So Articulate releases a new tool to rapidly produce elearning called Frontline. Note I have not experienced this tool but from what I’ve read, it’s one for people on the “frontline” of where the work happens. So not an ID but a SME.
This has been the Articulate plan all along actually. Waaaaay back in 2008-9, Articulate turned PowerPoint into elearning… and actually turned whoever was good with conveying info with PowerPoint into an ID/elearning developer. They weren’t serving a market (ID’s) they were making one!
So, is Frontline a betrayal of IDs or does Articulate just see GenAI as the new PowerPoint? And all the talk of “Learning in the workflow” meaning that ID is a skill to be possessed by anyone v. a role in the company?
Articulate says L&D’s role moves upstream to being the “Capability Architect”, to “create the conditions for learning”. L&D then establishes the guardrails, platform, standards, templates, governance, perhaps coaching, and quality criteria that allow say a sales manager who uses Frontline to do that reasonably well. L&D doesn’t necessarily design the learning any more.
The big questions for me are:
Do organizations see a need for L&D as capability architects? Hard to say for sure but given it’s not clearly tied to revenue…
Say that this prominent role of learning and development (making/tracking content) moves into the workflow, will it be good enough and will good enough mean L&D isn’t necessary?
Finally, why does “creating the conditions for learning” still end with someone creating a course??