Coding has always served two purposes: the intrinsic drive to build something, and the practical path to a lucrative career. Even the most passionate code aficionados don’t dream of variables or syntax — they want to make a website, a tool, a game. For years, the career upside was impossible to ignore. You could land a stable SWE job, bootstrap your own app, or join a buzzy startup as a first hire.
Generative AI flipped the script. AI now handles the repetitive tasks that used to define entry-level developer roles. At the same time, the barrier to entry for coding and building is lower than ever — you can spin up a working prototype with just an idea and a natural language prompt.
This shift hasn’t eliminated the desire to code, but it’s changed what and who coding is for. If you’re not learning to land a junior dev role, you’re learning to build the thing you’ve been imagining, to add a technical skill to your existing career, or to understand the tools you’re already using at work. And here’s the catch: those goals all require understanding your code, not just having code that works.
At Codecademy, all of these changes excite us about the future of learning to code. We’re introducing the AI Builder, a new project-based learning tool that flips the script by teaching you how to work with AI-generated code from the start. Our approach brings together the immediacy of modern AI tools and the rigor of real instructional design.
Why we created the AI Builder
AI’s speed and efficiency often come with a tradeoff; you can get working code immediately, but you don’t really know what it’s giving you or why it’s built a certain way. Developers use the term “vibe coding” to describe this phenomenon — it’s fast, fun, but shallow; great for demos, less great for long-term skill-building.
If your goal is to understand what you’re building, generic AI output alone won’t get you there. And the more you push these tools into real-world complexity, “the harder it is for them to give you exactly what you want,” says Zoe Bachman, Head of Learning at Codecademy.
Switch to Learn for behind-the-scenes insights and your personalized roadmap.
With the AI Builder you get an education along with the AI output. In the workspace, you can toggle between two tabs: Build, where you work directly with a project and can modify and change code in real time; and Learn, where you get a personalized learning roadmap that’s based on your project.
“We pair the experience of having a working app with a learning path that allows you to reverse engineer how it’s built, so you can deeply understand it and modify it confidently,” Zoe says. We’re calling our hybrid approach to learning-driven development “vibe learning” — it’s powered by AI guidance but rooted in learning science.
Build first; learn continuously
With AI Builder, you start with what you want to do: build the thing in your head. Whether that’s a habit tracker, a portfolio site, or the seed of a bigger idea, you don’t need to have prior coding knowledge to learn and build with the AI Builder. In other words, there are no pre-requisites for creation.
You create a prototype by typing what you’d like to create in natural language. The AI chatbot will ask a few clarifying questions about your needs and overall goal before generating the project. Once the project is created, you can use the chat function to continue describing what you want. (You’re also welcome to go right into the code and start making changes if you already know your way around!)
“It was fun to build something so quickly and be able to see the code and a learning plan for it,” says Grace Krishna, a Code Crew member who beta tested the AI Builder.
When you need clarity on what’s going on behind the scenes in your code, or you hit a wall with AI, that’s a great time to flip over to the Learn tab.
We’re calling our hybrid approach to learning-driven development ‘vibe learning’ — it’s powered by AI guidance but rooted in learning science.
Your project becomes the curriculum
Rather than teaching concepts in the abstract and hoping learners translate them later, AI Builder removes that translation tax entirely. “We’re showing you specifically your code from your project and helping you understand it,” Zoe says.
Rework your prototype in real time with the help of AI.
To build that personalized curriculum, the AI Builder breaks your project’s code into clear milestones and tasks. For each task, it generates an interactive learning loop, which is an activity designed to help you form a mental model of what your specific code is doing.
These loops help you understand the logic behind each part of your project, so you can confidently apply the same thinking to other sections, or even future projects. This approach also ensures everything you learn is directly relevant to what you’re making — so you don’t have to guess when you’ll ever use this.
Why this is vibe learning (not vibe coding)
A key misconception about AI‑assisted development is that it makes learning superficial. AI Builder challenges that by grounding the entire experience in learning science rather than simple code generation. Our entire system is intentionally designed for you to retain knowledge. So, while it might not feel like you’re taking a course, you’re absorbing key concepts just by interacting with AI-generated code.
