00:00:03.120 Hello everyone, welcome to today’s webinar on how to create effective courses with AI. I am excited to share some practical insights and show you a few frameworks that can help you build courses with AI smarter, faster and more efficiently. We are going to start now, and I want to show you the agenda for our session today. We’ll begin with a brief introduction, then move into the principles of designing AI-powered courses, dive into some practical frameworks, talk about return on investment and measurement, and finally I’ll leave you with some key takeaways that you can apply immediately.

00:01:01.039 So here is a quick introduction of myself. My name is Alexa, I’m an L&D specialist at EducateMe, and I’ve been in learning and development for over seven years now, which is a bit crazy to think about. Mostly I’ve worked in different EdTech companies and also have experience in IT, and I really enjoy everything that relates to corporate training. I also specialize in onboarding, course development and learning design. Recently, my responsibilities have shifted toward AI-enhanced learning and development. Right now we’re all in this AI world, and we really have to give it a chance to help us instead of ignoring it. That’s one of the reasons we decided to do this webinar. The last thing to mention about myself is that I’ve helped over 300 teams (probably even more) improve the quality of their training and learner experience. I’ve received a lot of positive feedback from the companies and clients I’ve worked with, and I know the challenges and opportunities you face every single day.

00:02:30.959 Now I want to grab your attention and ask you one question: what is the biggest challenge with course creation that you can think of? I’d like you to take a few seconds and really answer this question for yourself. Think about it for a moment. Very often people say it’s time, or content quality, or learner engagement, or maybe something else that comes to your mind. I want you to keep that in mind as we go through the session, because I want to show you why AI can help address many of these challenges.

00:03:23.760 Right now we are moving towards the principles of designing AI-powered courses. When designing courses with AI, I really want people to keep a few principles in mind, because they help make the course more structured. At the same time, a lot of people now feel confused when it comes to AI, so I prepared some principles that can help. The first is defining clear learning goals. This is really important. I want you to answer the question: what do you want learners to achieve? What is the concrete goal? A lot of people say things like “I want to onboard them to the company” or “I want upskilling on project management,” but you need a more specific goal. What exactly should they be able to do? The next principle is balancing AI with human oversight.

00:04:34.240 That’s why I recommend finding the necessary materials that are modern, accurate and relevant — the ones you are really going to use. Well-structured input helps AI generate accurate and useful content. Some materials are optional, but good input helps you, the AI, and your learners to get a solid, high-quality training experience. Going back to materials, I want you to check if they are accurate and relevant, not something random you found and just decided to drop into the course or into your prompt. I really want you to spend some time reviewing your resources and using the ones you believe are the best. As a final thought on this, you want and need to ensure content accuracy and relevance. Learners want high-quality, trustworthy training aligned with your organization’s standards. That’s why it’s so important to keep up with these principles.

00:06:13.919 Now, if you remember, I asked you a question about challenges in creating courses. There’s a piece of research I came across that compares how we create courses and training with AI versus manually. When I mentioned time as a challenge, this really stood out. We spend so much time looking for something, checking it, designing it and trying to make it visually appealing and nicely structured — almost “picture perfect” learning. But let me tell you one thing, and I want you to really hear me out: when you try AI, it can save you so much time. I’m not joking. It really is a game changer. My personal recommendation is to think about why AI brings such huge benefits to course creation. It’s going to save your time, and it’s something that lets you use your time better during and after training. I want you to save your effort by automating content generation. AI allows you to create personalized learning paths for individual learners, and it frees up your team to focus on other things. You can focus more on strategy, interaction and connecting with people — the human side of learning — and spend more time on higher-level design tasks. So I would say AI helps not only with time, but it can actually become your best friend: supporting you, helping you out and being there when you need it. That’s why I wanted to share this kind of research with you. For example, I once created an onboarding training manually, and it took me a few days to build it. After that, it took another two days to review everything, personalize it and restructure it based on new ideas. This is the problem: people try to build training like a puzzle, constantly connecting pieces together. Meanwhile, with AI, I just generated a prompt, gave it to AI, and in maybe less than a couple of minutes the course was ready — the program, the activities, everything. I believe the next day I spent maybe an hour or so reviewing everything, editing and adding extra materials I needed. So when you think about how AI helps now, it’s pretty amazing. I really want people to try it and let it be their co-pilot.

00:09:53.920 Now there will be a quick overview of some tools that I personally like and that many L&D specialists also like. I want you to think about who is already using AI in your course creation. Maybe you’ve chatted with colleagues or other people in L&D. I’m pretty sure there are specific tools you’re thinking about right now. I’d love to know which tools you’ve tried and what you like, but for now I’ll highlight a few popular ones. The first one is Synthesia.

