How businesses train millions of employees while continuously shipping their products.

      The information regarding workforce development presents a conflicting narrative. While 85% of companies intend to emphasize upskilling their workforce by 2030, 63% of employers still recognize skills gaps as the primary obstacle to business transformation.

      This contradiction arises because the development models that most organizations employ were designed for a slower pace of change and have not adapted accordingly. The process of scripting, creating, reviewing, localizing, and publishing learning and development content can be lengthy. Even in large, well-funded companies, this process may take weeks. By the time training reaches employees, the product it was intended to explain may have undergone multiple updates, compliance procedures may have changed, and the sales strategies it aimed to reinforce might have already been altered by the field team.

      Many of us have experienced compulsory corporate training that felt like a mere formality rather than an actual learning opportunity. To enhance the relevance of learning and development, organizations are modifying both the delivery format and the timeline.

      The new directive for Chief Learning Officers

      Jayney Howson, the Chief Learning Officer at ServiceNow, is exploring what a more effective model entails. ServiceNow University, the initiative aimed at upskilling over three million individuals by the end of 2027, has recently been redesigned to be AI-native.

      Howson’s team faced challenges familiar to many in Learning & Development (L&D): a business rapidly delivering AI products, a global workforce that needs to remain updated, and a content creation process that lacked the speed necessary to meet those demands.

      Her solution was to reconstruct the infrastructure utilizing AI, including AI-generated videos, which reduced course production time by approximately tenfold. Her team utilized Synthesia to create over 5,000 videos in just 18 months, with ongoing programs such as Sales Academy for their global sales team and partner enablement operating consistently worldwide. Learning content now accurately reflects current business activities rather than outdated information from months prior.

      According to Jayney, “It resembles a Netflix experience, offering personalized recommendations for each employee. It can also identify that for my current job, my skill proficiency is at a one, but it needs to be a four, so it provides that training as well.”

      Production is no longer a limitation

      ServiceNow’s experience illustrates a broader transformation occurring across enterprise L&D. Research indicates that 87% of learning professionals already incorporate AI into their workflows. Furthermore, 72% believe the most significant future benefit of AI lies in delivering more personalized learning closer to the moment of need, beyond just reducing production costs.

      These two aspects have always been interlinked. Achieving personalization at scale has been a long-standing goal of corporate learning, along with its ongoing struggle. Creating individualized learning paths for thousands of employees is impractical when a single course may take weeks to develop.

      When video content can be produced, updated, and translated within hours, the scenario shifts. Programs can then be tailored for specific roles, regions, and stages within an employee's tenure, rather than being generic and serving no one adequately.

      What this means for learning leaders

      Organizations that resolve the production capacity challenge using AI enable their learning functions to address more complex issues.

      Which skills genuinely enhance business performance? What constitutes excellence in a specific role, and how can it be developed? How do you assess whether learning has resulted in behavioral changes, rather than simply tracking which employees completed a module?

      These inquiries connect L&D to business results in a way that completion rates never could. Organizations making strides in bridging the skills gap often empower learning leaders to rethink their operating models while utilizing AI to close the gap between when knowledge is needed and when it becomes available.

      For Howson, changes to infrastructure are critical, but so is the surrounding environment. She envisions ServiceNow University as a space where individuals feel safe to take risks.

      “We all recall childhood memories of feeling secure,” she noted. “This environment should encourage you to challenge yourself without the fear of failing on the first attempt.”

      This blend of faster, more relevant learning within a psychologically safe environment distinguishes organizations successfully addressing the skills gap from those still attempting to tackle a 2026 challenge with a model from 2016.