What to look for in an AI-powered LMS to improve learning

• 7 min read

AI-powered LMS

Artificial Intelligence. It’s the new corporate buzzword, and it’s buzzing for a reason.

AI is already impacting our everyday lives. And when we think about AI, we can’t help but think of the suggestion engines behind the recommendations you see on Amazon, Spotify, or Netflix.

Artificial intelligence is the backbone of these suggestion engines. In the context of e-learning and your learning management system (LMS), it would be easy to pigeonhole a learning platform’s machine learning functionalities as just being relevant to suggestion algorithms.

Fortunately, AI-based LMS platforms offer much more to improve your corporate training programs.

If you’ve wondered just how AI does that and what to look for in an AI-powered LMS, you’re in the right place. That’s precisely what this guide is about – so let’s get started!

What is an AI-powered LMS?

An AI-powered LMS is a learning management system that incorporates artificial intelligence (aka machine learning) features, enabling the automation and organization of your online learning environment.

These features include automating content management, tracking learner progress, and managing grades. This can result in significant time and cost savings.

Another vital aspect of AI-powered LMSs is that they facilitate more personalized learning. Similarly to a recommendation algorithm on platforms like Spotify, AI can recommend learning courses to learners based on their previous activity.

It goes beyond just recommendations, too. Artificial intelligence can be used to create customized learning pathways that automatically adjust the learning experience to a learner’s needs and preferences.

How is AI used in e-Learning?

It’s an exciting time in the relatively new world of Artificial Intelligence, with new applications emerging constantly.

In e-learning, AI has already transformed how companies and learning experience designers approach creating courses and training programs.

Here, we’ll look at some of the most exciting and valuable ways AI integrates into an LMS to make learning and development more efficient, engaging, and effective.

Use #1: Learning path personalization

Online learning has revolutionized education, but like traditional learning, it does have one major flaw. The learning path for all learners is the same.

This leads to a predictable outcome. At some point in the course, the material becomes too hard for some learners but too easy for others.

With AI, it’s possible to personalize learning paths based on various inputs that the algorithm can use for decision-making. So, if a learner seems to be struggling, the system can serve them remedial material within the course to help them understand the learning content better.

Conversely, an overachiever gets more challenging and in-depth material. The result is that both learners end up mastering the concept at their own pace.

Personalization can go even further than this – it allows multimodal learning tailored to the individual. Some people learn best when they watch videos, while others prefer to read.

For example, Docebo’s Personalized Suggestions feature recommends relevant courses to learners and offers admins enrollment suggestions.

Use #2: Advanced analytics

Assessment is an integral part of every online education program. However, traditional assessment has some common limitations: it’s time-consuming and lacks detail.

Artificial intelligence to the rescue!

One area where AI will always have humans beat is its ability to process and analyze vast amounts of data quickly. Not only that, but it can identify patterns and trends to optimize the learning modules.

This way, you’ll get all the information you need about student performance: the strengths and the problem areas.

Robust AI-powered analytics features allow for better LMS metrics that help you understand how the learners and the courses perform.

Use #3: Improved accessibility

The main idea behind accessibility is that as many people as possible should be able to use something, whether it’s an iPhone or your online course. The more people who can use it, the better.

Accessibility isn’t just vital from a diversity and inclusion standpoint; it also drives performance. The more your employees can complete your corporate training programs, the more productive they can be.

AI can play a significant role in this. For instance, it can automatically translate content between different languages or add captions to videos to help those who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Use #4: Faster course development

Developing courses is one of the most time-consuming and challenging tasks for instructional designers and subject matter experts.

While AI can’t yet automate the entire course development process, there are AI LMS features that can significantly speed it up.

For instance, localizing and translating your e-learning content is typically a laborious process that involves hiring translators. Not so with AI.

AI is getting pretty good at translating things. So, there’s no reason not to leverage this if you’re a company that needs to create training materials for multiple locales.

Translation isn’t the only way AI can make course development faster. For example, Docebo has an AI-powered “Skill Tagging” function. When you upload content, the AI will recognize which skill from your Skill Catalog applies to it. This feature makes categorizing skills, searching for content, and identifying skill gaps easier.