A Socratic AI, not an answer-spitting chatbot
Our educational AI chatbot is designed to guide you toward an answer through an in-depth questioning approach that’s based on the Socratic method of teaching. Instead of spitting out shortcuts or answers like AI typically does, you get strategic nudges, hints, and questions that build durable mental models.
Research on AI in education shows that just providing an answer makes it harder for learners to retain the information on their own. Zoe compares the Socratic AI to “a personalized tutor, facilitating you acquiring more knowledge, so you’re not totally left on your own.” Our method encourages you to think critically so you really grasp the concepts and can continue to use them in the real world.
Learning loops with real instructional design
Behind the scenes, every learning loop in the Learn tab is built on proven frameworks like inductive learning and the 5E model, a popular STEM teaching framework that’s shorthand for engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate.
You’ll notice that the questions and exercises in the Learn tab feel different than the rest of our courses and paths, and that’s intentional. “The learning loops are designed very well — they get you there inductively,” Zoe says. They’re exploratory without being overwhelming, and evaluative without feeling like tests.
Negar Vahid, a beta tester for the AI Builder appreciated the AI’s interactive question format. “The question-based learning feels engaging, and the starter project it builds is simple but useful,” she says.
This structure ensures you don’t develop the wrong mental models — a known risk in fully constructivist or student-centered environments — while still giving you the freedom to explore.
Why learn when AI can build?
There are some projects that are well-suited for simply vibe coding, like making a personal HTML website or a single-use script to automate a one-time task. Tools like Lovable and v0 are suited exactly for these types of projects.
The longer your code needs to live, and the more complex your project becomes, the more you need to actually understand what you’re building. Joe Holmes, Codecademy Curriculum Developer in the AI and machine learning domain, uses the term “ignorance debt” to describe what happens when you don’t:
“It’s like tech debt squared. It’s much, much worse,” Joe says. “You don’t know what kind of code is coming out. You just are only looking at: Does this kind of generally appear to be what I asked for? You don’t know if there are security flaws. You don’t know if there are performance flaws. You don’t know if you’re leaking sensitive information. You don’t know how to fix anything.”
The tipping point comes down to two factors: complexity and time. If you’re developing software professionally, you’re legally responsible for the code you output. If you’re building something that will serve actual users, you need to be accountable for security, performance, and maintainability. And if your project will need updates or fixes over time (which most do) understanding your codebase becomes essential, not optional.
The good news? Learning doesn’t have to feel like eating your vegetables. “Kids hate veggies and broccoli because we don’t cook it well enough to make it tasty when we first introduce it to them,” says Nhi Pham, Codecademy Curriculum Developer. The same is true for teaching AI: “If you do it well, you’re inspiring people to have these very hygienic practices when working with AI,” she says.
That’s exactly what AI Builder is designed to do — make learning feel as immediate and rewarding as building, so you develop good habits from the start rather than building a lifelong aversion to understanding your own code.
Get started with the AI Builder
AI isn’t a replacement for learning, it’s a tool — and a powerful one when it comes to education. Our new AI Builder allows for “just‑in‑time learning that’s highly personalized,” Zoe says. Even the best teachers or bootcamps can’t deliver that for every learner, on every project, instantly. Perhaps the most exciting vision is how AI changes what a learning environment can be.
Zoe described it beautifully: “I imagine the AI Builder as a workspace… like having all your resources around you and an AI tutor in the background.”
That’s the shift: from learning before you build to learning while you build. We can’t wait to see what you create.
Coding has always served two purposes: the intrinsic drive to build something, and the practical path to a lucrative career. Even the most passionate code aficionados don’t dream of variables or syntax — they want to make a website, a tool, a game. For years, the career upside was impossible to ignore. You could land a stable SWE job, bootstrap your own app, or join a buzzy startup as a first hire.
Generative AI flipped the script. AI now handles the repetitive tasks that used to define entry-level developer roles. At the same time, the barrier to entry for coding and building is lower than ever — you can spin up a working prototype with just an idea and a natural language prompt.
This shift hasn’t eliminated the desire to code, but it’s changed what and who coding is for. If you’re not learning to land a junior dev role, you’re learning to build the thing you’ve been imagining, to add a technical skill to your existing career, or to understand the tools you’re already using at work. And here’s the catch: those goals all require understanding your code, not just having code that works.
