I love Halloween, but over the years, I realized there are two types of people in this world (who celebrate Halloween or similar) when it comes to the 31st.

Either the lights are on, and candy is waiting for everyone, or the lights are turned off, and you’re hiding in the back bedroom, so nobody knows you’re home, thinking to yourself, “Oh, they will ignore us.”

Often, a big fail on your part.

People buy candy they believe is either popular or cheap.

Some people just put a bucket in their front yard, letting the kids grab as much as they want.

Others will answer the doorbell, tell you how cute your kid’s costume is, and then can’t wait for the next person.

The Candy people, though, will go to Walgreens or a similar store, buy the candy at half price, and tell themselves, “This is a great deal,” while thinking those kids should be stuck eating the $1.99 bag of candy.

I reside in an area with a lot of horse ranches.

There are no lights.

Which, for me, is a good thing.

Since nobody is ringing my doorbell, my partner will swing over to Walgreens the next day to buy the candy she likes.

Then will hide it from me.

Let us begin.

As this is tied into my Halloween Edition, I added some key icons.

Represents dud or, in a polite way, time to move on.

Represents the Future.  Just like a picture of a Raven wearing an LA Dodgers uniform with a sign in its mouth that says “Champs.”

The Duds

I’m going to get real here, and I know a lot of vendors will disagree.  However, the grinning pumpkin says the future of 26 all points to the following.

End of LXP – This means the term itself, as in a vendor referring to themselves as a Learning Experience Platform.

This dud has been hanging around far too long; once the actual LXPs added assigned learning, which defeated the premise.

In turn, other vendors added the term LXP as part of their LMS or Learning Platform.

They changed what it actually meant to nothing more than a vendor having a content marketplace, where you can add (for a fee, the standard approach) a recommended playlist or channel, and some skills capability.

As one current LXP vendor told me, “We are going to end using the term.  Systems are ubiquitous.”

I agree, as you can have the same options with an LMS, Learning Platform, Talent Development, or whatever else a vendor wants to call it, when in reality, they are one of the above three.

Communities

This is so ambiguous that it confuses people.

You might call it groups, and when you talk about what it is, the same theme comes across: “we have a bunch of people with a collaborative approach, sharing content, ideas, and discussion.”

So, you mean a cohort.  “Yes, exactly.”

Why confuse people when other vendors use cohort (a significantly better term that offers far stronger capabilities) and you refer to it as a community, which can be a drag, or group?

Groups have been around since the 90s.

The term that is.

Community was once tossed into the heap as COPs – Communities of Practice, which large Enterprises and Enterprises loved to pitch around, as if having a COP meant great things.

Funny, a lot of COPs were on the company’s intranet or SharePoint.

If you want to be part of the future, the terms need to reflect that.

A cohort could include an instructor, moderator, or facilitator.

You can have as many cohorts as you want, with one person being in many.

That is the future: learning collaboratively, where the learner drives the learning, not a COP, aligning with the concept of discussion forums, chats, and content group sharing.

Social Learning

The term initially meant social, as in social media tied with learning.

You had to have both.  No surprise it soon became another term that was twisted like a pretzel, along with the context of how it worked.

Instructor or Facilitator

Surprise – they do similar things.

Cohorts tap into Facilitators.  Instructors sound so academic, and they try to facilitate.

Trust me, say facilitators, and people will get it.

You want to say “instructor?”

Then what is this person doing that is superior to what a facilitator or moderator (either term can work) can do?

Flow of Work

I never really understood why a vendor would create a separate product called Flow of Work.

You can use that term in any learning platform, LMS or TD, without building a product focused only on that, and that wasn’t so special.

Every vendor I know who built a Flow of Work platform, whether as a standalone or an add-on for the system, ended up seeing it as a dog (they used different terms, but the meaning was that it was a waste of funds to build in the first place.

Ironically, they still sell it, thinking, I guess, that someone will say, Flow of Work?’ I need to buy one.

Cumbersome Administration Capabilities

The goal of any system is to be fast and easy to use while offering robust capabilities, such as metrics, reports, and advanced options, depending on the customer.

Very few vendors offer full customization; as such, you have a system that is either streamlined to an extent but may cause navigation confusion (I see this a lot), or a system that is power-packed but where the UI/UX makes it a less enjoyable experience.

