Artificial intelligence is poised to revolutionise the world of work. Learning and performance, HR, IT… every department is set for a machine-led overhaul. As the pace of change continues to speed up, adapt to survive becomes technological imperative as well as a biological one.
No business will stay competitive without utilising machine learning and all the insights it can generate from the data we’re accumulating.
In a world where things change so quickly but humans don’t, learning chatbots could be at the forefront of these transformations. But not in the way you might think.
AI’s evolving capabilities will see it shift away from fulfilling esoteric use-cases and behind-the-scenes content curation towards something more recognisably adaptable, creative and human.
The technology is finally catching up. AI is now reaching a high-water mark, one where chatbot interactions can be meaningful enough to hold real Turing-standard conversations, instead of illusory interactions delivering pre-programmed responses.
We know that consumer trends such as mobile access, curation, and personalisation all trickle down to the business world, and this one will be no different, with chat becoming a more important way for organisations to communicate both externally and – importantly for learning and performance – internally.
Chatbots are all over the place, soon to be everywhere. The pressing question is: how can we use them in business, and particularly in learning, to facilitate change?
Businesses are using chatbots to keep up with their consumers. Learning and performance need to use them to keep up with their learners – and with the business.
We’ve already seen the huge potential in customer-facing support roles. Would you rather go through one of those agonisingly slow monotone “Press 1 for all queries related to the exact opposite of yours” or get a direct answer to your question? The same applies to internal learning and performance support.
Don’t make your users trawl through endless piles of “resources” to no avail, then end up turning to a busy colleague or a search engine. We need to get rid of Google and provide our own point-of-need responsive support to learners so that they can access standardised organisational knowledge on the job.
Whether that’s through performance support tools or chatbots, the key is to reach the learner at the point of need. That means workflow integration, presence in internal social channels, and constant availability. That doesn’t mean endless suggestions of microlearning content that will never get read, or sitting users down at the end of the day to plough through a two-hour course.
Workflow integration, presence in internal social channels, and constant availability. Ring any chatbot-shaped bells?