From Basic to Brilliant

In today’s fast-paced business environment, change is constant. My organization is a travel management agency, and like many other companies, faces increased demands that require internal technology teams to develop, build, and test while L&D simultaneously creates learning content. That dynamic has created constant pressure to maintain speed, quality, and consistency despite tight deadlines. The growing gap between the rapid pace of organizational change and the need to support evolving policies and procedures poses a significant risk to achieving our goals.

Challenge

In early 2024, as director of training, I had a pivotal conversation with my supervisor about tackling two challenges: How do we deliver high-quality, engaging training content more quickly? How can we decrease time and effort while maintaining efficiency?

Use case

My team chose to explore how artificial intelligence could enhance our L&D capabilities. While we already used industry-standard technology (such as authoring tools, graphic design programs, and video-creation products), we needed a way to push beyond the limitations of traditional methods. AI offered new possibilities for accelerating processes, maintaining quality, and delivering effective content to learners.

Our journey began with basic applications of generative AI such as creating realistic role-play scenarios, generating summaries, and drafting scripts for presentations and e-learning modules.

While it took time for the team to embrace AI, the time it saved encouraged us to expand use and seek to identify and address additional challenges in our workflow.

One of the first areas that AI significantly altered was voice-overs. Previously, creating voice-overs required hours of recording, reviewing, editing, and re-recording, which was a time-intensive process, particularly for complex or in-depth courses. Using an AI-driven voice-over tool, L&D selected from multiple voice styles, accents, and tones to match the content’s message. Simply inputting a script enabled us to generate professional-quality voice-overs in minutes. The process reduced production time from up to four hours to just 20 to 30 minutes.

Next, we worked on enhancing microlearning content. Developing a five-to-seven-minute e-learning module typically took us at least four hours, excluding the voice-over work. By using an AI-powered web application, we transformed existing materials such as articles or PowerPoint presentations into complete microlearning courses in minutes.

The tool also generated questions to assess learner comprehension and incorporated engaging graphics and animations to match the content. A reduced development time enabled us to create high-quality, bite-size learning experiences with minimal effort while also building a robust library of content for ongoing retention.

Results

By embracing AI tools that enhance efficiency and decrease production time, we achieved leadership’s objectives. Most importantly, we ensured that learners receive the high-quality resources they need when they need them.

The results speak for themselves:

• Time savings. AI reduced development time by up to 80 percent across multiple processes, enabling the team to focus on strategic initiatives rather than repetitive tasks.

• Consistency and quality. The AI-enabled tools maintain a high standard of quality across content types, ensuring a consistent learner experience.

• Scalability. With shorter production times, we can support a broader range of learning needs and deliver content on tighter deadlines.

Looking ahead, great potential exists for AI to transform the L&D space. As practitioners in the industry continue to explore its capabilities, my team is excited to uncover new ways to empower learners and drive organizational success.

Read more from Talent Development Leader.