At Codecademy, all of these changes excite us about the future of learning to code. We’re introducing the AI Builder, a new project-based learning tool that flips the script by teaching you how to work with AI-generated code from the start. Our approach brings together the immediacy of modern AI tools and the rigor of real instructional design.
Why we created the AI Builder
AI’s speed and efficiency often come with a tradeoff; you can get working code immediately, but you don’t really know what it’s giving you or why it’s built a certain way. Developers use the term “vibe coding” to describe this phenomenon — it’s fast, fun, but shallow; great for demos, less great for long-term skill-building.
If your goal is to understand what you’re building, generic AI output alone won’t get you there. And the more you push these tools into real-world complexity, “the harder it is for them to give you exactly what you want,” says Zoe Bachman, Head of Learning at Codecademy.
Switch to Learn for behind-the-scenes insights and your personalized roadmap.
With the AI Builder you get an education along with the AI output. In the workspace, you can toggle between two tabs: Build, where you work directly with a project and can modify and change code in real time; and Learn, where you get a personalized learning roadmap that’s based on your project.
“We pair the experience of having a working app with a learning path that allows you to reverse engineer how it’s built, so you can deeply understand it and modify it confidently,” Zoe says. We’re calling our hybrid approach to learning-driven development “vibe learning” — it’s powered by AI guidance but rooted in learning science.
Build first; learn continuously
With AI Builder, you start with what you want to do: build the thing in your head. Whether that’s a habit tracker, a portfolio site, or the seed of a bigger idea, you don’t need to have prior coding knowledge to learn and build with the AI Builder. In other words, there are no pre-requisites for creation.
You create a prototype by typing what you’d like to create in natural language. The AI chatbot will ask a few clarifying questions about your needs and overall goal before generating the project. Once the project is created, you can use the chat function to continue describing what you want. (You’re also welcome to go right into the code and start making changes if you already know your way around!)
“It was fun to build something so quickly and be able to see the code and a learning plan for it,” says Grace Krishna, a Code Crew member who beta tested the AI Builder.
When you need clarity on what’s going on behind the scenes in your code, or you hit a wall with AI, that’s a great time to flip over to the Learn tab.
We’re calling our hybrid approach to learning-driven development ‘vibe learning’ — it’s powered by AI guidance but rooted in learning science.
Your project becomes the curriculum
Rather than teaching concepts in the abstract and hoping learners translate them later, AI Builder removes that translation tax entirely. “We’re showing you specifically your code from your project and helping you understand it,” Zoe says.
Rework your prototype in real time with the help of AI.
To build that personalized curriculum, the AI Builder breaks your project’s code into clear milestones and tasks. For each task, it generates an interactive learning loop, which is an activity designed to help you form a mental model of what your specific code is doing.
These loops help you understand the logic behind each part of your project, so you can confidently apply the same thinking to other sections, or even future projects. This approach also ensures everything you learn is directly relevant to what you’re making — so you don’t have to guess when you’ll ever use this.
Why this is vibe learning (not vibe coding)
A key misconception about AI‑assisted development is that it makes learning superficial. AI Builder challenges that by grounding the entire experience in learning science rather than simple code generation. Our entire system is intentionally designed for you to retain knowledge. So, while it might not feel like you’re taking a course, you’re absorbing key concepts just by interacting with AI-generated code.
A Socratic AI, not an answer-spitting chatbot
Our educational AI chatbot is designed to guide you toward an answer through an in-depth questioning approach that’s based on the Socratic method of teaching. Instead of spitting out shortcuts or answers like AI typically does, you get strategic nudges, hints, and questions that build durable mental models.
Research on AI in education shows that just providing an answer makes it harder for learners to retain the information on their own. Zoe compares the Socratic AI to “a personalized tutor, facilitating you acquiring more knowledge, so you’re not totally left on your own.” Our method encourages you to think critically so you really grasp the concepts and can continue to use them in the real world.
Learning loops with real instructional design
Behind the scenes, every learning loop in the Learn tab is built on proven frameworks like inductive learning and the 5E model, a popular STEM teaching framework that’s shorthand for engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate.
You’ll notice that the questions and exercises in the Learn tab feel different than the rest of our courses and paths, and that’s intentional. “The learning loops are designed very well — they get you there inductively,” Zoe says. They’re exploratory without being overwhelming, and evaluative without feeling like tests.
