AI Agents: Transforming Learning & Development – The Learning Summit Podcast
AI agents are reshaping learning and development, and it’s time to pay attention. Companies like OpenAI (ChatGPT), Anthropic (Claude), and Google (Gemini) are leading the charge, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.
What does this mean for L&D? Personalised learning becomes seamless—AI identifies skills gaps and delivers relevant training without human intervention. Repetitive tasks like scheduling, progress tracking, and compliance reminders? Automated. The focus shifts from admin to real growth and impact.
The key is integration. Start small. Test AI in one area—like onboarding or compliance—and measure the results. Use that momentum to expand its role. Keep an eye on the bigger picture, too. AI is evolving fast, and staying informed is crucial.
These tools aren’t just a productivity boost; they’re transforming how organisations learn, adapt, and improve.
How AI Agents Are Changing Learning and Development – The Learning Summit Podcast
AI agents are changing the way we work. These tools don’t just provide information—they act, automate, and deliver results. They handle repetitive tasks, freeing people to focus on more valuable work. In learning and development, this shift is long overdue.
Take compliance training. It’s tedious, essential, and time-consuming. AI agents can track certifications, send reminders, and enroll staff in courses automatically. No admin time wasted. In retail, they streamline onboarding by delivering personalised training to new hires on their first day.
But it’s not just about efficiency—it’s about relevance. AI agents can monitor skills gaps and recommend training before it’s too late. Struggling with Excel? The agent assigns a targeted course. Falling behind on sales? It schedules a coaching session. All without intervention.
For global teams, they localise content for different regions, adapt to cultural needs, and analyse performance trends to identify where help is needed. They act like personal tutors, ensuring learning stays relevant and impactful.
At Webanywhere, we’re integrating AI agents into our platforms to make this a reality. They help learners find answers quickly, assign tailored resources, and even handle admin-heavy tasks like progress tracking.
The result? More time for creativity, strategy, and real learning.
OracyChampions.com is a new platform focussed on oracy games and tracking student progress
The pandemic disrupted almost every aspect of education, but its impact on children’s oracy skills—speaking and listening—has been particularly concerning, especially in the early years. For too long, the focus in schools has been on reading and writing. While literacy is undoubtedly important, the ability to communicate verbally, to express ideas clearly, and to engage in meaningful conversations has been largely overlooked. Now, there is growing recognition that this imbalance needs to be addressed, and oracy is beginning to take a more central role in the curriculum, particularly with the UK government signalling a shift in education policy.
During the pandemic, children were forced into isolated learning environments, where opportunities for speaking and listening were severely limited. Many young learners missed out on crucial stages of social and linguistic development. A report by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) found that children in the early years experienced significant setbacks in speech and language development, with nearly half of surveyed schools reporting an increase in the number of children needing support with speaking skills since the pandemic.
This issue has now been recognised by political leaders. Keir Starmer has spoken about how the pandemic has exacerbated long-standing inequalities in education, with oracy skills being a key area of concern. “We’ve seen a clear gap in children’s ability to communicate effectively, particularly among those from disadvantaged backgrounds,” Starmer stated in a recent speech. “This is something we must address if we are serious about levelling up education across the country.”
Bridget Phillipson, the new Secretary of State for Education, has also acknowledged the importance of oracy and is advocating for a more holistic approach to early years learning. In a recent interview, Phillipson said, “For too long, we’ve focused on reading and writing as the primary indicators of success in early education. But speaking clearly, listening attentively, and engaging in meaningful dialogue are just as important—both for academic success and for life outside the classroom. We need to ensure that oracy skills are nurtured as carefully as literacy skills.”
The government is now signalling a shift in education policy to address this. The Department for Education has announced plans to update the national curriculum, placing a greater emphasis on speaking and listening skills from the early years through to secondary school. These changes aim to give children more opportunities to develop their communication skills, recognising that strong verbal abilities are linked not only to academic achievement but also to better mental health, improved job prospects, and greater civic participation.