Use #5: Real-time assistance

Online learning is flexible and engaging, but what happens when learners have burning questions about the material?

Relying on real tutors to do this is both time-consuming and ineffective. Plus, with the rise of mobile learning and remote teams, your learners could be accessing the content at 3 a.m. on a Sunday.

Luckily, AI-powered chatbots don’t need sleep. Instead, they act like real-time virtual tutors that can answer learner questions immediately.

Docebo’s Virtual Coach guides and steers learners through the different learning activities. That way, it provides a unique experience tailored to each learner.

Now, learners don’t have to ask the instructor (or Google) every time they have a query.

3 Key capabilities to look for in an AI-powered LMS

Artificial intelligence is already changing how companies approach their learning processes and is poised to change things even more. Nevertheless, “AI-based” and “AI-powered” are also marketing terms.

So, it’s a good idea for you to know how to separate wishful thinking and lofty promises from what an LMS e-learning platform can do for you in the here and now.

These are the essential capabilities to look for in an LMS platform that’ll deliver on the promise of AI-based online learning. Think about these features when you’re considering your LMS implementation plan.

Capability #1: Admin task automation

In a nutshell, AI is a computer program that can perform tasks that usually require human intelligence. These are tasks such as recognizing speech, language translation, data analysis, and decision-making.

Consider all the mundane daily tasks you perform while implementing employee training. Now, imagine having a learning platform that takes those tasks off your plate.

From automatically tagging learning content to translating course content into multiple languages to suggesting courses relevant to each user, AI works in the background to do the heavy lifting so you can concentrate on more meaningful work.

Capability #2: Content curation & aggregation

To make informed suggestions to learners, AI has to be able to assess and curate each piece of content on the platform.

AI automatically sifts through content that does not apply to a learner’s journey and puts only the most relevant and engaging content in front of them.

It learns which formats each learner prefers (from webinars to games) and curates the style of the course to align with what worked best in the past.

Content curation offers some great benefits to your L&D programs:

    • Increases the overall value of your curriculum: a well-curated content library is a real asset because learners can always get additional materials relevant to their learning experience.
    • Makes learning more engaging: shaking things up with automatically recommended videos, podcasts, ebooks, and blogs will make things more enjoyable than relying solely on course content.
    • Fosters a learning culture: curation ties into social learning and microlearning because it lets users easily find and access materials on subjects that interest them and then share them with others.

Your learners will need a way to search for all your great content, another area where AI shines. Docebo’s Deep Search functionality analyzes content (such as the spoken content of a video) to serve up better and more relevant search results.

Capability #3: Personalization of learning

The demand for personalized learning is stronger than ever.

Employees want to learn on their terms and have great expectations for flexibility – they want interactive learning material that’s engaging and relevant.

AI technology ensures personalized experiences for learners by analyzing their behavior, what courses they’ve interacted with most, and their preferred learning format.

This information helps you understand what’s most relevant to a learner and then present courses tailored to their needs. As a result, learners enjoy a more effective learning pathway.

AI makes your learning platform responsive to individual needs by adapting intelligently to their requests, increasing engagement.

For instance, the cosmetics retailer Kiehl’s collaborated with Docebo to create a customized platform that used AI-based course recommendations to provide learners with personalized learning experiences.

How AI changes the L&D admin and learner experience for the better

Technology has infiltrated every aspect of our personal and professional lives. Including our learning environments.

As a result, Learners and L&D admins expect optimized, user-friendly e-learning content and experiences.

With AI, admins have new opportunities to develop more immersive and personalized learning experiences while automating menial tasks.

That way, instructional designers, trainers, and admins can focus on learner needs while saving time on repetitive, time-consuming activities.

But it’s not just the admins’ time that AI saves. Learners benefit from not having to complete training courses irrelevant to them and their roles. That’s thanks to  AI-powered personalized learning paths.

Want to experience a learning platform that’s already harnessing the power of AI? Then, it’s time to see Docebo in action. Talk to an expert today!