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Using AI to Advance Learning 

The $100K LMS That Only Logged CompletionsTen-ish years ago, I was sitting in a conference room trying to figure out which LMS to buy.I'd inherited the project, which is how these things tend to happen: a new leader came in, the team was frustrated with the current platform, nobody was particularly defending it, and somebody had to figure out what came next. That somebody was me.The platform we already had cost us a little more than $100,000 a year. As far as I could tell, all it was actually doing for us was logging completions.That was the job.We weren't using it to deliver training. Most of the actual training was happening in person, or on the job, or in a Word doc somebody had emailed around the week before, and we weren't using the social features or the analytics in any serious way either. Mostly, we were logging completions so we could tell somebody, somewhere, that the thing had been completed.A hundred grand a year. For a completion log nobody liked.The Features We Paid For—but Couldn't UseAnd the platform was loaded with features. Social learning, advanced analytics, competency frameworks, skills taxonomies, video libraries, benchmarks—everything the vendor’s slide deck made look gorgeous.We couldn't use any of it.By the time we'd paid the $100K in licensing, there wasn't any money left over to hire the instructional technologist, analyst, or integration specialist we'd actually have needed to stand up for any of those features.The money meant to fund the training was used to fund the platform that was meant to deliver it. The budget for real learning design ended up being whatever was left over after the LMS had eaten first.Understand the Psychology of the LMSSo, I started asking questions.Why does the admin console look like a 1998 SAP screen?Why does doing a basic thing take seven clicks?Why do the features we're paying for need another six-figure service engagement to actually use?And every time, the answer came back the same—from the vendor, from our own LMS admin, from anyone I could find to ask: You just need to understand the “psychology” of the LMS. Nobody could really explain what that meant. I don't think they knew. And I've thought about that phrase for more than 10 years. I still can’t tell you what it means.The Real Problem: The Shape of the LMSSince that conference room, I've worked with many of these platforms. Every side of the table, too—buyer, builder, admin, end user, sometimes all four on the same project.The LMSs I work with today are better than the one I was fighting in 2015—cleaner, more API-friendly, less openly hostile to the people who have to use them.But that's not really the argument. “Better” isn't the bar anymore. The bar is “n mecessary.”Because the thing I kept running into wasn’t a problem with any one LMS. It was a problem with the shape of the LMS. The way the entire category defines its job.Designing Around the LimitsI'd try to design something I knew would work for the learners we had. Then I'd hit a wall:Can the LMS support this?Are those promised features actually coming?Why can’t the dashboard show this metric?Why does something simple become incredibly complex?And the answer would be some version of:Shrink it. Make it flatter. Make it fit the container.A Real-World Example: Global Learning That Doesn’t FitRight now, for example, I'm in the middle of a project for a global, multilingual learning program.Learners in eight different languagesA small teamAn ambitious scopeThey have an LMS. On paper, it does everything we need. In practice:Translations don’t render cleanly.Offline access is fragile.Tracking doesn’t capture what we care about.No one has the technical specialization to fix it.There are just a couple of people trying to deliver something ambitious with what they've got.What Changed: AI Breaks the DependencyTen years ago, my answer would have been the same: Shrink the design until it fits.That’s not what’s happening here. Because of AI, I’m building the pieces the authoring software can’t:Complete xAPI packagesNo authoring suiteNo services engagementJust me and Claude.The thing the LMS was supposedly uniquely good at—packaging, tracking, delivering courseware—I’m building directly. Without any of the infrastructure that the LMS was supposed to require.The Hidden Cost of the LMS EcosystemAnd it isn’t just the LMS. The LMS was the keystone of an entire ecosystem:ArticulateCaptivateRiseVyondCustom video vendorsAgencies and internal specialistsWe bought all of that because:LMS required SCORMSCORM required authoring toolsTools required licenses, training, and specialistsPull the LMS, and most of that stack starts to disappear.The project I’m on right now? Their Storyline licenses are already going down. Not because they made a cost decision, but because the work no longer requires it.We’ve Seen This BeforeTwenty years ago, sales training lived inside HR and L&D. Then sales leaders got tired of not being able to prove impact and not getting usable metrics. So, they left. They built enablement inside the sales organization, then connected it to Salesforce. It measured revenue, pipeline, and time-to-quota. We weren’t invited. Sales training didn’t stop mattering. We just couldn’t prove it did.The Core Problem: Nobody Cares About CompletionI think we’re in the same moment with the LMS. The LMS measures completion. And completion isn’t a metric the business cares about.The moment something else can measure:Behavior changeTime-to-competenceReal performance…inside tools the business already uses, we lose the argument.The Stack You Already HaveSo, let’s actually examine what’s already in place:LRS (or existing analytics tools) for trackingData warehouse + SQL for analysisSharePoint for contentTeams / Slack for deliveryHRIS for recordsLinkedIn for credentialsThe internet for resourcesAI for everything elseWhat exactly is the LMS doing in the middle of all that?The Data Doesn’t Support the LMSThere’s a stat I keep coming back to. Jane Hart’s Top Tools for Learning survey has been running since 2007.YouTube has been #1 for 10 yearsChatGPT is right behind itGoogle consistently ranks near the topNo proprietary LMS appears in the top tenNineteen years of data, and the tools people actually use to learn aren’t the ones we built systems around.Do You Actually Need an LMS Anymore?For most of my career, the answer to “Why do we have an LMS?” was: Because it does something that nothing else can do at a reasonable cost.I don’t think that’s true anymore. The other tools:Can do the same workAlready exist in the businessAre already paid forThe remaining unique jobs of the LMS are much narrower than they used to be.Where You Probably Still Need OneLet’s be clear: some of you still need an LMS. In particular, highly regulated industries such as pharma, finance, healthcare, and defense need one. They need audit trails, proof of training, and structured records. That doesn’t go away.But, none of those regulations actually require an LMS. They require:Time-stamped recordsTamper evidenceRetentionAuditabilityThe LMS was just the tool we chose in 1999.The Other Lane: Administrative ScaffoldingThere’s another category where the LMS still matters:SchedulingAssignmentsRosteringPrerequisitesThe operational layer of learning at scale. That’s real work. But that’s not the same as a $200K platform with bundled everything.If admin is the job, buy something that does admin. Skip the rest.Where Does This Leave Us?Here’s where I’ve landed. The LMS isn’t disappearing tomorrow. Some organizations still need compliance systems and administrative structure. But the full LMS bundle--catalog, authoring, social layer, complex workflows, and six-figure cost--that’s not a tool anymore. It’s a habit.So, if you’re sitting in a conference room this year, being told to pick a new LMS, before you ask which vendor, ask:Do we actually need one?What job are we buying it to do?Could our existing stack already do it?The answer might surprise you. It surprised me.The Final ShiftAnd if your answer is: “We don’t have the skills to build this.” I hear you. But the gap between, “I could do this,” and “I can do this,” is now about a year, not a decade.We spent 20 years being told to understand the “psychology” of the LMS. Maybe it’s finally time to admit that we don’t have to.

Maybe You Don’t Need an LMS Anymore

Executives are asking for is evidence that sits across the learning, performance, and HR systems.

The Four Questions Every Executive Is Asking L&D That Learning Tech Can't Answer

Even when the decision to switch LMSs is the right one, the migration itself can still create hidden challenges you should keep in mind.

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