Negar Vahid, a beta tester for the AI Builder appreciated the AI’s interactive question format. “The question-based learning feels engaging, and the starter project it builds is simple but useful,” she says.
This structure ensures you don’t develop the wrong mental models — a known risk in fully constructivist or student-centered environments — while still giving you the freedom to explore.
Why learn when AI can build?
There are some projects that are well-suited for simply vibe coding, like making a personal HTML website or a single-use script to automate a one-time task. Tools like Lovable and v0 are suited exactly for these types of projects.
The longer your code needs to live, and the more complex your project becomes, the more you need to actually understand what you’re building. Joe Holmes, Codecademy Curriculum Developer in the AI and machine learning domain, uses the term “ignorance debt” to describe what happens when you don’t:
“It’s like tech debt squared. It’s much, much worse,” Joe says. “You don’t know what kind of code is coming out. You just are only looking at: Does this kind of generally appear to be what I asked for? You don’t know if there are security flaws. You don’t know if there are performance flaws. You don’t know if you’re leaking sensitive information. You don’t know how to fix anything.”
The tipping point comes down to two factors: complexity and time. If you’re developing software professionally, you’re legally responsible for the code you output. If you’re building something that will serve actual users, you need to be accountable for security, performance, and maintainability. And if your project will need updates or fixes over time (which most do) understanding your codebase becomes essential, not optional.
The good news? Learning doesn’t have to feel like eating your vegetables. “Kids hate veggies and broccoli because we don’t cook it well enough to make it tasty when we first introduce it to them,” says Nhi Pham, Codecademy Curriculum Developer. The same is true for teaching AI: “If you do it well, you’re inspiring people to have these very hygienic practices when working with AI,” she says.
That’s exactly what AI Builder is designed to do — make learning feel as immediate and rewarding as building, so you develop good habits from the start rather than building a lifelong aversion to understanding your own code.
Get started with the AI Builder
AI isn’t a replacement for learning, it’s a tool — and a powerful one when it comes to education. Our new AI Builder allows for “just‑in‑time learning that’s highly personalized,” Zoe says. Even the best teachers or bootcamps can’t deliver that for every learner, on every project, instantly. Perhaps the most exciting vision is how AI changes what a learning environment can be.
Zoe described it beautifully: “I imagine the AI Builder as a workspace… like having all your resources around you and an AI tutor in the background.”
That’s the shift: from learning before you build to learning while you build. We can’t wait to see what you create.
Coding has always served two purposes: the intrinsic drive to build something, and the practical path to a lucrative career. Even the most passionate code aficionados don’t dream of variables or syntax — they want to make a website, a tool, a game. For years, the career upside was impossible to ignore. You could land a stable SWE job, bootstrap your own app, or join a buzzy startup as a first hire.
Generative AI flipped the script. AI now handles the repetitive tasks that used to define entry-level developer roles. At the same time, the barrier to entry for coding and building is lower than ever — you can spin up a working prototype with just an idea and a natural language prompt.
This shift hasn’t eliminated the desire to code, but it’s changed what and who coding is for. If you’re not learning to land a junior dev role, you’re learning to build the thing you’ve been imagining, to add a technical skill to your existing career, or to understand the tools you’re already using at work. And here’s the catch: those goals all require understanding your code, not just having code that works.
At Codecademy, all of these changes excite us about the future of learning to code. We’re introducing the AI Builder, a new project-based learning tool that flips the script by teaching you how to work with AI-generated code from the start. Our approach brings together the immediacy of modern AI tools and the rigor of real instructional design.
Why we created the AI Builder
AI’s speed and efficiency often come with a tradeoff; you can get working code immediately, but you don’t really know what it’s giving you or why it’s built a certain way. Developers use the term “vibe coding” to describe this phenomenon — it’s fast, fun, but shallow; great for demos, less great for long-term skill-building.
If your goal is to understand what you’re building, generic AI output alone won’t get you there. And the more you push these tools into real-world complexity, “the harder it is for them to give you exactly what you want,” says Zoe Bachman, Head of Learning at Codecademy.
Switch to Learn for behind-the-scenes insights and your personalized roadmap.
