That ChatGPT has taken the world by storm is an understatement.  Today it is ChatGPT, tomorrow it may be some other tool – nothing is certain. What is certain though is that technology is driving what  L&D leaders focus on today – like never before, and even more next year.

Here’s how L&D leaders can align and leverage technology to achieve business outcomes.

1. Centralized L&D strategy: For maximum benefit from technology, ALL LEARNING within the organization must be aligned with the centralized (corporate) L&D strategy – processes, vendors, tools and technology platforms. This will help leverage synergies and more importantly enable a uniform employee experience across the organization. Not having a centralized L&D strategy means learning will mean different things to different people and may be disjointed. The benefits from technology will not be optimum with multiple technologies achieving the same result. Result – building a culture of lifelong learning will remain a pipedream.
2. LxP for lifelong learning/ skilling: As technology disrupts business, new roles emerge necessitating reskilling and upskilling in organizations.  According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report, 50% of all employees will need reskilling by 2025 as the adoption of technology increases. Learning Management Systems (LMS) which has been serving us well will not serve this purpose– organizations need to implement Learning eXperience Platform (LxP) to enhance the employee experience. LxPs will integrate with the existing landscape and their AI and analytics capabilities help offer a personalized experience to employees.
3. Response to advances like ChatGPT: L&D leaders should look within, periodically, to see how these new advances in technology like ChatGPT influence their choices of tools, methodologies etc. L&D should partner with the technology organization and form small cross-functional innovation teams exploring the Art of the possible. For eg: Explore how AI bots can be used to improve user adoption; ChatGPT or variants could be leveraged for the “first pass” for many activities.
4. Embracing Immersive Learning: Today, Virtual Reality (VR) is making leaps and there are many learning use cases where VR is best suited – Safety training, hazardous equipment training, power skills training to name a few. L&D leaders should collaborate with business to identify relevant use cases and introduce Immersive Learning in their organizations. Organizations having a large proportion of deskless workers will have stronger reasons to adopt VR.
5. Tech to support learning in the flow of work: Learning has moved from just-in-case to in-the-moment. Digital Adoption Platforms (DAPs) enable learning in the moment of need for software applications, while for deskless workers Augmented Reality (AR) could provide in-the-moment training.

While these are some, there could be many other ways to leverage technology for learning. Last but not the least, L&D leaders should drive a digital literacy program in the organization as preparedness for harnessing future technology onslaughts.