It is truly my belief that vendors following this approach are not seeing the “HEY” that has become more common and will continue down this path.

Made a Comeback, but shouldn’t it change?

Gamification never really went away, but the options—leaderboards, points, and badges — drove it.

At some point, it didn’t maintain its success.

If you are going to use gamification, then ask yourself, ‘What would I want in a system that will get folks to really use it, and have greater engagement?”

The term ‘gamified learning’ is far superior.  Yes, you can keep the leaderboard, points, and badges, and then add a reward store and a virtual wallet for external training, tied to credits and other options.

Vendors that offer a little game or two see higher usage.  The key is to tie the game into learning, and not into some fun thing before you jump into the platform.

There are so many ways to do this, and this leads to the biggest dud of all.

Ignoring the market trends.

There are a few factors why this is common and why it separates vendors from the pack.

Part of it is hubris.

The idea that their system is superior to others, as evidenced by their current clients who love it and their ability to attract new clients, implies that it is better than others.

I always hear, “Nobody is doing this,” and to date, I’d say maybe – maybe 5% are in the global space.

You can look at the market and see a repeat with a different UI/UX as the cornerstone.

Part of it is blinders.

This bounces back to the extent to which you are looking at your competitors—not just the ones you know of or that someone said they went with you, over blah blah.

Why aren’t you looking at those outside of the common ones?  I can guarantee you, there is someone, likely more than you realize, winning over you, even though you are not targeting, focusing on, or even paying attention to that part of the world.

We tend to see through a prism.  Which works well, except when I always ask, “Don’t you want to be #1 – in your market – audience, focus, and so forth?”

You might be surprised at how many have either no retort or say they are because they make all this money, and land F500.

I will tell you right now that a lot of vendors land F500, even Global 2000.  Why?  Because it is rare to have the entire company using only your system.

I always thought the goal was to be #1, and let the others fight for the scraps in whatever segment you are in.  Maybe you are starting, but starting doesn’t mean just being happy where you are.

You might be fine being in the top five for your segment, but what if you could go higher up?

That’s what I am saying.

Forecast of the Future

I’ll hit the key pieces below, then go into some short detail of each

• AI first or driven (A term that is nice and vague, because it isn’t entirely accurate, or more so, not accurate)
• Agentic AI – A different form of AI
• AI Capabilities (I’ll present the common ones I see now, and where it is going, as well as future opportunties)
• Ongoing AI Literacy

Change in terms from Answer Engine to AI Assistant or AI Tutor (albeit this tends to be a coach, the term could apply on the learner side as an assistant, then on the admin side, refer to it as an AI Assistant)

• Expanded Calendar Capabilities
• Multi-Edition pricing structure
• More and more integrations – however, the upstart HRIS platforms are commonly not listed
• Expanded market approach and targets
• Streamlined Admin or Extensive, but only to a point (Restructuring design around UI/UX) – Added AI
• Vendor management – However, not as it used to be seen
• Expanded Skills management – with a twist
• Legit – finally a personalized learning experience – I brought this up in the context of my career journey, and there are vendors who either have pieces in place now or are starting to add them.
• Failure to see who the admins are and why it will continue this route unless changes are made
• Knowledge Management
• Moderators
• Updating UI/UX to reflect changes in the market
• Sales Spin – This is going to get worse (sadly)
• Upswing in Talent Development Platforms
• Workforce/Talent Dev/Employee Dev with some Customer training in there or vice versa
• Limited customer training/client-only systems – personally, if your core focus is on customer/client, you want to stay this way, because a lot of vendors wish to get into the space
• Continuation of content-heavy, specific topics takes the lead – Compliance, AI programming, and similar IT-related issues, including Word and similar applications.
• Customer Training – Focus on business outcomes first; this is all about the impact of learning.  Toss in certification, which is going to increase in value.
• Content Creator – Turn on AI or Turn off AI

AI Literacy, Content, and AI all in

The latest data is showing that more and more employers are looking for folks who have some level of AI literacy.  This, I believe, will not change, and what I think will become a bigger trend is a must-have.

We are not talking about AI programming skills (although for folks who do coding, or want to move into an AI role, this would be very logical); the basics of AI are crucial in today’s business world.