With the AI Builder you get an education along with the AI output. In the workspace, you can toggle between two tabs: Build, where you work directly with a project and can modify and change code in real time; and Learn, where you get a personalized learning roadmap that’s based on your project.
“We pair the experience of having a working app with a learning path that allows you to reverse engineer how it’s built, so you can deeply understand it and modify it confidently,” Zoe says. We’re calling our hybrid approach to learning-driven development “vibe learning” — it’s powered by AI guidance but rooted in learning science.
Build first; learn continuously
With AI Builder, you start with what you want to do: build the thing in your head. Whether that’s a habit tracker, a portfolio site, or the seed of a bigger idea, you don’t need to have prior coding knowledge to learn and build with the AI Builder. In other words, there are no pre-requisites for creation.
You create a prototype by typing what you’d like to create in natural language. The AI chatbot will ask a few clarifying questions about your needs and overall goal before generating the project. Once the project is created, you can use the chat function to continue describing what you want. (You’re also welcome to go right into the code and start making changes if you already know your way around!)
“It was fun to build something so quickly and be able to see the code and a learning plan for it,” says Grace Krishna, a Code Crew member who beta tested the AI Builder.
When you need clarity on what’s going on behind the scenes in your code, or you hit a wall with AI, that’s a great time to flip over to the Learn tab.
We’re calling our hybrid approach to learning-driven development ‘vibe learning’ — it’s powered by AI guidance but rooted in learning science.
Your project becomes the curriculum
Rather than teaching concepts in the abstract and hoping learners translate them later, AI Builder removes that translation tax entirely. “We’re showing you specifically your code from your project and helping you understand it,” Zoe says.
Rework your prototype in real time with the help of AI.
To build that personalized curriculum, the AI Builder breaks your project’s code into clear milestones and tasks. For each task, it generates an interactive learning loop, which is an activity designed to help you form a mental model of what your specific code is doing.
These loops help you understand the logic behind each part of your project, so you can confidently apply the same thinking to other sections, or even future projects. This approach also ensures everything you learn is directly relevant to what you’re making — so you don’t have to guess when you’ll ever use this.
Why this is vibe learning (not vibe coding)
A key misconception about AI‑assisted development is that it makes learning superficial. AI Builder challenges that by grounding the entire experience in learning science rather than simple code generation. Our entire system is intentionally designed for you to retain knowledge. So, while it might not feel like you’re taking a course, you’re absorbing key concepts just by interacting with AI-generated code.
A Socratic AI, not an answer-spitting chatbot
Our educational AI chatbot is designed to guide you toward an answer through an in-depth questioning approach that’s based on the Socratic method of teaching. Instead of spitting out shortcuts or answers like AI typically does, you get strategic nudges, hints, and questions that build durable mental models.
Research on AI in education shows that just providing an answer makes it harder for learners to retain the information on their own. Zoe compares the Socratic AI to “a personalized tutor, facilitating you acquiring more knowledge, so you’re not totally left on your own.” Our method encourages you to think critically so you really grasp the concepts and can continue to use them in the real world.
Learning loops with real instructional design
Behind the scenes, every learning loop in the Learn tab is built on proven frameworks like inductive learning and the 5E model, a popular STEM teaching framework that’s shorthand for engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate.
You’ll notice that the questions and exercises in the Learn tab feel different than the rest of our courses and paths, and that’s intentional. “The learning loops are designed very well — they get you there inductively,” Zoe says. They’re exploratory without being overwhelming, and evaluative without feeling like tests.
Negar Vahid, a beta tester for the AI Builder appreciated the AI’s interactive question format. “The question-based learning feels engaging, and the starter project it builds is simple but useful,” she says.
This structure ensures you don’t develop the wrong mental models — a known risk in fully constructivist or student-centered environments — while still giving you the freedom to explore.
Why learn when AI can build?
There are some projects that are well-suited for simply vibe coding, like making a personal HTML website or a single-use script to automate a one-time task. Tools like Lovable and v0 are suited exactly for these types of projects.
The longer your code needs to live, and the more complex your project becomes, the more you need to actually understand what you’re building. Joe Holmes, Codecademy Curriculum Developer in the AI and machine learning domain, uses the term “ignorance debt” to describe what happens when you don’t:
“It’s like tech debt squared. It’s much, much worse,” Joe says. “You don’t know what kind of code is coming out. You just are only looking at: Does this kind of generally appear to be what I asked for? You don’t know if there are security flaws. You don’t know if there are performance flaws. You don’t know if you’re leaking sensitive information. You don’t know how to fix anything.”
