AI in Learning and Talent Development: A Closer Look Into Its Future Potential in the Workplace

In AI in Learning and Talent Development, 398 TD professionals answered questions about the potential of AI and AI in action.

This study can help organizations understand the future of AI in talent development. It concludes with suggested action steps and ATD resources to help organizations learn about and use AI at their own organization.

Key findings from this study include:

• Personalizing learning experiences, creating custom learning paths for employees by identifying skills gaps and recommending training resources, was the AI-related feature that respondents thought would be most likely to improve the talent development industry. Measures of learning and organizational performance or impact—which AI can assist organizations with by gathering and analyzing learning and business data—came in second.

• A majority of respondents (55 percent) believed that AI would enhance their role in talent development in the coming years. Another 40 percent thought that it would be detrimental to some areas but enhance others. Only 5 percent believed that the impact would be entirely negative.

• The greatest challenges to implementing AI-enabled applications were budgetary constraints (95 percent) and not enough staff with the right knowledge to implement AI-enabled applications (94 percent; with 64 percent rating it as a major challenge).

• More than a third of respondents (36 percent) said their team was very or somewhat prepared with the necessary knowledge and skills to implement and use AI-enabled applications; 42 percent believed that their organization was very or somewhat prepared with the necessary technological infrastructure.