Universities are failing at achieving this, which means that, as a vendor, you will need to take this up at a higher rate of speed, since, before someone can work for a company, AI literacy has to exist.

Ditto on the L&D, HR, Training side, not to forget Marketing (continue to see an increase in external systems under their area – unsure why, beyond a major mistake).  Suppose the folks leading the charge have zero or minimal AI literacy and can keep up with the latest developments (which is highly unlikely due to constant changes).  In that case, the probability of achieving it with your employees is doubtful at worst, and at best, limited – unless you are an AI junkie, like me.

AI, or some other nonsense you will see in marketing, will continue to expand.  It’s just marketing —a sales pitch to make you think this vendor is the leader in AI or that they were first, which is utter nonsense.

AI-driven is equally questionable because it requires the entire system to go full throttle on AI, ignoring potential risks and the direction AI is moving towards—i.e., Agentic AI (still early stages).

With Gen AI, which to me is knowledge management, there is still a lot to explore and advance.

The ideal system for right now, until other AI developments, will use Gen AI and Agentic AI.

Copilot is another term that sounds so wonderful, but if you have an AI assistant handling tasks, what does that actually mean for a system of learning?  It goes back to the true two, as I say.

Regardless, it is all about AI – and vendors need to embrace it at a level never seen before in the industry.

There will be vendors, as with anything that goes early, adopters for the combo of two different AI types, ignoring potential issues, and more, ‘let’s just roll with it’.

Then the rest of the group, and yes, stragglers coming up in the rear.

If you are hesitant about AI, you’d better make the change quickly – more companies, especially those in Learning and Development (L&D) and Training, are asking about it.

That literacy thing will continue to challenge, and therefore, you will see the wild west mentality, which many of us in the early days of e-learning saw firsthand.

Salespeople will not be prepared, which, in a wild west scenario, means it’s all for none, and everyone follows whatever works.

This is a big concern.

AI content creation, assessment/surveys, and skills will continue to grow.  The push around content creation isn’t about creating great or even good content; it’s about getting it out fast, with limited knowledge around the topic, since AI can drive that.

As mentioned earlier, expect to see more ‘AI’ options when it comes to creating content.  Either turn it on for everything or turn it off.

Translate into another language for the content using AI is going to be big.

At this time, I have only seen a few vendors that offer you the Turn on AI for this section or objectives, then turn it off for this or that.

For me, this is the way to go.

Even with WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get), many people will go without it.

I bring this up because another huge trend will be the continuation of reorganization, which means the first entities to take a hit are Learning and Development (L&D) and Training.  HR, yes – but not across the board.  Thus, more folks who are now overseeing e-learning and more on the system side will be HRIS folks.

This will be a huge challenge since they lack L&D or Training backgrounds and are handed a system with the expectation of knowing things they do not know while simultaneously working on the job they were actually hired for.

What I am seeing is the ongoing ignorance of vendors, either because they are unaware or think it is a fad, as they push a system without ensuring proper training, support, AI literacy, and understanding across the whole spectrum.

If you do not know your audience, as in this case, who is running the system—let’s say HRIS —then how can you explain in laypeople’s terms what the system can do to help without impacting the job of someone whose role has nothing to do with it?

Knowledge management is a must for 2026, not just a one-off.  Answer engines will not only go to the admin but will also continue with learners.  A term change from Answer Engine to AI Tutor or AI Assistant is necessary, whichever the vendor finds as a better fit.  Additional suggestions are needed to encourage the learner to seek more information.

Multimodal (basically input beyond text and output beyond text) is crucial and will continue to be.  One vendor I recently saw using their Answer Engine on the admin side demonstrated how someone with any level of knowledge, or even none, could present a report, a table, and metrics based on prompts.

“Create a report showing the number of learners who have completed content focused on X skills, and provide key questions for follow-up.”

The output created the results, the table, and questions that someone could follow up with.

That’s where we are heading.

The issue, though, just as it will be on the learner side, is the failure to note that “AI can create fake or false information, or say AI can create mistakes, always review before accepting it.”

Based on my analysis of 200 vendors, only five had this visible on the learner side, and 12 on the admin side.

Even with vendors pushing the whole guardrails, your content, trained on your data, they do not realize that AI is not 100% accurate.  This is a key issue, the biggest one out there.

This will not change in 2026.

