It started with an email from a long-time client:
“Hey Derek, we’ve had great value from your work. Going forward, can you help us use AI to turn our PowerPoints into learning modules?”
How do you respond to that?
“Sorry, no. Beat it pal!”
That would be a bit rich, considering I use AI every day – not just for content creation, but developing working AI-Human hybrid models in learning environments.
The truth is, this is exactly the moment I’ve been preparing for. Not to compete with AI, but to understand where it’s genuinely strong, where it falls short, and how to combine those strengths with the things only a human can do.
AI is good at generating content and summarising and restructuring information, but it lacks one critical human quality – intent. It doesn’t understand the purpose behind the learning, need to juggle priorities, or take responsibility for the outcomes.
Those are still all human tasks. That’s why, today, AI is still just a tool.
So… was that my replacement at the door?
Of course not. AI is my assistant. It’s not even close to being a co-worker. It’s like an apprentice that works quickly but still needs direction, supervision, and all its work checked for accuracy and quality.
Yes AI’s emergence in L&D is inevitable. Our job is to help organisations use it well, and flex our human strengths.