Podcast 96: Personal Learning Agents Enter the Workplace Job at Talentedlearning

Graham Glass, CEO and Founder, CYPHER Learning

Early this year, I predicted we would see huge strides beyond AI-driven content authoring, with artificial intelligence becoming more deeply embedded in all aspects of enterprise learning. Now, the next big breakthrough has arrived – this time in the form of personal learning agents.

What should you expect from this new capability? That’s what we’re discussing today with Graham Glass , Founder and CEO of CYPHER Learning .

Graham and his team are pioneers in learning solutions fueled by AI, with their sights always set on the next thing. Years ago on this podcast, he suggested the LMS of the future might behave like an intelligent companion that proactively guides people through their learning journey. Now, that vision is a reality, with personal learning agents that work hand-in-hand with LMS platforms .

What does this mean for you and your organization’s learning endeavors? Find out on this episode of the Talented Learning Show …

PERSONAL LEARNING AGENTS – KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Historically, workplace learning has been a highly structured, reactive process. In contrast, AI-driven personal learning agents proactively support learning in the moment of need .
• The rise of agents doesn’t mean LMS platforms and courses are going away. Instead, they’ll evolve, as agents play a more integral role in training and development. By proactively providing access to highly relevant, accurate content in a coherent way, agent-oriented platforms can dramatically improve learning outcomes.
• With learning agents in play, analytics will naturally shift as well. Skill analysis and development become much more measurable and actionable, whether they’re applied to individuals, teams or organizational performance.

PERSONAL LEARNING AGENTS – Q&A HIGHLIGHTS

Welcome back, Graham. We last spoke here two years and 24 episodes ago, when the industry was on the front edge of AI…

Great to be here, John. Yeah. Unbelievable to think it’s been so long since our last chat. Seems like yesterday.

Yes. I recall you were launching your AI-driven authoring tool, which was ahead of its time. What’s been happening since then?

We have been busy implementing our company’s vision.

Tell us about that…

Well, here’s a bit of backstory few people know. In our early days over 10 years ago, I was building the initial prototype for our platform. And in deciding what to build, I imagined a future world of personal learning agents.

In other words, an agent would learn about you as an individual – your career goals, skills gaps, learning preferences and so forth. Then, it would help you achieve your learning objectives.

Of course, I soon realized the agent’s commercial success would depend on a powerful artificial intelligence engine. But that didn’t exist at the time.

So, we built the CYPHER platform as an excellent modern learning platform, but without that personal learning agent engine.

Then, everything changed when ChatGPT-3 came out several years ago. That’s when we realized we could finally actualize our vision.

So, we started with CYPHER Copilot, the course creation system , which was just a baby step. And over the past two years, we’ve improved upon that while also building out our entire learning agent vision.

Now, we’re releasing what we call CYPHER Agent for both content creators and learners, which is very cool. Each month, we’ll be adding capabilities until the end of the year, when you’ll see the personal learning agent in action on our platform.

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Awesome. So, for those who are unfamiliar with the concept, what is a personal learning agent? How is it different from a bot ?

An agent works for you. It’s proactive.

For example, if a personal learning agent knows your interests, your career trajectory, and tasks you’re expected to master, not only does it help with those things, but it also proactively comes to you with suggestions.

The proactive part is the difference?

Yeah. And it is proactive, based on everything it knows about you. (That’s the “personal” part of it.)

Think of it as ChatGPT on steroids. It’s not a text box. It’s a graphical interactive tutorial built just for you, along with full real-time AI cross-check capabilities.

Our vision is for everyone to have a personal learning agent at work.

Nice. And what does a personal learning agent mean for a typical learner?

We target learners in the business domain, which is far more complex than the consumer space. In corporate environments, an agent needs access to much more proprietary data. There are many more guardrails. There’s more privacy. There’s more corporate management oversight.

There’s the idea that a manager will set your goals and will be aware of what your personal learning agent is doing for you.

I say this because there will also be consumer personal agents to help you learn cookery, get better at pickleball, all that kind of stuff. Think of Gemini , OpenAI and so forth. In contrast, we focus on corporate learning agents.

A traditional LMS is built around courses. But you say with learning agents, courses are secondary. How so?

For things like compliance or onboarding , I don’t think courses are going away. They will be here for a long time. But other learning mostly happens in the moment.

I’m a good example. Over the last 10 years, I’ve taken only one course. It was a compliance course about security and personnel management. That’s it. Everything else has been learning in the moment.

Someone may think, “Hey, I need to know more about this.” Or they’ll take five minutes to research a topic they need to discuss at a meeting.

Until now, learning in the moment may have included searching Google, scanning a bunch of videos and documents, piecing together fragments, curating them, and maybe bookmarking them for later.

But with over 100 million people using ChatGPT soon after its launch, my guess is that it has already become the dominant mode of learning for most of us.

Courses, on the other hand, are highly structured. They’re designed so everyone gets essentially the same experience. It may be slightly adapted, but it’s certainly not personalized as we know it today.

And I can understand why, because we didn’t have AI in the past. There was no GenAI curating content specifically for each of us. So, courses were the dominant way people learned at work.

Right.

Today, there may be a 95/5 split between learning through LMS courses and learning in the moment. But I think that will invert. I think 95% will be agentic learning in the moment, while the rest will be through traditional courses.

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Interesting. How can organizations measure this kind of learning in the moment?

The primary role of learning in an organization is to build new skills, maintain existing skills and help people adapt to change. And the world is definitely changing faster.

Personal learning agents can track all of that stuff. In fact, they can track it in a much more detailed way than traditional courses, which are typically not aligned to skills.

How exactly does that work?

We think agentic learning is going to provide a lot more insight into what is actually going on with skills development across organizations.

Need Help Finding a Future-Friendly LMS? Let’s Talk

For independent advice you can trust, schedule a free 30-minute consult below with me, John Leh …

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John Leh is Founder, CEO and Lead Analyst at Talented Learning . He is a fiercely independent consultant, blogger, podcaster, speaker and educator who helps organizations select and implement learning technology strategies, primarily for extended enterprise applications. His advice is based upon 25+ years of learning industry experience, serving as a trusted LMS selection and sales adviser to hundreds of organizations with a total technology spend of $100+ million and growing. John is active on social media and is happy to connect with you on X/Twitter or on LinkedIn .