Talent development professionals need to know how to choose the right tools for their organizations’ learning goals — or they may be left out of the conversation, according to an Association for Talent Development report released Oct. 2.
The technological decisions may be especially important now, as many organizations surveyed said that while they haven’t implemented artificial intelligence enabled learning technology yet, they plan to do so for learning content development.
Of the 362 talent development professionals surveyed, around 60% said they are skilled at assessing what their organizations need regarding learning tech. However, nearly half said they find it difficult to do so.
The ability to determine and select which learning technologies a company should use was not always part of the learning professional’s skill set, Johann Laville, chief learning officer at Merck, said in the report.
“However, the goal of learning technology is really to serve the best interest of the organization and its people,” Laville continued. “If we have not evolved as TD professionals in the selection of technology, and if we don’t develop the adjacent IT skills to help make those decisions, someone else will make those decisions for us.”
The most commonly used technologies include learning management systems, e-learning authoring tools and assessment tools, according to the report.
Notably, learning leaders surveyed by LearnUpon earlier this year said they feared AI could replace their roles, but many also expressed confidence in their role at work and said L&D had received a budget boost in 2025. As such, technology assessment skills may only increase in importance for L&D leaders.