AI-Enabled Learning: Building Capability at the Speed of Change with Ann Rollins and Britney Cole

Speaker A: For years, learning at work has largely followed the same pattern. We create content, deliver training, and then hope people remember enough of it to use later. But what happens when knowledge is available instantly, when learning can happen in the moment of need, and when AI can help personalize development at a scale that was previously impossible? We're entering a period where learning may become less about courses and more about continuous access, practice, coaching and support. Today we're joined by Anne Rollins, VP of the Design Studio, and Brittany Cole, Chief Innovation Officer, to explore how AI is changing the way organizations build capability and what leaders need to do to create learning ecosystems that actually help people grow while they work

Speaker B: foreign.

Speaker A: So great to have you both here on the Blanchard Leader Chat podcast. Let's dive right in with our first question for both of you. When organizations think about AI and learning today, where are they focusing, in your opinion, too much and where are they not focusing enough? Brittany, how about if you start.

Speaker B: Great question. I'd say first. So many organizations are still focusing too much on the tool itself. They're asking what platform should we buy? Or we gave everybody copilot and let's just let them have at it and see the goodness that comes up. Again, great questions, great area to focus because you need to have a tech strategy obviously when you're bringing AI into your organization. But most organizations are so lacking focusing on behavior change, capability building and the actual employee and leader experience. Um, there's too much focus on AI as an efficiency and productivity tool as opposed to actually helping people reimagine how they do their jobs differently, how they manage conversations differently, how they can make better decisions, um, or solve problems in a different way. In a way for learning leaders, it's shifting from summarizing and content production and meeting notes to the actual capability and norms that leaders are bringing into their team. People actually have that ever present guidance, practice, feedback and support.

Speaker A: What about you Ann?

Speaker C: I think you know, picking up on kind of the capability change and behavior changes. I think there's a lot of focus on the tools and the content, content, content. I think there are such great opportunities for us to look at how we uh, develop practitioners skills, particularly in the L and D and talent organizations. And by leveling up, practitioner skill allows us to infuse the content in a way that is much more enabled by AI to drive behavior change. But that practitioner skill to know how to do that is an area of huge opportunity across every organization. We spend a lot of time uh, putting things together to help practitioners in the talent organization to be able to think Differently about how content and experience is served up. Particularly um, when it is enabled by the AI tools within an organization.

Speaker A: I want to focus now kind of on learning programs to learning ecosystems. And Ann, this is really where you thrive. So I'd like to ask you a couple questions. You spend a lot of time helping organizations thinking about, about leadership, about capability building. What does an AI enabled learning ecosystem actually look like from a ah, leadership perspective?

Speaker C: Yeah for sure. Um, you know as we think about the leadership impact ecosystem and what we call it here, Blanchard. Um it's, it's uh, thinking about leadership strategy, experience, how do you coach and sustain, how do you measure and create that measurement philosophy that wraps around AI plays a huge role in enabling all of those things to happen. We can use AI to identify gaps and the capability priorities and really look at where do we have solutions for gaps that we're aware of. Where do we not have solutions? We certainly can use it um, as a wrapper to be able to um, personalized uh, practice and reinforcement opportunities. The example being able to ask Blanchard AI how can I go in and apply the tools to have a high stakes conversation in a way that is going to preserve my brand. Um, great example of that. Um, being able to support coaching and reflection to drive me to think about the behaviors that I am applying and building and how I might be able to infuse that more deeply in my work. Um, to be able to provide um, that in the moment search and experience that wraps around traditional learning. AI is not going to provide that first moment of learning where I'm learning something for the first time, it's relevant to me and I'm able to actually practice it in a safe environment. What AI can do is wrap around that experience and enrich that to make sure that as an L and D leader when I'm, when I'm enacting my measurement strategy I know that I'm going to get measurable results that will show that the effort and the money was worth it.

Speaker A: Follow up for you Ann. What changes when learning moves from you know, back in the old days, scheduled events and just training programs that are accessible um, to continuous capability, you know, and development opportunities that are embedded in your daily work.

