Your complete guide to AI-powered app ideas for L&D (and how to build them)

Create, build and deploy smarter AI apps for L&D problems

Author

Ross Stevenson
February 4th, 2025

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Today’s Thoughts ☠️

Hey there 👋,

We’ve got a juicy topic today.

In fact, I’d say this is the biggest playbook I’ve written in some time, and I could probably charge thousands of $$$ for it in this current climate. But, I’m trying to be a good human.

I see never-ending AI-powered tools for L&D, these days.

The thing is 99% of them are all about content. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, as every tool has its time and place, but there’s so much more we can do.

I know it’s not an L&D thing either.

A lot of industries are the same. I have so many people trying to sell me tools to build content, reply to comments on x social tool or turn my content into a million more pieces of content to pollute more social platforms.

What I actually want are solutions that help me work smarter.

While some of that could be content, it’s a small part of what I do. I can only imagine you feel the same. Don’t you want tools that can lighten the load with data analysis, scheduling comms and supporting your key projects?

I’ll assume you’re saying yes right now.

That brings me to now. Today, we’re going to explore 3 non-content creation ideas for AI-enabled apps that support L&D workflows, and…I’m going to show you how to build them too!

Get your tea or beverage of choice ready, 🍵.

We've got lots to discuss!

👀 In today’s chat:

  • Exploring the enormity of the possible with AI apps for L&D

  • A non-techies explainer on AI agents, and why they’re big in 2025

  • The easy to use AI tool builder checklist for beginners

 THE BIG THOUGHT 👀

Your Complete Guide To AI-Powered App Ideas For L&D (And How To Build Them)

No Way Wow GIF by Bounce

I know, exciting!

There’s a lot of noise on social with AI for L&D advice.

I find too much of it to be finite thinking, and not nearly enough on the enormity of the possible.

Too much focus on ‘perfect’ prompts (they don’t exist) and which LLM is the best. You could spend decades debating that one. It’s just like which LMS or LXP. The answer is really simple - whatever one works best for your context.

Something that doesn’t get nearly enough attention is how those in the EdTech and LearnTech space can build useful solutions with AI.

I know, I know…there are tools. But a lot of them are pretty content focused, and we need more than that.

Let’s look at what we can build to enhance our work beyond content, and how we bring these to life. You’ll learn about the ideas, why they’re useful and how you can look to build similar solutions.

This is a playbook for you to get ahead of the curve.

You might want to open this up in your browser to revisit later too 😉.

Idea 1: Onboarding Assistant

Welcoming a new employee is an incredibly important event.

  • Gallup found that a staggering 88% of employees surveyed said their org doesn’t provide a good onboarding experience.

  • In their research, HBR found that one-third of employee attrition occurs within the first 90 days, with poor onboarding being a major factor for these departures. Additionally, they discovered that a further 23% of employees leave before their first anniversary for the same reason.

This is the first meaningful impression new employees get of the company. Sadly, not enough give it the attention it needs but it’s not their fault (in most cases).

Line managers are mostly underprepared, HR teams are snowed under with their daily adult babysitting and L&D is navigating a tsunami of orders across the business.

It’s hard, I know.

Years of designing, delivering and crying over onboarding experiences have given me tons of meaningful data.

Yet, what if we could enhance this process with the help of AI?

The problem we’re solving

Let’s be clear, I’m not talking about delegating the whole experience to AI.

That would be stupid.

I’m specifically looking at areas where we can provide quick in the moment support on low to mid-level tasks.

Stuff like:

  • Learning more about the company

  • Who to contact in xyz team

  • How to complete x process?

  • Where the f*!k are the printers and why can’t I connect to them?

Although these seem small, they’re a significant part of supporting newbies to become capable and confident.

They’re often the things that fall in the cracks because managers, HR and L&D don’t have time to attend to them all. With an intelligent approach with the latest tech, we can make sure these needs are covered.

The added benefit is that if these are covered, this gives managers and HR teams more time to focus on doing the human stuff with new starters.

One of my favourite AI apps to build for clients is an onboarding assistant.

I see a number of clear areas for conversational assistants to support performance and learning. The goal is not to replace human experiences, this is to enhance it.

In this video, I share why you might want to use a refined conversational AI assistant with access to company data to support onboarding and how to build the solution.

Idea 2: AI Agents handling pre-boarding backend tasks

This one is a little bit advanced, but I want to give you that ‘enormity of the possible’ view.

Note: You’ll need a tech team to help you build this type of solution.

After creating the video above, I started thinking about where else intelligent AI adoption could aid the A-Z onboarding process.

Then it hit me.

The problem we’re solving

A common problem I’ve seen in every organisation I’ve worked in is with the HR → Tech team communication for setting up new employees.

Things like, “Oh HR didn’t tell us this” or “IT didn’t send that software request form”. None of these things are helpful for a newbie to hear.

This is where a small team of AI agents (scroll down for an explainer on these) could help mitigate the space for human error to improve the experience for all teams.

This is an evolution of the onboarding AI assistant above.

Both can work together, but these serve different purposes.

