Learning Technologies 2025: time to talk enablement

Enablement. It’s an ugly word but one that L&D might start using more as AI tools become integrated into organisations. Why? Because these tools can help people do their work more effectively. This is not about knowledge and learning – it is about doing the work. In learning parlance you might call it performance support, just in time learning etc.

Sales teams have been doing sales enablement for years, so this is not new. What is new is that technology can now support enablement at scale and across functions and roles.

We now have the tools to fix work processes, plug knowledge gaps at the moment of need, and deliver continuous support as people work.

In his conference session, industry analyst Josh Bersin described this as a shift from the “education business” to the “enablement business”​. He gave an example of how AI tools are helping organisations support employees with sales calls.

“We’re working with a customer right now, a travel agency that has a call centre, and they are recording the calls of employees in the call centre in real time, analysing the recordings, using AI against the conversations they’re having with customers to determine where there are problems or glitches, identifying the learning gaps and sending that information to an AI based learning platform and sending nudges and recommendations to the employee to do their job better.”

Bersin challenged the audience on this example, “What’s your job in that? What is your role in all that? Not clear, right?”, he said.

The language of skills

The conference session on talent and skills raised the issue of the language of skills. Anandi Shankar, global head of learning at Unilever, shared what hadn’t worked in Unilever’s attempt to become a skills-based organisation. One element was language.

Over many years Unilever has built a complex skills taxonomy. It started with two skills categories in 2016 (leadership and functional skills) and ended up with seven categories in 2021 (leadership, functional, business, domain, priority, focus, future fit).

Shankar said this created complexity around how skills were talked about across the organisation. She showed a video where she asked an employee to describe what a skill was. The employee found it hard to provide a definition. The point is that at a most basic level, employees might not know what the organisation means by a skill or what specific skills mean. Shankar told delegates to keep the language around skills simple and share it across the organisation.

AI urgency

AI was talked about. A lot. Some of the talk was about the AI that has been around for 20+ years and some of it newer genAI – there is a difference and it was great to kick this around with Andy Wooler, SVP product management at Area9 Lyceum.

In the exhibition, AI in all its forms was being pushed hard. In the conference hall however, the tone felt both slightly ominous and motivating. Organisations are using genAI tools and leadership teams are expecting results. That means L&D needs to get on board with the technology, if it hasn’t already . . . there are opportunities but L&D needs to find and seize them.

“Learning development is at some sort of crossroads, fork in the road, moment of choice. Big things are happening largely because of technology and we have to decide our role,” Donald H Taylor, conference chair

“We are on a burning platform, we have to change,” Dani Johnson,  co-founder RedThread Research

“Everything you do is about to change,” Josh Bersin, industry analyst.

Dani Johnson, co-founder RedThread, shared a slide of the many new ways in which technology is impacting on employee development behaviours. The technology is starting to touch areas of development that L&D has traditionally found difficult to access.

The reality is that the content side of L&D, which much of the supply side of the industry and many internal teams are focused on, is being disintermediated by technology and this is happening at pace.

The key for L&D teams now is to be able to adapt.

As Bersin said, “The CEO of your company has already told investors that AI is going to transform the company. This is going to come sweeping across your company, and you’re either going to be part of it or you’re going to be left out. This affects the whole operating model for L&D.”

Sense-making and action: asking the right questions

So, what can L&D professionals do with so much change and uncertainty?

Organisational learning expert Dr Nigel Paine reminded delegates to focus on the problem you are trying to solve. Too often, we jump to solutions without understanding the real blockers to performance, he said.

He shared some questions that every learning team should be asking, not just of themselves, but of their organisations:

• What problem are you trying to solve? What stops you?
• How easy is asking for help or working together to solve problems?
• What is your AI vision for your workplace?
• What will L&D look like in 5 years?

These are not “learning” questions. They’re work questions. And that’s exactly why they matter. Paine argued that unless L&D escapes its own silo, its value will continue to diminish. “We need to get out of the learning “box” and engage with the wider challenges facing organisations,” he said.

Paine’s message is clear: continuous learning and adaptation are key for learning teams to continue to thrive.

The need to adapt was born out by RedThread Research showing that learning’s influence was less in 2024 than in 2022 in terms of business strategy decisions and future workforce discussions. Without influence it is hard to have impact. It might be that focusing on enablement will help L&D show the organisation how AI can be deployed and also drive impact.

Postscript

While the conference took place, Gallup released its annual employee engagement report, the State of the Global Workplace 2025.

It shows the global percentage of engaged employees fell from 23% to 21%. Engagement has only fallen twice in the past 12 years, in 2020 and 2024.

These are sobering statistics that are a reminder of the broader human challenges organisations currently face.