We're in the renaissance of retail employee training. The ability to create and evolve training and development programs has never been more expansive. As generative AI begins driving retail product and catalog innovation, applications for employee training are already impacting how retailers improve customer experiences. Leaders can leverage cutting-edge AI tools to improve employee training outcomes through powerful content, simulated experiences, and hyper-personalization. With these key components, L&D strategies are seeing marked performance progression and increased customer service ratings.
Not just speed...but power
A lot of what we all hear in this space currently is around time-to-content being rapidly reduced. It's true: Using AI for faster content generation and deployment is critical as worker's roles evolve and business needs pivot. The turnarounds companies are capable of with AI-generated training content are immense — we're seeing major cost-savings as a direct result—with some seeing up to 90-99% with specific tools.
This applies across many areas, from text to video content generation to nearly instant translations. The ability to be faster and more productive is shouted from the rooftops, and rightly so. But from what I see, being able to create content simply faster does not actually move learning goals forward or affect true change. I have built my own hospitality and retail business and worked with many organizations assessing training requirements and engaging with employees, and I am trying to recall the last time I saw an employee running around the store screaming that their paper, training manual, video, or 40-minute e-learning course was delayed in its delivery.
Is time-to-content reduction able to drive efficiency and create agility? Well, yes, to a degree. However, we need to remember that it is only one piece of the puzzle.
Where we see AI becoming a superpower for people teams and L&D is in the convergence of cutting-edge delivery methods, programmatical thinking, and hyper-relevance. When deployed with this application, AI is truly transformative. It's not just the ability to create content with greater speed but developing engaging, bite-size learning modules that offer challenges, real-world scenarios, suggestive input, feedback loops, and much deeper behavior change...all in a few clicks.
We have seen firsthand that AI holds limitless possibilities for not only input efficiencies but measurable, data-driven impact. With this kind of thinking, we are then moving into the realms of true tech-human collaboration, which is the secret sauce of AI and will lead to the empowerment of creators.
Closing the gap between theory and reality
One of the biggest learning challenges retail has always faced is bridging the gap between theory and reality, or (what we call) being able to prime knowledge and apply knowledge in a safe environment where employees can fail and repeat. This second component of applying knowledge has often led to inconsistencies in employee and customer experiences. A big risk factor for retention and customer satisfaction. How can retailers best simulate a real-world customer or peer-to-peer scenario?
We are now able to transform the way we examine this question through the use of AI. Coupling AI engines with deep immersive simulation-based training has never been so accessible or more powerful. It is our core belief at Attensi that if you can narrow the gap between theory and reality for the learner, then you can create a safe space to fail and repeat without any detriment or risk to either the learner or customer.
AI is opening up a world where interpersonal scenario building using dialogue builders, image enhancers, and free-form interaction via voice or touch input is a possibility. Now leaders can outline a prompt containing a specific customer care framework or a specific product upsell approach, and in a few clicks, a full dialogue tree containing multiple threads, feedback loops, and scoring capability can be built. Just as simply, it can be refined, translated, voiced, and tested. Taking this a step further, AI is also enabling free-form dialogue formation that facilitates a dynamic real time interaction that is not scripted or frame-worked. Where the user simply holds an in-depth, focused dialogue that can follow any course and begin to mirror a true human interaction.
What is evident: AI is now allowing us the choice of how we deploy a multitude of life-like scenarios that will elevate employee mastery in interpersonal interactions. This also makes for a perfect collaborative tool for the learning designer and will holistically elevate brands and drive customer experience and business metrics.
A scalpel, not a brick
The concept of being able to tailor learning to the individual is not new, Just in Time learning and Adaptable Learning have been hot topics for many years. In truth, there have been steps taken but this potential has never been fully realized. AI now has the power to move us into the age of Hyper-Personalized learning at scale.
This will take the form of in-depth, real-time feedback to the learner that will then drive personalized content curation and creation, fully adapted to their learning style, development speed, and goals. A true learning Co-pilot. And this future is coming fast--AI Co-pilots will feature in all our lives within the next 12 months, and their power in learning will be vast.
This means that training programs will be able to be created centrally with very definitive parameters set by the L&D team, taking business and brand goals as the guide and allowing learners to continue their own mastery journey with guidance, support, and measurable development in line with timebound goals.
And learners being able to influence their own development is a big feature. The research tells us that the new generation of retail workers prioritizes the ability to own their own journey, be masters of their destiny, and work for organizations that will make them better. A recent article from HR Today shared: that more than half of Millennials (58%) and Gen Zers (52%) indicated that career success depends on frequently updating their skills and knowledge. To support this desire in the current and upcoming workforce, hyper-personalization will be key in adequately upskilling and meeting these expectations.
Uplevel with game-based simulation training
Advancements in AI are undoubtedly changing the game for training and development by providing the ability to generate powerful, immersive content at speed. But to simply 'adopt AI' should not be the end goal.
To truly see advancements in operational KPIs, retailers need to thoughtfully look at how they can merge this powerful content into a tailored approach to learning, hyper-personalized to teams' progression plans. This, combined with opportunities to close the knowledge-to-application gap through immersive, simulated experiences, is paving the way to successful upskilling.
We know to elevate employee skillsets is to elevate the experience of customers and AI is a tool to help realize that goal.