The Mindtools L&D Podcast

Articulate’s Articuland announcement puts AI at the center of learning design, with Frontline, Nova, and new integrations reshaping who creates training. The discussion explores the shift from training creator to capability architect, why users feel displaced, and whether AI-generated learning can handle nuance and accuracy. It also examines L&D’s role in filtering content overload and the uniquely human strengths that drive trust, accountability, and behavior change.

What research papers did you read while lounging by the pool this summer? In this week's episode of The Mindtools L&D Podcast, Ross D is joined by Claire and Dr Anna to review three studies that have caught our attention over the last few months. Anna's pick was Vestner and colleagues' 'A dyadic training to promote technology-related learning and development among age-diverse employees: the power of co-workers' enthusiasm', published in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology. Claire brought Kestin and colleagues' 'AI tutoring outperforms in-class active learning: an RCT introducing a novel research-based design in an authentic educational setting', the Harvard study comparing an AI tutor with in-person active learning. Ross referenced Will Thalheimer's LinkedIn article 'The Learning Styles Challenge After 20 Years', and Clinton-Lisell and Litzinger's 'Is It Really a Neuromyth? A Meta-Analysis of the Learning Styles Matching Hypothesis'. For more from Mindtools Kineo, visit our website mindtools-kineo.com. There, you'll find out how we can help your organization build AI skills, and how our Skills Practice scenarios help build human skills. Connect with our speakers If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn: Ross Dickie Claire Gibson Anna Barnett

Training one person is hard. Training 750,000 people, in more than 80 countries, spread across frontline shifts, event security and executive teams, is a different problem entirely. In this week's episode of The Mindtools L&D Podcast, Ross G and Claire Gibson are joined by Brent O'Bryan, Senior Vice President of Global Training and Talent Development at Allied Universal, to explore what L&D looks like at genuinely massive scale. We discuss: Why 750,000 employees are never one audience How to choose between the LMS, the classroom and virtual training The role of AI and automation in training frontline workers at scale. Brent and Ross G first got talking about this after Brent shared The Josh Bersin Company's research on dynamic enablement. You can read the executive summary of The Definitive Guide to Corporate Learning: From Static Training to Dynamic Enablement on the Josh Bersin site. In 'What I Learned this Week', Claire shared the world's smallest Fringe venue, a chicken coop in the Pear Tree garden in Edinburgh. Brent recommended The Surprising Power of Reflection, an episode of Trevor Ragan's The Learner Lab podcast, on why reflecting after learning can beat a second round of practice. Ross G shared Garner interference, a cognitive science effect named after Wendell Garner, in which irrelevant information slows people down. For more from Mindtools Kineo, visit our new website mindtools-kineo.com. There, you'll find out how we can help your organization build AI skills, and how our Skills Practice scenarios help build human skills. Connect with our spearkers If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn: Ross Garner Claire Gibson Brent O'Bryan

Georgie Rudd, executive coach and founder of Rudd Coaching, specialises in leadership coaching and running listening labs. She explores why we often fail to listen, how listening can be trained and practiced, and practical experiments for improving listening in meetings and teams. Short pauses, curiosity and deliberate practice get special attention.

Research from 12 organisations reveals how AI is actually being used across industries. Teams feel unmoored amid budget cuts and conflicting expectations. Governance and compliance often stall AI ambitions. Demand holds up for compliance and leadership learning. Vendors still matter to turn AI tools into performance-focused learning.

Outside of L&D, most people and organizations see compliance training as a box that needs to be ticked, not something that can drive behavior change. Will AI make this problem better or worse? In this week's episode, Ross D and Cammy are joined by learning designer Anisha Sridhar to explore what AI is really doing to compliance training. We discussed: why the productivity argument for AI is incomplete contextualization, and why it beats personalization in compliance how to keep slop out of your learning content. During the episode, Anisha described using the Gunning Fog index to test whether legal text is actually readable. And Cammy brought up Bret Stephens' New York Times opinion piece, I'm Begging You: Never Write With A.I., which argues that giving up the writing means giving up the thinking. For more from Mindtools Kineo, visit our website mindtools-kineo.com. There, you'll find out how we can help your organization build AI skills, and how our Skills Practice scenarios help build human skills. Connect with our speakers If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn: Ross Dickie Cammy Bean Anisha Sridhar

