When Life becomes the Teacher (6A) - Keeping L&D Human in an Age Obsessed With Automation

The End of Standard E-Learning? Rethinking L&D in the AI Era

Recently, Coursera announced it is taking over Udemy. If you read the reactions online, you encounter two radically different narratives.

One says: This is a massive opportunity for e-learning. Scale, reach, efficiency, democratization.

The other says: This is the beginning of the end of e-learning as we know it.
I understand both reactions.

Two years ago, at StrengthMiner® Consulting LLP, we explored building an e-learning product ourselves. For a small company, this was not a side project, it was a strategic investment. At that time, the picture looked like this:
- instructional designers
- IT partners and platform decisions
- video production
- gamification concepts
- long development cycles

The product would have needed to reach a six-figure price point to be viable. We decided not to proceed. Looking at the market today, I believe that decision saved us from a very painful lesson.

With the hashtag#AI tools available now, a comparable product can be built in hours, not months. And we are not even experts in this space. With the right people, the barrier drops further.

At the same time, we see the rise of AI-native learning tools and platforms, names like hashtag#Nora or hashtag#Galileo are frequently mentioned promising personalized, scalable, always-available learning experiences.

My personal assessment: these tools will do extremely well in mass learning.
In fact, I find it highly likely that companies will soon deploy intelligent learning assistants directly on employees’ desktops. From a corporate perspective, the value proposition is simply too strong.

Seen from that angle, I am leaning toward this conclusion: Standardized, content-driven e-learning as a business model is approaching its end. Not learning. But a specific form of learning.

And that realization leads to a much deeper question, which I will talk about in the next post.