Speaker C: Mhm. We know we can't dip people in training and they go out and suddenly they are changed humans. Right. We've got to be able to provide learning experiences that really matter and that, that are relevant to them. And the age old learners have to create their own relevance. We can't tell them this is important and they're going to pay attention. Um, so first of all, we've got to get that part right. Next, measurement historically has been smile sheets. You know, level, uh, 1, 2, ish, maybe not even that. Uh, but level three, four seems to be so far away. And the reason it's far away is because organizations aren't doing enough to embed that sustainment after those important first moments of learning. And so we think about things like coaching, performance support that happens, but that's part of the plan. It's not, it's not something that we think about after the fact. It's something that is built and baked into the design. So, for example, for our programs, we, we offer learning labs and experiments. So you have that first moment of learning and then you're actually going to go out and try it. You're going to come back into a cohort coaching session and we're going to share the results of that work and really drive leaders to be able to take the things they get in their formal learning and apply them in a way where there's accountability structures built in that they're applying, coming back, working with their peers. And then of course, the measurement data that I mentioned earlier is going to show a notable change in performance. Um, but it's being able to crack the nut of how do you create ACEs attainment strategy that is effective and that works. And that's been really hard for our industry as a whole. And certainly, um, at Blanchard, we've got so many ways to bring that richness to life and wrap around our solutions to be able to prove that behavior change at the end of the day.

Speaker A: Brittany, I was thinking in preparation of this, I use four to five different tools on a daily basis. I use them pretty consistently and sometimes it grows. I mean, the speakers around the house are now upgraded and so we know that's a different, that's a relaunch with what they're doing with their AI. Um, so there's so many tools out there personally. But let's really talk professionally. You're watching the innovation and emerging technology really closely. Uh, what AI tools do you think are creating the most meaningful value specifically for learning and development teams today?

Speaker B: Yeah, great question. My first comment though on what you just said is, have you started pitting your AI tools against each other? So you get an output from ChatGPT and then you're like, what does perplexity say about that? And you create like a battle of the LLMs. Yeah, like a, uh, fascinating personal and professional use case. Because each LLM is prioritized slightly differently. So you're getting nuances in each and then you see the models fight against each other. So that's, it's kind of a fascinating evolution especially as organizations start to move from stop using your personal version of ChatGPT to not just use our, our chat version of Copilot. But now depending on the, the licenses organizations are doling out to their people, the individual can start to leverage different models. So in, you know, you know Copilot, you can say I want to prioritize ChatGPT or OpenAI or Claude or eventually Gemini. So there's like these all purpose generative AI tools that are all now fighting not just for individual personal use for your $20 a month, but for enterprise grade access. Right. The holy grail. And so that's, you know, that's the uh, like that's the first layer is you have these all purpose tools to brainstorm, summarize, drafting stuff, translating. Now you know, as Ann mentioned, building that context and so creating a scenario or practice exercises or personalizing communication. And that's so, so valuable for L and D teams because most organizations don't have a design and development shop in house. These tools overnight are giving L and D teams the ability to reduce design hours right away. But I also think where we're missing the mark and where these AI tools are just starting to get more traction is beyond that content creation. And it's again building on what Ann said. It's like supporting coaching. So what do you do in between a uh, coaching conversation? How do you use AI, uh to not just give you an answer but help you reflect better and that true performance support. So it's the preparation, it's the before that moment of need. And I think it's really interesting because I think organizations, you know, a year ago it was AI or not AI and now it's so much more governed. And so it's, it's akin to the conversation around like how we make decisions of the, of like what shows we watched, right? We buy Netflix, we buy Hulu, we buy Disney plus, we buy HBO Max or you buy Comcast and it integrates it all kind of thing. And so um, and you, you know, or YouTube TV and so it's the same sort of do you buy a big one or do you cobble it? Because kind of like what you said, every platform now has their AI assistant. And so it's L and D teams. No different than when uh, LXPS learning experience platforms came to market is where do we want our employees eyeball share to go. Because again the, you know, the best tools today are going to be old tools in three months because the models just continually get better. So in a way it becomes less about which tool but it's what's our, what's our philosophy of where do we want employees to spend their eyeball share?

Speaker A: I love our listenership. There are different stages of their careers, there are different areas and places within the organization at different levels. And, and so this is a conversation for a lot of different uh, question rather for a lot of different people. If an organization is early in its AI journey, Brittany, where do you feel like the smartest place for them to begin?