LLM agnostic will continue to be hot – but if a client is using OpenAI ChatGPT5, for example, and your system is Claude (and not using a solution like AWS Bedrock or Azure or Google Cloud Vertex with lots of LLM – Learning Language models), then you, as a vendor, must do an integration, which takes time.

On top of this is the ‘if there is a problem’, whose fault is it?

I did not find one vendor who said “us.” Think about that: will compliance or regulation, for example, be involved?

This will not change.

AI and Practice Scenarios

HOT.  We are talking real-life scenarios for business skills and situations, not just tech skills.

Practice makes sense, lots of possibilities and options.

Application is key.

Again, the trendline indicates that vendors will need to assume a greater role in the knowledge and learning of new and ongoing employees due to the failure of schools, notably higher education, to fulfill this responsibility.

AI will replace low-level jobs in the office setting; thus, the crux is the need for skills inclusion, which new AI-related roles can offset.

On top of that, expect to see more vendors bringing out scenarios—perhaps finally tapping into Immersive Technology with the blue-collar workforce.

Construction focus is gaining speed in the industry.  Once a secondary focus for vendors, unless they initially eyed the vertical, the change is now.

You can thank AI for that.

Other industries that focus on blue-collar work, like manufacturing on the floor, are part of the scene.

Zeroing in on skills that offer growth for whoever requires the power of a mobile app, with on/off sync and the leverage of an answer engine.

Perfect for frontline workers (i.e., deskless), which will be another hotbed in 2026.  I expect more vendors to add an angle here—where, wait for it, practice makes perfect sense.

AI items such as Avatars or your voice in the platform are really nothing burgers, just some twist to make it sound (no pun intended) as though you are getting a new AI experience – but where is the legit value?

AI coaches, AI tutors (which are honestly the same, although there are vendors calling their Answer Engine an AI Tutor), and even Mentors will be hot in 26.  The term I am seeing is either AI tutor (#1) or AI coach.

Mentors, thanks to the cohort approach, are far better and will offer an AI experience.  However, the core consists of actual human beings with skills, roles, and knowledge sets that you won’t find as easily with AI, which today does not have the ability for deep thinking.

Learning Operations focused on large enterprises (5,000 or more employees)

Nowadays, folks in L&D and Training, as well as those who lack any learning or training knowledge, will want the system to handle everything for them.

I am observing an increase in the level of learning operations, including vendor management for external items and on-site resource/facilities management, which many systems already have, but only to a point.

It reminds me of the old days of Cvent, which includes higher capabilities around calendars – as in stronger scheduling possibilities.

While vendors could go directly to a provider that already exists with such strength—after all, that’s their focus —what I am seeing is either deep integration or, more likely, we build what we want.

Scheduling expansion is ideal for the aviation, aerospace, and defense markets.  Plus, any company that sees the high value of doing so, especially around compliance and regulatory issues.

Support

I’m not a big fan of this, but I do expect more systems on the admin side, including a support section that covers the number of tickets you submit, their status, and ongoing communication.

Is there value here?  If you have a lot of problems, then yes.  But on the flip side, if you don’t know how the vendor identifies low, medium, and high, plus typical response times —since every issue is critical in the admin’s eyes and to the person overseeing the department —it gets frustrating.

Support overall in the industry has always been poor.  It continues to be the number one reason people leave a system.

Listing support tickets doesn’t resolve the issue.

Hiring more support people, training them, presenting your process, assigning a specific person to that company as a POC, offering ongoing support at no additional fee (for the admins and the people overseeing the department), times of contact – i.e., 24/7, 24/5, 9 to 5 in whatever time zone, and method of follow-up are the keys here.

If you can’t integrate something, then having a support ticket that provides a status update when the person can’t talk to the project manager on a call doesn’t make any sense.

I’ve seen this show before with a vendor, including project management on the admin side.  Unless you are a vendor whose only goal is around PM for training and L&D, or your only focus is on learning operations, then there is no sense of inclusion.

Streamline and Self-Serve is back.

Every vendor says their system is easy to use – because, look, if you say otherwise, nobody is buying it.

Thus, I believe two modes of operandi will continue: streamlining the system—either using AI (the route I’d go to a point) or Robusting it, keeping it clear and free of confusion —and, uh, expanding.

Ignore the hype around a new system with the assumption of the latest, which has always been inaccurate.