00:10:43.360 I adore this tool. For me, filming videos and editing them can feel overwhelming and takes a lot of time. I tend to interrupt myself, have awkward pauses and so on, so Synthesia is amazing. If you don’t know it, Synthesia generates AI-based training videos quite quickly. You don’t need cameras, editing tools or people to film. For me, it’s definitely a 10 out of 10.

00:11:16.079 The next tool is Coursebox AI. It has become a very popular resource on social media and basically turns raw content into structured online courses automatically. I’ve tried it multiple times and I have to say, it’s a really nice feature. It’s a very effective and fast way to create courses, so I highly recommend it.

00:12:01.040 Now we are moving forward to another tool, Ativ (a VR/AI-type environment). I’ll be honest, I discovered it later than I would’ve liked. It helps you create a VR and AI environment for simulation-based learning. For example, you can use it for sales training, and it feels like you’re doing it for real. It puts you into a virtual office room where you talk with clients, partners, employees and so on. I understand it might not be ideal for everyone, but I still suggest playing around with it and trying it. I believe some companies are exactly looking for this kind of experience.

00:13:02.399 And of course, the last and most important mention I want to make is EducateMe. Hear me out: I truly believe it’s one of the best LMS platforms on the market. Everything is modern and user friendly. Every time we have ideas or requests, we try to implement them. We also have an AI assistant that helps you create courses — you can generate the program, the activities — and there is an AI role-play feature if you want to practice soft skills. Each of these tools can significantly reduce effort and improve engagement when used strategically, so I highly recommend trying them out. I’m pretty sure that at least one of them might be a real game changer. And yes, I really like using the phrase “game changer” because AI truly is one. We can’t deny it. If you’d like to comment and share which AI tools you like, that would be great to see and explore as well.

00:14:39.760 Now we are moving on to one of the most exciting parts: the frameworks I prepared. I want you to think about what I said earlier about blending human expertise with AI. I have two practical frameworks. I’m sure there can be more, but these are the ones that work really well for me and my colleagues. The first one is our famous ATTI and AI enhancement framework. What does it mean? You need to analyze learner gaps, and I know that can be painful when you have to collect and go through a lot of data. With AI, you can give it that job — it can support you by analyzing everything — and then you, with your human side, can improve it and adapt it to your needs. You don’t see all the details on the slide, so I want to add a bit more context. When we use AI, maybe chatbots or tools like ChatGPT, we can provide prompts with our data. For instance, if I have results from an onboarding program, I can create a prompt and say: here’s our onboarding, here’s the data, please analyze it. AI can then give you practical recommendations, look for useful and modern tools and resources you can use, and suggest improvements. It’s really useful. I recommend pausing and thinking: okay, I have a course, I have data — I can turn to an AI platform and ask it to generate the ideal ATTI or structure for me.

00:17:32.080 The second framework is the personalization loop framework. Here, AI assesses learner skills and engagement, and recommends tailored learning paths. It can also drive interactive exercises, which I personally like a lot. AI is now powerful enough to create many interactive elements for your content. In addition, it can provide instant feedback. As I mentioned earlier, with AI role-play in EducateMe, you don’t have to manually give feedback to every learner. AI can do it for you. When learners practice with AI role-play, they receive feedback instantly. They don’t have to wait for someone to listen to their recording, analyze it and check for mistakes. This immediate feedback really helps them improve right away. I think this is an amazing thing to use. You can do it in two ways. The first way is by using AI tools I mentioned earlier, such as AI role-play or VR/AI environment tools. In this setup, you let AI handle a lot of the processing and analysis and provide feedback to the learner, as well as personal recommendations on where to go next. The second way is by using AI chat tools, like our favorite ChatGPT, to create plans and say: here’s the situation, please generate a path or content for this learner. I really want you to practice and see how AI can help within these frameworks, and to see AI not just as a tool, but as part of a smarter course design process. Please try it out — I’ll be very happy if you do.

00:20:30.799 Now we are moving towards impact and results, which is basically our return on investment and how we measure success and course effectiveness. I would say that yes, AI saves time, reduces costs and can increase learner engagement. But you need to work with real data.

00:21:07.679 I did some research, and you can see some of the sources I used, including Forbes and McKinsey & Company. When you look at the numbers and how AI changes them, you can see that right now nine in ten employers expect AI to drive growth. That doesn’t mean AI will replace everyone. It simply means AI will be a useful tool for teams, and they will use it to benefit their organizations. So we’re in a process where AI is just becoming a normal part of life and work. We also want to meet the criteria of current job vacancies. Many roles in L&D and HR that I’ve looked at require AI knowledge and familiarity with modern tools.