Speaker B: Yeah, the last place to begin is what tech. Um, and I think that's where innovation and AI is getting conflated is the question we're asking is where does AI fit? But it's kind of reframing and asking like where are people struggling today? Where are leaders under supported? You know especially as you know sort of at the same time AI has create, you know, has been adopted, we've been leveling mid level leaders and so spans of control are getting bigger and so where you know, how might we like reduce the same questions employees are asking how might we have great learning content than people are uh, accessing or of course applying? And so it's where is that repetitive work? And so again it goes back to not the tool. It's not saying okay, go use copilot and figure it out. But it's identifying the who and then the outcome. And so it's for organizations, it's finding those small and safe use cases. Don't try to transform the entire ecosystem in one move. I mean you can give copilot, but it's being smarter around how might we do something better and more efficient and support and reinforce and enable or drive knowledge management? And then the second part is governance. And that's where I think uh, like in six months from now I think that's going to be a massive conversation because AI generally today in organizations is so personalized you're much more in charge of your knowledge management as opposed to going into a SharePoint site. And so it's having that clear guidance of what people can and cannot put into AI tools. So protecting their own confidential information but then also making sure access to that knowledge, that uh, intellectual property is actually shared. So it's not, you know, you have a project on topic A and then uh, your other team members are using uh, the same AI tool but a different input system. And so it's it's governance and it's business problems. The same stuff as you think about any innovation, don't go to the tool first.

Speaker A: This focus now for both of you is around building an AI enabled learning ecosystem. So for both of you, and we'll start with, with Ann, um, what does an ideal AI enabled learning ecosystem look like three years from now? So it's crystal ball time.

Speaker C: I love a crystal ball, you know, three years time. I am hopeful that first of all when I think about talent development teams, L and D teams, I am hoping that we have opened up massive horsepower in the L and D practitioners. Um, you know, there are so many out there that still spend so much of their time in design doing instructional design work. And imagine if you could free up 60, 70, 80% of the time they spend on design and moving that to a place where they're having far more productive solution and conversations and reaching more audiences more effectively within the organization. That's the first thing. Because when you're freeing up that horsepower to be able to do the performance consulting that a lot of times doesn't even happen today, that's changing the game for organizations. Then a, uh, click down the way all of those populations that are being served more effectively and having the tools for embedded performance support, um, for all of the leadership work that's happening, um, for leaders throughout organizations. We've got tools at Blanchard to help practitioners to find that efficiency, to find that horsepower to be doing higher level work, um, and certainly to think about AI plus leadership. It's still a human centric role, but these leaders need things in the palm of their hand to be able to help them. So it might be in the moment coaching that happens digitally, um, via a chatbot, that is supportive, that is dynamic, um, and focused. It could be coaching that is happening, that tools that give them conversation prompts in the conversations that move the business forward. Um, because today a lot of leaders avoid the tougher conversations that unleash greater performance because they're not comfortable having those conversations. So I think it's twofold. I think it's in the talent space and then I think it is in the leader space. And three years from now, if I had that crystal ball, I would hope that on the Bell Curve, most organizations are at that place where we have maximized the capabilities of leaders in organizations of L and D to be able to um, accelerate the capabilities of leaders across the board.

Speaker B: I mean, I hope we're not talking about AI as like a separate thing. Yeah, you know, where it's like it's just, it's just much more natural in the way people do stuff, learn, work, lead, um, you know, where it's like this companion, you know, but, but I also think it's not, it doesn't remove formal learning workshops still matter. Cohorts of people connecting with each other, coaching still matters, but they're just surrounded much more naturally by like continuous support. So you know, it's, it's scrubbing all your systems and it's saying hey, you have a one on one. And the last time you talked to Jane, you know, you guys talked through that she was at uh, D2 and this was sort of the output. Do you want to prepare? And so it's just much more proactive where today AI in a lot of ways is much more reactive. Um, where you're pulling from different platforms and so we see the agentic world come to life. I'd love to see this world where you're less in screens because the agents are doing the work and so you're able to use voice, you're able to use, you know, haptics, you're able to use prompts on your watch or maybe your funky glasses or it's just, it's, it's much more just ingrained in the day to day for before, during, after supporting that habit formation. I, I think too though it's not replacing the human leader, it's not replacing the human coach, but it's giving you just more ever present access when you're in that messy middle. So it's, it's possibly a, a life of less screens because you can just recall and everything is interconnected much more, much more um, in sync that it is today.