Online learning keeps sliding back to text and images. Authoring tools and AI course generators make content cheap, but it often looks like learning without ever asking the learner to think or choose. Games work the other way, running on decisions, feedback, and the chance to try again. Following our recent conversation with Julie Dirksen, we ask where games belong in the age of AI. In this week's episode, Ross G is joined by Richard Durham, Co-founder and Lead Game Designer at Tentacular Games and Great Grand High Lord of Everything at Wonder Tree Studios, and by Mindtools Kineo's own Claire Gibson, to dig into why games work for learning and whether they still earn their place. We discussed: What makes games actually work for learning Why in-person, analog game-based learning never went away Whether modern authoring tools have flattened games into quizzes During the conversation, Richard pointed to the beer game, MIT Sloan's classic supply-chain simulation that demonstrates the bullwhip effect through decisions and their consequences. He also referenced ABC Learning Design, the rapid workshop method from University College London for mapping out the activities that make up a course. In 'What I Learned this Week', Claire shared The Sumerian Game, a 1964 resource-management game created by Mabel Addis, who is credited as the first video game designer. Ross shared a piece by Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, on a study of AI-generated books on Amazon and how their slow creep is starting to erode sales of human-written books. For more from Mindtools Kineo, visit our new website mindtools-kineo.com. There, you'll find out how we can help your organization build AI skills, and how our Skills Practice scenarios help build human skills. Connect with our speakers If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn: Ross Garner Claire Gibson Richard Durham

Emily Valencia, Senior Learning Experience Designer at Intuit who builds AI-enabled upskilling and safe experimentation cultures. She talks about common AI rollout mistakes, why clear use cases and ownership matter, and how to embed AI into workflows with peer visibility. The conversation also covers protecting people’s value as automation shifts execution to AI and the need to reinvest in creative, human skills.

There are at least four factors that influence the success of AI adoption in your organization: training your people, clarity of compliance guidance, how people are rewarded, and the influence of managers. In this week's episode of The Mindtools L&D Podcast, we're exploring the last of these. In his book, Leading with AI - How to build high performance teams with AI as your sparring partner, Joris Merks-Benjaminsen presents an action-focused framework for helping managers adopt AI. In our discussion, we focus on: whether AI can replace managers how to help managers get started with AI why embracing AI is a mindset shift, beyond just 'writing good prompts' During the discussion, we referenced Google's Project Oxygen. This was led by Laszlo Bock, who wrote Work Rules! about his experiences. The woman who "married" her ChatGPT companion was covered by Forbes. To pick up a copy of Joris' book, visit managingwithoutpower.com. In 'What I Learned this Week', Ross G discussed AI's preference for negative parallellisms. For more from Mindtools Kineo, visit our new website mindtools-kineo.com. There, you'll find out how our AI Skills Academy supports practical, hands-on AI upskilling for the enterprise: four weeks, role-specific use cases, governance built in from week one. Connect with our speakers If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn: Ross Garner Ross Dickie Joris Merks-Benjaminsen

As AI transforms the way work gets done, many organizations are trying to understand the skills they need today, as well as the expertise they'll need tomorrow. In this week's episode, Cammy and Gemma are joined by skills expert Koreen Pagano to unpack the rise of skills-based organizations. We discussed: What becoming 'skills-based' in an organization might look like The benefits and challenges of shifting towards a skill-based approach The impact of AI on this shift, skills development and managers. You can pre-order Koreen's forthcoming book, Rewiring Your Organization for AI, and buy her published books Building the Skills-Based Organization and Immersive Learning: Designing for Authentic Practice. In 'What I Learned this Week', Cammy shared a non-fiction book recommendation for Shakespeare was a Woman and Other Heresies. Koreen described the lives of a family of eagles which she's been following on the Big Bear Bald Eagle cam. For more from Mindtools Kineo, visit our new website mindtools-kineo.com. There, you'll find out how we can help your organization build AI skills, and how our Skills Practice scenarios help build human skills. Connect with our speakers If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn: Gemma Towersey Cammy Bean Koreen Pagano