Since its inception, the LinkedIn Learning platform has strived to connect professionals with the best possible resources available to help them build the skills they need to succeed and thrive in the future of work.
Now, with the help of AI-powered coaching, the platform can achieve that goal more effectively than ever. LinkedIn Learning is proud to announce our new chatbot, built directly within the existing LinkedIn Learning platform.
What is LinkedIn Learning’s AI-powered coaching?
LinkedIn Learning’s chatbot can answer learner’s questions in real-time, referencing the entire LinkedIn Learning library of resources to provide expert-informed answers and links to relevant courses and additional information.
A learner can ask the chatbot a specific question about some aspect of a skill they’re struggling with, such as, “How can I delegate tasks and responsibility effectively?” or “How can I approach a difficult conversation?” The chatbot will respond immediately with advice and recommendations pulled from across expert-taught LinkedIn Learning courses.
From there, each learner could respond to the chatbot’s suggestions, providing feedback on whether or not the responses were helpful and further clarifying what kind of help they need. The more learners communicate with the chatbot, the more personalized and helpful the responses will become.
Even if two different learners asked the same starting question, such as “how can I delegate tasks and responsibility effectively?,” the chatbot’s advice would quickly become very different. First, the chatbot would look at their job titles to determine what level of advice they may be looking for. It might give different suggestions to individual contributors versus managers.
Then, the tool would ask follow-up questions, such as which specific parts of delegation the learners are struggling with. Based on how each learner answered these follow-up questions, the chatbot would quickly provide highly personalized insights and course recommendations.
How does AI-powered coaching work?
First, the chatbot uses Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI API service to process every learner’s questions, responses, and personal information into prompts for a generative AI model. This data is not saved or accessed by Microsoft or OpenAI during this process, except in the very limited circumstances described here.
The chatbot finds answers to the questions learners ask by pulling directly from expert-taught LinkedIn Learning courses, even providing a link to the course so the learner can see the full context of the advice.
For example, when answering the question about approaching a difficult conversation, the chatbot may provide a few tips directly from LinkedIn Learning instructor Melanie Whitney in her course on How to Have Difficult Conversations Nanotips. If the learner asks follow-up questions, the chatbot might find the answers in a different course section and provide additional context.
LinkedIn will store each learner’s conversations with the chatbot for one year and apply the same security controls to this information as it does with all other learner data. These conversations will not be shared with other LinkedIn members or the learner’s employers.
How will AI-powered coaching improve my team’s learning experience?
LinkedIn Learning’s chatbot solves several different problems at once for L&D professionals. Low learner engagement is one of the top challenges to upskilling and creating cultures of learning. The chatbot provides real-time, personalized guidance that can be customized to a learner’s exact needs by the learners themselves, allowing professionals to curate their own learning experience to ensure maximum engagement.
Meanwhile, learners themselves frequently cite “lack of time” as the greatest inhibitor to progress. By accessing LinkedIn Learning for the most relevant courses to answer specific questions, the chatbot can drastically reduce the amount of time it takes for a learner to find and begin taking the courses that matter to them.
LinkedIn Learning has always been about eliminating the barriers between professionals and their opportunities to learn. Our chatbot is helping LinkedIn Learning do that faster and more effectively than ever, and your whole organization stands to benefit from it.