurable development outcomes. For solution providers like Hone looking to increase their visibility in this crowded market, programs like our Excellence Awards, strategic research partnerships, and industry conferences provide valuable platforms to demonstrate differentiation to the practitioner community.
Two factors will determine Hone’s trajectory over the next 12-18 months. First, execution on their roadmap, particularly skills validation and custom content creation. If they deliver those capabilities as planned, they’ll have something differentiated enough to command attention in an increasingly crowded market. Second, market education; helping buyers understand not just what Hone does, but when and why the hybrid AI-plus-human model matters for human skills development.
If Hone can demonstrate that their integrated approach delivers both scale and effectiveness with measurement to prove it, they’ve solved a problem that’s frustrated L&D leaders for decades. That’s worth watching closely.
For organizations evaluating employee development solutions or looking to benchmark their current programs, Brandon Hall Group’s advisory services provide strategic guidance on vendor selection, program design, and measurement frameworks. Solution providers interested in analyst briefings and market visibility opportunities can explore our partnership programs.