The tipping point comes down to two factors: complexity and time. If you’re developing software professionally, you’re legally responsible for the code you output. If you’re building something that will serve actual users, you need to be accountable for security, performance, and maintainability. And if your project will need updates or fixes over time (which most do) understanding your codebase becomes essential, not optional.
The good news? Learning doesn’t have to feel like eating your vegetables. “Kids hate veggies and broccoli because we don’t cook it well enough to make it tasty when we first introduce it to them,” says Nhi Pham, Codecademy Curriculum Developer. The same is true for teaching AI: “If you do it well, you’re inspiring people to have these very hygienic practices when working with AI,” she says.
That’s exactly what AI Builder is designed to do — make learning feel as immediate and rewarding as building, so you develop good habits from the start rather than building a lifelong aversion to understanding your own code.
Get started with the AI Builder
AI isn’t a replacement for learning, it’s a tool — and a powerful one when it comes to education. Our new AI Builder allows for “just‑in‑time learning that’s highly personalized,” Zoe says. Even the best teachers or bootcamps can’t deliver that for every learner, on every project, instantly. Perhaps the most exciting vision is how AI changes what a learning environment can be.
Zoe described it beautifully: “I imagine the AI Builder as a workspace… like having all your resources around you and an AI tutor in the background.”
That’s the shift: from learning before you build to learning while you build. We can’t wait to see what you create.
Coding has always served two purposes: the intrinsic drive to build something, and the practical path to a lucrative career. Even the most passionate code aficionados don’t dream of variables or syntax — they want to make a website, a tool, a game. For years, the career upside was impossible to ignore. You could land a stable SWE job, bootstrap your own app, or join a buzzy startup as a first hire.
Generative AI flipped the script. AI now handles the repetitive tasks that used to define entry-level developer roles. At the same time, the barrier to entry for coding and building is lower than ever — you can spin up a working prototype with just an idea and a natural language prompt.
This shift hasn’t eliminated the desire to code, but it’s changed what and who coding is for. If you’re not learning to land a junior dev role, you’re learning to build the thing you’ve been imagining, to add a technical skill to your existing career, or to understand the tools you’re already using at work. And here’s the catch: those goals all require understanding your code, not just having code that works.
At Codecademy, all of these changes excite us about the future of learning to code. We’re introducing the AI Builder, a new project-based learning tool that flips the script by teaching you how to work with AI-generated code from the start. Our approach brings together the immediacy of modern AI tools and the rigor of real instructional design.
Why we created the AI Builder
AI’s speed and efficiency often come with a tradeoff; you can get working code immediately, but you don’t really know what it’s giving you or why it’s built a certain way. Developers use the term “vibe coding” to describe this phenomenon — it’s fast, fun, but shallow; great for demos, less great for long-term skill-building.
If your goal is to understand what you’re building, generic AI output alone won’t get you there. And the more you push these tools into real-world complexity, “the harder it is for them to give you exactly what you want,” says Zoe Bachman, Head of Learning at Codecademy.
Switch to Learn for behind-the-scenes insights and your personalized roadmap.
With the AI Builder you get an education along with the AI output. In the workspace, you can toggle between two tabs: Build, where you work directly with a project and can modify and change code in real time; and Learn, where you get a personalized learning roadmap that’s based on your project.
“We pair the experience of having a working app with a learning path that allows you to reverse engineer how it’s built, so you can deeply understand it and modify it confidently,” Zoe says. We’re calling our hybrid approach to learning-driven development “vibe learning” — it’s powered by AI guidance but rooted in learning science.
Build first; learn continuously
With AI Builder, you start with what you want to do: build the thing in your head. Whether that’s a habit tracker, a portfolio site, or the seed of a bigger idea, you don’t need to have prior coding knowledge to learn and build with the AI Builder. In other words, there are no pre-requisites for creation.
You create a prototype by typing what you’d like to create in natural language. The AI chatbot will ask a few clarifying questions about your needs and overall goal before generating the project. Once the project is created, you can use the chat function to continue describing what you want. (You’re also welcome to go right into the code and start making changes if you already know your way around!)