Speaker A: Let's try to make this a little bit more practical. So Brittany, what's one use case that's delivering measurable impact today that organizations should be paying attention to?

Speaker B: It's supporting their managers.

Speaker D: Hands down.

Speaker B: Managers are literally expected to be unicorns. Ridiculous pressure. They have a job, they're expected to coach even though they are expected to deliver upon goals, give feedback, manage performance, be the empathetic individual who supports their well being, drive strategy, manage all the conflict amongst people and lead through just ever present change. And they just don't have enough support, they don't have enough support from their own leader. So I feel like AI can say help me give feedback to someone who's just defensive. I have a direct report who's totally disengaged, give me an action plan, I need to have this career conversation or I have two people who are in complete disarray. What can I do to help think through that conversation? Let me practice it, give me some potential reactions and, and connect back to leadership frameworks. And I say frameworks intentionally because you can get concepts and principles from Gemini, from chat, from, from any all purpose. But we don't do well as humans remembering principles, they're too loose. The if we can do a better job of leveraging the AI to actually help us build muscle memory and actually move at the pace of people versus AI, then we can actually then remember that model or framework so we actually can have the conversation that we prepared for. And that's I believe where AI can actually become um, really really practical supporting to those really specific behaviors of better one on ones, better coaching conversations and better follow through and they don't have

Speaker D: enough real time support so AI can help them prepare for those moments that matter. Um, then the measurable impact comes when you tie that to specific behaviors like better one on ones, more frequent coaching conversations.

Speaker C: Brittany, you said something there that has me thinking. When we're talking about infusing AI into leaders world so that they're able to have more productive conversations and they're really really able to get support in the moment, it makes me think about the role of L and D teams in equipping these leaders. This is the perfect time. We actually just launched a series of four speaker series at Blanchard. It's called the AI plus Leadership um series. The topics are using AI with intention, fostering critical thinking, human centered leadership and AI supported conversations. This is going to be a core skill for every single person, not just leaders in the workplace to be able to up their AI competence so that they are able to um, very very deftly take these tools into their tool belt to be able to make more space for the higher order thinking and working. Um so I think uh, it's certainly our leaders are critical and critical core and it branches out further and beyond that.

Speaker A: And where are you seeing the greatest impact when it comes to leadership development, manager development or even enterprise capability building?

Speaker C: Mhm, that's a great question. I'll go back to our L and D practitioners. Chad. When I think about the remit of L and D teams and AI's significant disruption it's about we talk tools and tech and a lot of it is disconnected. When I think about the broader leadership development architecture, I think about the ecosystem, the leadership development ecosystem in organizations and um, things like making sure that your strategy is really clear, having really exceptional learning design which can be supported by AI um, being Able to measure that, being able to sustain it. So imagine AI based coaching in the flow of work. As Brittany was just mentioning, using AI as a tool to help design experiences that are deeply connected, um, and using AI along the way. But that is predicated on your L and D practitioners having competence using these tools and systems in their work. And that has been a real focus for us at Blanchard, particularly in our custom solutions team is helping to equip L and D practitioners with the skills they need to be able to do this important work to create the ecosystem of tomorrow that is largely predicated on a woven together um, blend of content, experience and enabled by AI.

Speaker A: Next question for both of you. Brett, we'll start with you. What capabilities do you think are going to define a successful learning organization in the next few years?

Speaker D: The first thing I think about is the organizations that will leapfrog ahead are so good at diagnosing the capability and skill gaps. Not just training needs, but really where what they need to deliver to their customers. They know what needs to be done and so they, they can just see and understand what the business needs that their people need to do differently. That's first of all. Second, they, they shift from instructional designer to experienced designer. We've seen that, that evolution but that becomes priority because if you think of as AI as a new modality, they know how to blend those formal learning moments, social connection, social learning, coaching, reinforcement and practice and AI enabled support into one ecosystem. It's not just another uh, tool in the tool belt, but it's really a complete, like it's a complete ecosystem. Um, the organizations that always shine, they have a focus on data and measurement and not just nps, not just completion rates, but really like behavior change, confidence and business impact. Even if business impact to some degree is correlated and not causal. But they're focusing on how did this make the business better versus did people feel good after attending a class? I think another one is they're good experimenters. Um, I've met a couple of these

Speaker B: organizations as of late.

