TODAY’S THOUGHTS ☠️

Hey friend 👋,

Over the past few months, we’ve covered quite a bit of ground on working with AI beyond the basics of tools only.

We talked about the habits that’ll make you think better alongside AI, why you need to know what not to use AI for (Hint: Optimise for joy and expertise), and only last week we got deep in exploring why staying sharp (+Human) in the AI era needs much more than AI fluency and human skills.

We know that to make use of AI successful for yourself and your organisation requires deep investment in the human skills + capabilities layer. Sadly, this is often discarded in the race for “AI supremacy” in the workplace.

A running theme in all our conversations of late is not about if we’re using AI, because everyone is using AI.

Case closed.

What we should focus on is “How we’re choosing to use AI”, and in those choices, if we’re shaping useful advancements or just doing the same old thing but bolted on with AI.

From an L&D perspective, I have quite a bit of data on that to share.

Today, we’re exploring the 3 ways L&D teams get the most value from AI in 2026.

Get your tea or beverage of choice ready 🍵.

We've got lots to discuss!

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IN THIS DROP 📔

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THE BIG THOUGHT 👀

Back in March this year I shared the results of a 4 months + research project where I set out to learn how high performing L&D teams are crafting meaningful value with AI. I spoke to organisations I’ve worked with, brand partners and the 5,000 readers of this newsletter.

The full write-up of all that research lives on the website.

The most relevant part of that research for today’s conversation is what was revealed about L&D teams choices, habits and behaviours in using AI.

I landed on the 3 most popular ways L&D pros engage with AI in 2026. In some cases, teams/pros followed a sort of maturity route with these 3 uses, where one use led to the other and took them to becoming more proficient (+smart) in their use of AI.

So, take nothing here as a “set in stone” framework, rather a view into ‘what’s really going on’ across the industry in 2026.

Let’s take a look at that, shall we?

From an adoption standpoint, this is what I class as the gateway drug to AI for L&D teams.

It's the most common and immediate value driver for most.

It’s about speed, not necessarily quality (see next level). The tantalising prospect of saving time on the most mundane of tasks is so incredibly alluring that even the biggest AI resistors struggle not to turn their head.

I class this as “The Efficiency Engine”.

Here we see the benefits of freeing up time and automating our routine tasks. Once people experience this, they often want to know what else these tools can do.

It’s both a value driver and the entry point for creating behaviour change.

And I should point out that this was not with content creation alone. Many of you mentioned the speed to summarise, analyse and find niche research. But of course, content creation is still heavily referenced.

I’ve always believed that any tool is only useful in the hands of a competent user, and this is no different with AI.

AI helping you to make your best work even better is highly admirable.

I know so many are obsessed with delegating work to sit on some mythical beach somewhere. Those people aren’t going to do much in life. Instead, those who use AI to amplify what they do today will be the winners.

This is why I’ve become rather obsessed with tools like NotebookLM.

I’m not a researcher or analyst by trade, so I don’t know what I don’t know. Tools like NotebookLM and Perplexity help fill some of my own capability gaps with their features. They don’t do my work for me, but they do supplement and amplify what I can do. We’ve covered this exoskeleton-type effect by borrowing skills and capabilities from AI in a previous edition.

What’s clear is that quality counts when working with AI and knowing what niche tools can provide that is going to be your strategic advantage.

This is where I’ve always seen the real value of AI since day 1.

I do bash on teams using AI solely for content creation a lot, yet that’s only because I know how powerful LLMs can be as strategic partners.

Even 3 years removed from the launch of ChatGPT, I still see many LLMs vastly underutilised by L&D teams in this way.

I see strategic partnering as bringing human thought/intelligence together with AI to uncover insights, points of view and develop ideas to do our best work. This comes through clearly from the survey responses.

Many of you referenced looking beyond AI for content creation and enhancing your cognitive processes by unpacking collaborative and critical thinking tasks with AI.

Use cases that surfaced included:

This is just one section of the much larger writeup on this research (see all that).

What is still clear to me, even in 2026, that despite the big levers of AI value across L&D being speed, quality and strategy, most of this is still done in service of what feels like a fast becoming outdated model of courses and static content.

While I don’t expect that to change anytime soon, it does give pause to reflect on how we use AI to match the new choices and behaviours of our audiences.

With so many turning to their local LLM to be their learning coach, spiritual advisor, accountant, best friend etc. The days of what L&D typically produces are numbered. The million dollar question is “What comes next?”

Maybe it’s a different type of course and maybe its no courses.

Right now, I’m not so sure. The technology is moving so fast that its hard to say “this is the way” in any week without having that crash and burn when new features drop the following week.

What I am sure of is that using AI to do more and faster is a losing game.

And if you want a mic drop moment 🎤… I don’t think it will be the L&D industry that leads that change in how workplace learning with technology develops. It will be the AI and traditional tech companies.

There you have it, friend.

As of early 2026, this is where the L&D industry is trending with its current use of AI.

I’ll be repeating this assessment later this year for an early 2027 release. You’ll be able to keep up with and contribute to that research by reading this very newsletter.

In the meantime, hit ‘reply’ and let me know how you’re getting value from AI today.

Is it speed, quality and strategy, or something else? I read everything that comes through and you might even get an early morning tea-infused response as many of you have over the years.

- - -

P.S. Want to become an AI-Native L&D pro?…my next half-day workshop on helping you with this is coming up in June. I bring 10 L&D pros together to connect, learn and get a complete operating system for working with AI in your L&D role.

FYI: This isn't a tool demo or a prompting workshop.

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👀 ICYMI (In case you missed it!)

VIDEO THOUGHTS 💾

Bro, did you even check the security and privacy setting of your AI agent?

...😯

Here's a quick guide for my non-techy L&D folks who want to play safely with the latest tech.

TL;DR: Use some common sense.

Enjoy 😊.

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