By using AI to help with these types of tasks we can provide more time to focus on both employee and manager support.

At a high level (if you can’t be bothered to watch the video) this agent team looks like:

  • A supervisor to ensure all tasks are completed

  • An HR assistant agent to carry out HR tasks and communicate with the Tech support agent

  • A Tech support worker to set up all equipment and software, and confirm everything is ready with HR.

📌 The benefits:

  1. New employees get a better experience with everything set up for their first day.

  2. HR and Tech emails aren’t forgotten or lost in the inbox.

  3. Humans can focus on the important human elements of the onboarding process with basic pre-boarding tasks handled by AI.

This is humans + AI working together.

AI agents are (probably) a big part of the future of how we work. Mass adoption will take time though, especially in the world of HR and L&D.

Idea 3: Real-time Course/Skills Coach

In practising what I preach, I use real-time AI coaches in some of my courses.

My Art of Performance Consulting course, for L&D pros who want to stop being a McDonald’s drive-thru and create meaningful change, has one of my most popular coaches.

You can learn why I built this and how I did it in my full review on the blog.

The problem we’re solving

The cliff notes are I embedded a conversational assistant to help students put what they learned into practice.

I’ve constantly heard in my career how people struggle to put what they learn into action. I think technology can help us here.

It acts as a sort of assistant teacher (if we can call it that). Supporting students when they need it most to enhance their experience.

It also helps as:

  • In the flow practice partner

  • Review feedback from conversations and events

  • Remind students of tools, frameworks and how to use them

  • A private space to try new things

I find it's used across all the course content.

Students are curious to unpack their specific context and examples in real time. I see a lot of potential for AI to support this, and that’s why this assistant exists.

The feedback from students has been great too, with high levels of daily active users even after course completion. My goal has never been to create ‘one and done’ experiences, and AI coaches help me keep students at the top of their game.

What are AI agents? (For Non-Techies)

I’m well aware, on idea 2, I dropped some words that might sound like an alien language to you.

So, let me backtrack a bit here.

Right now 99% of people use straightforward AI conversational tools like ChatGPT. That’s great. Some even build basic AI assistants in the form of GPTs - also good.

This is just the beginning.

Lots of big companies are working with teams from Microsoft, Google, OpenAI and more on their next-gen AI agent tech (yes another confusing mouthful).

Assistants vs Agents

Two terms you might hear techies mention with AI products are 'AI assistants' and 'AI agents'.

Here’s the difference in clear, simple terms.

Let's start with what we know - AI assistants like ChatGPT. These are tools that help us with tasks through conversation. They can write, analyse, explain, and give suggestions based on what we ask.

AI agents take this a step further.

Instead of just helping through conversation, agents can actually complete tasks on their own. They follow instructions, use different tools, and make basic decisions to get things done.

The key difference is simple:

  • AI assistants help you with tasks

  • AI agents complete tasks for you

Both are valuable, but they serve different purposes. An assistant works with you through conversation, while an agent works independently based on your instructions.

Use this info to impress the boss at your next meeting.

I’m not going to leave you with just this, though. As I’m a tech nerd, I’ve filmed a quick video to show how agents work with examples from Google and Salesforce - enjoy.

Useful Tools & Resources to build with AI

I’m keeping these super simple with assistant builders only:

  • ChatGPT GPT Builder - you need a minimum paid $20 account to access this feature.

  • Sana AI - friend of the newsletter, Sana, has a beautiful AI platform where you can create AI assistants on their free plan. It comes packed with free templates, and a whole host of useful features.

  • Gemini Gems Builder - if you’re a paid Google Gemini user, you get Gems instead of GPTs. Same thing, different name.

  • Chipp - the platform which runs a few of my assistants. You can use it to create free assistants or upgrade to a paid plan if you need data protection for work.

Plus, for ChatGPT users, I have a zero-cost “How to build a GPT assistant in 1 hour” course. Oh, and before you build any AI-powered product, get clear on why and what problem you’re solving.

📝 Final thoughts

Congrats, you made it!

As I said, every tool has its time and place. AI offers a lot of space to do some very useful stuff. You just gotta see beyond the current applications.

If you’ve found this helpful, please consider sharing it wherever you hang out online, tag me in and share what you create with me too.

👀 ICYMI (In case you missed it!)

Till next time, you stay classy, learning friend!

PS… If you’re enjoying the newsletter, will you take 4 seconds to forward this edition to a friend? It goes a long way in helping me grow the newsletter (and cut through our industry BS with actionable insights).

And one more thing, I’d love your input on how to make the newsletter even more useful for you!

So please leave a comment with:

  1. Ideas you’d like covered in future editions

  2. Your biggest takeaway from this edition

I read & reply to every single one of them!

 TECH THOUGHTS 💾

How To Build Powerful Case Studies With AI

Another example of a non-content creation use case for AI.

I showcase how to do this with Perplexity in the video, but you can use any research focused tool like NotebookLM or your preferred AI tools features.

This is one I use often in my business and for training workshops.

P.S. Wanna build your L&D advantage?

Here’s a few ways I can help:

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