A new focus on oracy is not just about catching up after the disruption caused by COVID-19; it’s about acknowledging that communication is a fundamental life skill, one that should be at the core of education. As Bridget Phillipson noted, “Oracy education isn’t a ‘nice-to-have’—it’s essential. If we want to prepare our children for the challenges of the future, we must ensure they leave school not only literate but articulate.”
This shift in policy represents a crucial moment for the future of education in the UK, and platforms like OracyChampions.com are set to play a vital role in equipping the next generation with the skills they need to communicate confidently and effectively in a post-pandemic world.
Students select a game and decide who will participate, with conversations being recorded. Teachers can then monitor progress using mark sheets.
OracyChampions.com is a simple tool with a powerful idea behind it: helping kids find their voice. We’ve all been there—those awkward silences in classrooms, the struggle to articulate an idea, the fear of speaking up. OracyChampions is designed to change that by giving students a platform to develop the one skill that’s foundational to everything else: communication.
The platform isn’t complicated. It doesn’t need to be. Teachers can set up oracy challenges, record voice notes, and track progress all in one place. But what really matters is the impact. You’ll see kids who once hesitated to participate suddenly take ownership of their thoughts. You’ll hear voices you didn’t even realize were there, stepping up and sharing ideas confidently.
This isn’t just about getting better grades or passing exams; it’s about preparing students for life. Whether they’re speaking in a group project, presenting to a room of peers, or explaining their thoughts clearly in everyday conversations, OracyChampions equips them with the communication skills they’ll need long after they’ve left the classroom.
At its core, OracyChampions is about creating more meaningful interactions. It’s not about making communication a separate subject but integrating it across everything we teach. Every topic, every discussion, every debate becomes a chance to practice speaking and listening—a chance to grow.
And the best part? It works with the tools teachers are already using. Chromebooks, iPads, you name it—OracyChampions fits right in, giving students and teachers an easy way to bring oracy into the heart of education without adding complexity. It’s learning by speaking, plain and simple.
It was a last minute decision to go to ConverCon now in its second year in Dublin. I left the family home for Leeds Bradford Airport at 4am to fly to the Emerald Isle. The one day event organised by Paul Sweeney of Webio focused on conversational interface design and featured many thought leaders from the likes of Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft.
WhatsApp now has 1 billion active users and people are more likely in this day and age to message a business than pick up the phone. Approximately 8 out of 10 people sent a message in the last month.
The question is will websites disappear in favour of conversational interfaces?
Think about the billions of pounds spent on branding and packaging each year. If conversational commerce becomes big this will become less important. Brand marketers need to wake up to this fact. The way we interact with voice technology to search and do things means we are moving from brands to intents. Alexa Skills are becoming like verbs as you are always asking them to do stuff.
Who is going to dominate in the intents business?
Microsoft’s Alec Saunders Principle PM for Business AI talked of the future of conversational interfaces. Microsoft is eating its own dog food, building internally facing interfaces. For example, if you send an email to HR the artificial intelligence figures out where it should go and what should happen next. This can be done via email, a chat interface and other ways.
There are some obvious horizontal business processes which you can automate in this way instead of back office people doing this. The benefit is for the business outsourcing bill to be cut. For example, there is a virtual agent who can figure out which Microsoft license you should be on.
Microsoft are finding that chatbots are more popular that FAQs and it gets users to the answers much more quickly. If you add text and messaging instead of voice in the contact centre then efficiency goes up. Furthermore, job satisfaction goes up. There is a huge repetition in asking questions in a call centre or helpdesk. Virtual agents can handle the messy, common questions and humans get involved with more complex issues.
Chatbots are good at handling peaks with a minimum level of service, for example, the annual tax filing or university clearing when call centres’ lines traditionally get jammed. In a talk by Oracle a chatbot was used on the careers section of a website to guide a job seeker into the correct job based on a series of questions on skills and experience.
Intercom, a Russian company specialising in chatbots, is all about making the internet business personal. Websites with use of live chat have users which are 82% more likely to convert. Replying to people on chat is expensive so you need bots. Replying to someone in 5 minutes on live chats means you are a lot more likely to close a deal. Personable replies on chat are about context. Bots must take over the simple tasks and humans can get involved when the complexity is too much for the bot.