“It was fun to build something so quickly and be able to see the code and a learning plan for it,” says Grace Krishna, a Code Crew member who beta tested the AI Builder.
When you need clarity on what’s going on behind the scenes in your code, or you hit a wall with AI, that’s a great time to flip over to the Learn tab.
We’re calling our hybrid approach to learning-driven development ‘vibe learning’ — it’s powered by AI guidance but rooted in learning science.
Your project becomes the curriculum
Rather than teaching concepts in the abstract and hoping learners translate them later, AI Builder removes that translation tax entirely. “We’re showing you specifically your code from your project and helping you understand it,” Zoe says.
Rework your prototype in real time with the help of AI.
To build that personalized curriculum, the AI Builder breaks your project’s code into clear milestones and tasks. For each task, it generates an interactive learning loop, which is an activity designed to help you form a mental model of what your specific code is doing.
These loops help you understand the logic behind each part of your project, so you can confidently apply the same thinking to other sections, or even future projects. This approach also ensures everything you learn is directly relevant to what you’re making — so you don’t have to guess when you’ll ever use this.
Why this is vibe learning (not vibe coding)
A key misconception about AI‑assisted development is that it makes learning superficial. AI Builder challenges that by grounding the entire experience in learning science rather than simple code generation. Our entire system is intentionally designed for you to retain knowledge. So, while it might not feel like you’re taking a course, you’re absorbing key concepts just by interacting with AI-generated code.
A Socratic AI, not an answer-spitting chatbot
Our educational AI chatbot is designed to guide you toward an answer through an in-depth questioning approach that’s based on the Socratic method of teaching. Instead of spitting out shortcuts or answers like AI typically does, you get strategic nudges, hints, and questions that build durable mental models.
Research on AI in education shows that just providing an answer makes it harder for learners to retain the information on their own. Zoe compares the Socratic AI to “a personalized tutor, facilitating you acquiring more knowledge, so you’re not totally left on your own.” Our method encourages you to think critically so you really grasp the concepts and can continue to use them in the real world.
Learning loops with real instructional design
Behind the scenes, every learning loop in the Learn tab is built on proven frameworks like inductive learning and the 5E model, a popular STEM teaching framework that’s shorthand for engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate.
You’ll notice that the questions and exercises in the Learn tab feel different than the rest of our courses and paths, and that’s intentional. “The learning loops are designed very well — they get you there inductively,” Zoe says. They’re exploratory without being overwhelming, and evaluative without feeling like tests.
Negar Vahid, a beta tester for the AI Builder appreciated the AI’s interactive question format. “The question-based learning feels engaging, and the starter project it builds is simple but useful,” she says.
This structure ensures you don’t develop the wrong mental models — a known risk in fully constructivist or student-centered environments — while still giving you the freedom to explore.
Why learn when AI can build?
There are some projects that are well-suited for simply vibe coding, like making a personal HTML website or a single-use script to automate a one-time task. Tools like Lovable and v0 are suited exactly for these types of projects.
The longer your code needs to live, and the more complex your project becomes, the more you need to actually understand what you’re building. Joe Holmes, Codecademy Curriculum Developer in the AI and machine learning domain, uses the term “ignorance debt” to describe what happens when you don’t:
“It’s like tech debt squared. It’s much, much worse,” Joe says. “You don’t know what kind of code is coming out. You just are only looking at: Does this kind of generally appear to be what I asked for? You don’t know if there are security flaws. You don’t know if there are performance flaws. You don’t know if you’re leaking sensitive information. You don’t know how to fix anything.”
The tipping point comes down to two factors: complexity and time. If you’re developing software professionally, you’re legally responsible for the code you output. If you’re building something that will serve actual users, you need to be accountable for security, performance, and maintainability. And if your project will need updates or fixes over time (which most do) understanding your codebase becomes essential, not optional.
The good news? Learning doesn’t have to feel like eating your vegetables. “Kids hate veggies and broccoli because we don’t cook it well enough to make it tasty when we first introduce it to them,” says Nhi Pham, Codecademy Curriculum Developer. The same is true for teaching AI: “If you do it well, you’re inspiring people to have these very hygienic practices when working with AI,” she says.
