Seems like a impossible contradiction, but believe it or not, AI is shaping social learning. Step into the uncanny valley with us for a moment to learn how.
AI: Your New Engagement Partner
Social learning thrives on human engagement. When people are chatting, sharing ideas, and working together, magic happens. But let’s be real—keeping that energy alive in a learning community can be tough. That’s where AI steps in. Imagine an AI that sends out daily prompts, fun quizzes, or thought-provoking case studies to keep the conversation flowing. According to Myra Roldan, AI technologist, this is a current reality, made possible by generative AI. It's like having a supercharged partner who’s always there to spark discussions and keep everyone involved.
Additionally, many tools are using AI to generate engagement analytics, including participation metrics and sentiment analysis that can be used to better understand your audience and their needs.
If You're Interested in an Engagement Partner, Check Out These Tools:
Read.AI's speaker coacher can help you identify moments when participants react negatively or disengage with content (and make you a better facilitator of collaborative learning experiences).
GenAI tools, like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude, can help you generate bite-sized content for your community.
Descript and Streamyard both have features that enable you to quickly locate engagement-worthy snippets of larger videos and streams.
LXP Sana's AI learning analysst can help you create dashboard and answer performance questions to better understand your audience and their needs.
Disco's AI co-pilot can help you write quick responses to users' questions, craft posts and other tailored content, create video transcripts and summaries, and generate lesson content.
Circle's AI co-pilot helps you build relevant content for your community and track user engagement with engagement scores (Note that we are a Circle affiliate because we think their product is pretty awesome!).
Making Learning Personal (Because One Size Never Fits All)
One of the coolest things about AI is its ability to make learning feel personal. We’re all on our own unique learning journeys, right? AI can help by tailoring content to fit exactly what each person needs. Whether it’s recommending a mentor, suggesting resources, or curating learning paths based on what you’ve been up to, AI makes sure you’re getting the right support at the right time. It’s like having a personal learning coach, always ready to guide you. Pair this with an actual human support system, and you'll see accelerated growth.
If You're Interested in Personalized Learning, Check Out These Tools:
Mentoring matching tools, such as MentorLoop and Chronus, are using AI to power automated matching, helping people find the people who can help them grow.
Popular learning libaries use AI-powered algorithms to push you to the courses that will interest you and to link you people who share similar interests. Check out libraries and LinkedIn Learning and Coursera for examples. AI-powered LXPs, like Docebo, Fuse Universal, and 360 Learning, are also doing this.
Reejig's AI-powered nudge engine predicts career milestones and helps you decide when and what to nudge for growth.
Noom is an awesome app to check out for inspiration. While we aren't advocating for unnecessary weight loss, Noom does a great job of blending AI-enabled analytics with personalized learning and high-touch mentoring to support their users in achieving their desired goals.
Bridging the Participation Gap
Let’s face it—sometimes it’s hard to get everyone equally excited about participating in social learning. Some folks dive right in, while others might hang back. AI can help bridge that gap by gently nudging those quieter participants, encouraging them to join in the fun. Plus, AI can connect people who might not naturally interact, making the learning space more inclusive and dynamic. It’s all about bringing people together, no matter where they’re starting from.
If You're Interested in a Participation Booster, Check Out These Tools:
Read.AI's speaker coacher can help you identify moments when participants react negatively or disengage with content (and make you a better facilitator of collaborative learning experiences).
Disco's AI co-pilot can help you write quick responses to users' questions, craft posts and other tailored content, create video transcripts and summaries, and generate lesson content.
MobileCoach's chatbot can be used to send personalized, automated nudges.
AI in Onboarding: A Friendly Welcome to the Team
Starting a new job can feel a bit like drinking from a fire hose—there’s just so much to take in! But AI can make onboarding a smoother, more welcoming experience. Picture this: AI automatically assigns training modules, sets up meetings with mentors, and guides new hires through everything they need to know (SLL S3 Ep 24-Myra). It’s like having a friendly, always-available training coordinator, who makes sure no one feels lost on their first day (or their first month!).
If You're Interested in an Onboarding Assistant, Check Out These Tools:
Leena.AI offers an AI-powered onboarding assistant to help you plan and automate preboarding and onboarding then guides the new hire through the process.
MobileCoach specializes in creating AI-powered chatbots for coaching. And yes, they're coming up a long because they're one of the niche providers in the AI-enabled L&D space.
Communication Coach
While it's important not to confuse generative AI chatbots with humans, generative AI can help people develop the skills we need to eventually communicate more effectively with real humans in real communities.
For those of us who can't get actually social-- maybe we can't find people to chat with who have the insights and experience we need-- generative AI can stand in as a knowledgeable peer or mentor, guiding users through deeper thinking, surfacing critical conversations, and orienting people to the language of new fields of interest. It can mimic the kinds of dialogue that help people understand how to be a member of a community and how to communicate most effectively with community members.
Keeping It Real: The Importance of Human Oversight
Now, while AI is super helpful, it’s important to remember that it’s not perfect. We still need real, live humans to keep an eye on things, ensuring that AI-driven content is accurate, fair, and aligned with what we value as a company. That’s why having clear guidelines and a bit of human oversight is key. After all, AI should be a tool that enhances our work, not replaces the human touch that makes learning meaningful.
Why We're Ok with AI in Social Learning
The truth is: the genie is out of the bottle, and it's not going back in. Teams that leverage AI to augment their human capabilities are going to be the ones that thrive in tomorrow's market.
And in the world of social learning (our favorite), AI can help us amplify the hard-to-keep-up-with tasks that support the creation and maintance of truly meaningful social learning environment. By making learning more engaging, personalized, and accessible, AI is helping us create richer, more connected learning experiences.
But as with any new tool, it’s all about using it thoughtfully. With a bit of care and attention, AI can help us bring people together in ways that are truly transformative.
Will you use AI to bring people together?
Is your team AI ready?
Schedule a discovery session to see how we can bring your team up to speed.
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