On the streamline side, expect to see the return of ‘self-serve’, which means you get a trial for, say, 30 days.  If you decide you want the system at any time during the 30 days, you can buy it, and it will go live immediately.

Smart and fast.  This will be your streamlined systems – and for now, not AI built per se.

A more personalized experience or learner-centric approach will continue.

Yet I have only seen one system, whereas you can truly personalize each experience using AI.  The downside for this vendor, after all, is that it is their first attempt to do a cut-and-paste with AI code.

This will have to change.

Skills Add-On

While I do believe and still believe that you must have skills as part of your system, a trend I am seeing and expect to continue is the skills package add-on.

You get the basics of skills, such as those tied to a job role and skill ratings, but a more robust system will be an add-on.

This means if you do not want that, you hold off buying it.

While having it in your system, with a simple click and turn off—doable, mind you—there is no doubt that this method is not working to the extent it should.

I blame vendors here with poor UI/UX on the admin side.

Thus, the skills experience is optional.

For example, what I hear from companies that use Workday Learning is that many have not added or implemented any of the Skills Cloud, which is free.

They don’t have the time, and many who oversee the system in HRIS are there because of the gutting of L&D.

Even with L&D, it is not a priority.

On top of which, the word on the street, okay, from folks who use WD Learning, is how clunky and poor it is.

I bring up WD Learning because the acquisition of Sana.AI is more about the system and less about the AI, which, yes, is a big part of it, but WD already has AI options to a point.

And the pricing is all over the place, with some companies getting it as a toss-in (reminds me of the days of SAP, which threw SAP LMS as a freebie), and others paying various price points.

Speaking of Pricing

Triple-Tier Pricing is back.

There will be a low price tier (with limited capabilities – and up to X users – remember the up to, because if you do not end up with that amount, you still pay that price point)

Next is a mid-tier, aimed at the user base, but it offers more than the basic edition.

Following is a high-tier product that has all the bells and whistles, but up to a point.

A vendor may refer to this as Enterprise.

Others may have the third tier, followed by Enterprise, which will offer more integrations and additional features.

Some will include content (at a higher tier).

I expect to see a free option for up to five employees, with very, very limited features.

The goal of the course is to help someone move up the tiers because they want more.  However, if they are happy where they are, no worries —you can stay there.

The top three types of systems

LMS continues to be #1, Learning Platforms are #2 simply because they do not see themselves in the bucket of an LMS (even though the majority have similar feature sets), and Talent Development is #3.

Those are the numbers.

Skills platform only?  That is a Learning Platform.

Knowledge management only?  Learning Platform

LMS or LP – customer training focused?  Yep, either.

Talent Dev is specifically for employees.

You can still have internal (core) and external (the term used in the industry); however, this falls under Talent Development.

Bottom Line

When you were young, let’s say early teens, did you know what you wanted to do and what you wanted to be?

Did you see the forecast including your role or job in e-learning?

I knew I wanted to be a journalist in eighth grade.  HS, it stayed that way.  In college, I split between Archaeology (until my dad said it required a Ph.D. to be considered a field) and Journalism.

I could mix the two.

Still, I got accepted into the Journalism program (yes, they had a test).

And the rest is history.

Training and teaching were not even on my list.

However, when I decided to become a teacher, my area was Journalism.

Worked in radio, tried different gigs, all around Journalism, including Broadcast Journalism, albeit spinning records, and doing V/O at a couple of radio stations, wasn’t part of the plan.

A sidestep, if you will.  Still focused on Journalism.

The future takes you to different places, on different paths to get there.

I suspect that nobody said, ‘Hey, my dream is to oversee L&D,’ and then started by going to college to study Psychology or Math.

You may have landed at your ideal gig on a path this way, that took you that way, zig and zagging until you stumbled upon where you are.

The best IT person I ever met was during the dot-com days – his degree was in history.

For anyone who worked in the dot-com days, we all have the same stories and experiences.

It is a bond that will never be broken.

A cohort, if you will, without realizing it, but taking what is one, and growing to be two, and so on, our experiences drove us to where we are today.

That’s the power of the future.

Ignore looking back, because what was is no more, and what will become is to be determined.

If, though, we can peek through and identify trends, then raising the curtain gives us hope.

And we all need hope.