00:22:24.960 The next point is about knowledge. We’ve seen knowledge improvement of up to 30%. By this I mean that sometimes courses can feel “dry” — you just go through them without really engaging or wanting more. You don’t feel excited to take another course from the same company or to continue internal training. When AI enhances your content — with more interactive elements and instant feedback — knowledge retention improves.

00:23:09.919 Before we had AI role-play, course completion rates were not as high. Now, because practicing with AI is interesting and fun, learners receive instant feedback and feel more involved. We’ve seen retention go up, and that’s amazing.

00:23:55.679 The next topic is cost. There’s a lot of debate around whether AI really saves costs or not. Whenever we think about AI replacing human beings, we often imagine people being fired and AI doing all the work. We picture fewer people working and companies investing more in AI than in human resources. But it doesn’t really work exactly like that. When a company invests in AI tools and keeps people on the team, something different happens. In many cases, we do save money by using AI tools. For example, professional certifications are getting more expensive. Companies have to decide how much they can spend on certifications and external learning. AI can’t fully replace certifications, but it can sometimes give learners even more day-to-day practice, tailored to their needs. Of course, people still need real-life networking and human expertise, but AI can combine many capabilities in one place. I see many organizations and individuals investing in one strong AI-powered tool instead of many separate platforms and resources. That can reduce costs. You might disagree, and that’s okay — there’s a lot of discussion about this. But many resources and examples I’ve seen show that AI often replaces a group of different tools with one, and in that way you save money.

00:26:46.000 A lot of people also talk about time and how AI can help with time management. We have information suggesting AI can automate around 3.5 out of 5 hours of routine training tasks. I can’t fully agree with that number for every case, because it depends on the use case and type of training. Sometimes it’s more, sometimes less. But as an average, it’s a helpful reference. With AI-powered insights, you can compare different training methods, see what works best and make data-driven decisions in your real context. So we have to acknowledge the data we see, and I would say AI does help in a positive way when we look at the numbers.

00:27:59.279 I’m personally excited to see what else AI can do and how it can help us more — not by doing everything for us, but by supporting us. AI is not here to do everything. People still need people. I love this phrase: “people need people.” That’s why AI is our assistant, not another human being.

00:28:36.159 Now we are moving towards the end of this webinar. Honestly, I’m a bit sad, because I’d love to continue, explore more and show even more possibilities. But we need to wrap up and appreciate what we’ve covered today. To get started, I want to leave you with a small practical roadmap. I like the phrase “start small, scale fast.” It shows that you don’t need to rush or do everything at once. We all feel pressure to be perfect, to be fast and to keep up with every new trend. But if you take small steps first, then you can run later. Start with some research, network with other people, see what they have to say, study more. Try using small AI tools, maybe the ones I recommended today, and make sure you actually test them.

00:29:56.799 The next point, which I mentioned multiple times today, is to blend AI with human expertise. AI is not a replacement for humans. AI cannot be your brain. Your brain is a unique part of you — how you think, how you do things, how you structure everything in your head. That’s something AI can never fully replicate. So please use your head, your ideas, your voice. Don’t be afraid to speak up, to be wrong, to make mistakes and try things. The important thing is to give it a try. Measure and optimize. As you start using AI, expand successful pilots across your organization. See how AI helps you draft content, how it supports scenarios, quizzes and interactions. Track engagement and retention, and adjust as needed. This approach leads to sustainable results. It helps you understand how to automate, how to optimize and which tasks are best handled by AI, which by you, and which you’ll work on together.

00:31:30.399 Finally, the last point is planning for scaling and personalization. It’s important to play with AI a bit, to see how it can help you plan and improve your training programs. Because technology moves so fast, a lot of training materials become outdated. We want our training to be as fresh as possible. It’s important to check with AI what is relevant now, what is useful today and what might already be outdated, even if it was fine a year ago. So please check those little details.

00:32:46.720 I’ll say this one last time today: use AI as your co-creator, co-pilot, assistant and friend — a helping hand — but don’t treat it as your replacement. You are an amazing person, and everything you do matters. AI can’t break that and can’t take it away from you. I want you to focus on effectiveness and see how personalization has an impact now, and how AI can help you with that. I also want AI to help prevent burnout and reduce anxiety by taking some of the load off your plate. And of course, it’s important that you learn how to use it well.

00:34:04.080 Well, thank you so much for attending or watching this session today. I hope that with these actionable ideas you’ll be able to make your courses faster to build, smarter in structure and more impactful with AI. Feel free to reach out if you have questions or want to explore further — I’ll be glad to chat. At EducateMe, we’ll be happy to show you everything we have related to AI. And if you want, you can also explore more tools and features and see how AI is changing the world of learning. I recommend checking different external resources: articles, journals, social media, and of course communicating with people and seeing what they think. Thank you again, and goodbye for now.