Speaker D: AI is moving far too fast to even have like a two year static strategy. So these teams need to take the tools that are available to them, test, learn, iterate and scale what works. You just can't wait and see to what your IT team is going to invest in. And then finally, I think this is the biggest one is those in L and D have to be such guardians of organizational and employee trust because uh, we have a right and a responsibility to protect ethics, inclusion, content and intellectual property and maintaining that human side of development because that shouldn't go away. Even though that's so tempting to do because of the efficiency gains.

Speaker A: We're going to try something new. We haven't done this on the leader chat, um, actually we did this early on when we did this. But we're going to do a lightning round and I'm going to give every one of you, both of you a chance to answer and if you just don't know right off the bat, say pass and it's totally going to be fine. We're going to do a quick lightning round for both of you. Brittany Starting with you favorite AI tool for learning right now ChatGPT.

Speaker C: It's so versatile and ChatGPT same reason.

Speaker A: Anne sticking with you most exciting AI trend right now that you've seen in

Speaker C: L and D M using an AI coach to be able to help create learning journeys and identify um, multi dimensional skill development in a pathway that makes sense.

Speaker D: Brittany Same answer but for a different reason. I think AI coaching to help people rehearse like real conversations in a m safe environment. So powerful and so less high stakes than some over engineered tool.

Speaker A: Brittany most overrated AI trend content creation.

Speaker D: More content is not always the answer.

Speaker A: How about you Ann?

Speaker C: Same. Content creation is actually the problem because the issue is content creation. It's amalgamating things that already exist and so new thought doesn't make it into the process and the final output without a lot of work and a lot of people don't know how to do the work.

Speaker A: And one AI experiment every learning leader should try to run this year.

Speaker C: Good question. Pass. I'll come back to it.

Speaker A: Love it.

Speaker D: Um, I think I'm just going to go back to the manager enabled support some and it doesn't have to be an agent but something that's specifically designed for just in time. Manager needs feedback, delegation difficult comp I just help me prepare for a conversation. Give me some quick wins.

Speaker C: I've got the answer. Yep, I'm back. So I think about um, the templates, the standard templates that L and D professionals can use and run experiments on so that they can do very rapid learning artifacts. So the things that wrap around a learning experience over time. So things like your T minus communication schedule, your communications plan, um, your launch decks and things like that that have a very standard cadence and flow regardless of content that you can actually use and prompt well quickly and build out those tools that you'll be able to use over and over again and get faster as you continue to experiment.

Speaker A: I love this last question. It is the last of the lightning round because it is a multi billion dollar question. Lots at stake and what will learning look like in 2030?

Speaker C: Oh, golly, pass.

Speaker D: Uh, I still think we are going to get people together. There's still cohorts in person, maybe a little less virtual. Unless, you know, unless you work in an organization that's just by nature virtual. Um, and more in person experiences that are just like transfer, like, you know, just people get together for a reason because they're going to have continuous access to personalized coaching practice and guidance all the time.

Speaker B: So get together for the real good reasons.

Speaker A: Love that. All right, we have time for one last question. It's for both of you and I'm going to start with you, Ann. If you could give every learning leader, everyone that's listening to the podcast today, one piece of advice about AI, what would it be?

Speaker C: Mhm. If you're still on the sidelines, you need to jump in. There are a lot that are still on the sidelines.

Speaker A: A lot. Brittany, how about you?

Speaker D: AI is pretty powerful, but it's not magic. It's not going to fix poor strategy, lack of manager support and bad content.

Speaker A: Brittany, I'm going to give you the last word. Um, if there's one thing that you would like all of our listeners to take away from our conversation today, what is it?

Speaker D: Hmm.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker D: Be curious. Experiment responsibly, but just don't lose sight of the human on the other side of the tech.

Speaker A: Brittany, Ann, thank you so much for your time. Thanks for your expertise. Been an absolute joy to have you both on the Blanchard Leader Chat podcast. Thanks so much for your time.

Speaker C: Oh, thank you. This was great.

Speaker A: And thank you for joining us for today's podcast. If you enjoyed the interview, go ahead and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and please share it with your friends. The best way you can help us grow is feedback. So write a review if you haven't already. This podcast is brought to you by Blanchard, the Heart of human achievement. Visit blanchard.com for additional resources to help you and your organization succeed.

Speaker C: Sam.