How do you handover from bot to human?
You should always be clear on live chat whether you are speaking to a bot or a human. Businesses top reasons for using chatbots are customer experience, cost effectiveness, scalability and compliance. The scope and order of how people talk are complex and random. The context of a conversation is important e.g. their previous experience e.g. their locations. In conversational design, you can give nudges and hints to people based on what they have done previously.
David Low Head of Alternative Channels at Skyscanner says the ultimate goal is for Skyscanner to book a flight before the person realises they need to book one. This can be done with people’s intents, conversational history and artificial intelligence. Seamus White, Founder of Granite Digital explains that once the consumer expectation is there to use live chat and voice commands then the floodgates will open on conversational computing. For example, when mobile apps first came out most people didn’t know what it was but when the consumer expectation became real mobile apps became commonplace.
Clodagh Brenna, Trend Analyst at Foresight Factory gave a talk on personalised conversations and the future of customer interactions. Clodagh stated that 80% of buying decisions are emotional. Empathy is a route to understanding consumers which then leads to greater trust and better experiences. People like sharing emotions and generate emoticons. When communicating with a consumer you need to speak to people’s aspirations as this resonates.
Mitch Lieberman, Analyst at Opus Research followed comparing the customer journey with business processes. The context of a conversation is important e.g. their locations or prior conversations. What questions can not be answered by Alexa is where the opportunity lies.
Your goal is to reach conversations which help reduce friction and the communications mismatch. The hard part is what conversation to have and then how to have that conversation. In conversational commerce, you need the conversation history and context. Keep asking clarifying questions until you get to the answer. How many turns until you get handed off to a human. A small number of intents gives you what most people want to do. You need journey analytics to recommend what conversations to have in the future.
For great conversational design, you need dialogue design. This is best done by using notes on a wall. You must find the voice of the user. You must also cater for the what if, what if, what if scenarios. Further thought needs to be given to if you are happy how would you say it and if you are angry how would you say it?
So will the website disappear? We could be moving to a world of multi skilled chatbots with bots calling bots! The rise of voice first technology and artificial intelligence is only going further towards this endeavour. With over 50 years of artificial intelligence computing, we are now reaching a period of time when science fiction is becoming science fact.
We are now onto the second day of the Learning Technologies Exhibition in London, and so far the show has been a real success for Webanywhere.
It began yesterday, with a seminar by our very own Kristine Clough. Kristine presented ‘Successful Onboarding With e-Learning’ – a study into how Webanywhere’s Totara solution met the needs of University College London Hospitals (UCLH). The fact that UCLH’s Rob Beer agreed to co-present the seminar with Kristine was a fantastic bonus, and resulted in standing room only at Theatre 6!
If you’re visiting the Learning Technologies Exhibition today, there’s the chance to win an iPad with Webanywhere and another of our prestigious clients, the British Safety Council. All visitors need to do is visit our stand (158), and then visit British Safety Council’s stand (100), and they’ll be entered into the draw!
Our Workplace Learning team have also put together a guide to Learning Tech – it’s called 7 Things To Look Out For At Learning Technologies 2014 and can be downloaded here.
Webanywhere are celebrating our 10th birthday. We’ve come a long way from the company founded in my back bedroom a decade ago, and wecouldn’t have done it without our customers, both old and new.
I’d like to share a video to express my thanks for joining us on this journey. We really do appreciate our customers, and as ever are keen to hear about your experiences with our products (I even give out my email address in the video, if you would like to write to me directly!)
Look out for upcoming announcements as we celebrate this landmark in our history (and for pictures from our staff party this Friday!). Here’s to the next 10 years – to new jobs, continuing innovation and to new horizons in the blooming educational technology market!
Welcome! As MD of Webanywhere Ltd, I'm interested in everything to do with e-learning and the web.
Amongst my random thoughts and witterings, I'll keep this blog up to date with some of the best ideas and resources that I find online, plus snippets from our company news.
We are now onto the second day of the Learning Technologies Exhibition in London, and so far the show has been a real success for Webanywhere.
