Want to improve employee productivity while honing their skills? Want to do it without costing the company an arm and a leg? Think chat bots. Using artificial intelligence and machine learning, these virtual assistants can help employees throughout their day by providing them personalized resources and reminders when they need it. Think Siri, but she wants to drive individual employee success. Vincent Han, founder and CEO of Mobile Coach, says these “digital friends” can reinforce training and drive productivity. They’re more engaging than emails or online training modules; and by having employees interact with chat bots after training sessions, more information will be retained and new skills can be deployed. George Elfond, CEO at MIT-incubated learning technology company Rallyware, says, “Due to an increasingly distributed workforce, widespread adoption of mobile technologies, and changing employee demographics (which includes Millennial workers), corporate training is getting reshaped and is becoming more data and artificial intelligence driven.” Retail giant Target is one employer that’s used chat bots successfully; about 75 percent of trainees followed through on the goals they set in training sessions, as opposed to 55 percent who did not use the same digital tools.