That’s exactly what AI Builder is designed to do — make learning feel as immediate and rewarding as building, so you develop good habits from the start rather than building a lifelong aversion to understanding your own code.
Get started with the AI Builder
AI isn’t a replacement for learning, it’s a tool — and a powerful one when it comes to education. Our new AI Builder allows for “just‑in‑time learning that’s highly personalized,” Zoe says. Even the best teachers or bootcamps can’t deliver that for every learner, on every project, instantly. Perhaps the most exciting vision is how AI changes what a learning environment can be.
Zoe described it beautifully: “I imagine the AI Builder as a workspace… like having all your resources around you and an AI tutor in the background.”
That’s the shift: from learning before you build to learning while you build. We can’t wait to see what you create.
Coding has always served two purposes: the intrinsic drive to build something, and the practical path to a lucrative career. Even the most passionate code aficionados don’t dream of variables or syntax — they want to make a website, a tool, a game. For years, the career upside was impossible to ignore. You could land a stable SWE job, bootstrap your own app, or join a buzzy startup as a first hire.
Generative AI flipped the script. AI now handles the repetitive tasks that used to define entry-level developer roles. At the same time, the barrier to entry for coding and building is lower than ever — you can spin up a working prototype with just an idea and a natural language prompt.
This shift hasn’t eliminated the desire to code, but it’s changed what and who coding is for. If you’re not learning to land a junior dev role, you’re learning to build the thing you’ve been imagining, to add a technical skill to your existing career, or to understand the tools you’re already using at work. And here’s the catch: those goals all require understanding your code, not just having code that works.
At Codecademy, all of these changes excite us about the future of learning to code. We’re introducing the AI Builder, a new project-based learning tool that flips the script by teaching you how to work with AI-generated code from the start. Our approach brings together the immediacy of modern AI tools and the rigor of real instructional design.
Why we created the AI Builder
AI’s speed and efficiency often come with a tradeoff; you can get working code immediately, but you don’t really know what it’s giving you or why it’s built a certain way. Developers use the term “vibe coding” to describe this phenomenon — it’s fast, fun, but shallow; great for demos, less great for long-term skill-building.
If your goal is to understand what you’re building, generic AI output alone won’t get you there. And the more you push these tools into real-world complexity, “the harder it is for them to give you exactly what you want,” says Zoe Bachman, Head of Learning at Codecademy.
Switch to Learn for behind-the-scenes insights and your personalized roadmap.
With the AI Builder you get an education along with the AI output. In the workspace, you can toggle between two tabs: Build, where you work directly with a project and can modify and change code in real time; and Learn, where you get a personalized learning roadmap that’s based on your project.
“We pair the experience of having a working app with a learning path that allows you to reverse engineer how it’s built, so you can deeply understand it and modify it confidently,” Zoe says. We’re calling our hybrid approach to learning-driven development “vibe learning” — it’s powered by AI guidance but rooted in learning science.
Build first; learn continuously
With AI Builder, you start with what you want to do: build the thing in your head. Whether that’s a habit tracker, a portfolio site, or the seed of a bigger idea, you don’t need to have prior coding knowledge to learn and build with the AI Builder. In other words, there are no pre-requisites for creation.
You create a prototype by typing what you’d like to create in natural language. The AI chatbot will ask a few clarifying questions about your needs and overall goal before generating the project. Once the project is created, you can use the chat function to continue describing what you want. (You’re also welcome to go right into the code and start making changes if you already know your way around!)
“It was fun to build something so quickly and be able to see the code and a learning plan for it,” says Grace Krishna, a Code Crew member who beta tested the AI Builder.
When you need clarity on what’s going on behind the scenes in your code, or you hit a wall with AI, that’s a great time to flip over to the Learn tab.
We’re calling our hybrid approach to learning-driven development ‘vibe learning’ — it’s powered by AI guidance but rooted in learning science.
Your project becomes the curriculum
Rather than teaching concepts in the abstract and hoping learners translate them later, AI Builder removes that translation tax entirely. “We’re showing you specifically your code from your project and helping you understand it,” Zoe says.
Rework your prototype in real time with the help of AI.
To build that personalized curriculum, the AI Builder breaks your project’s code into clear milestones and tasks. For each task, it generates an interactive learning loop, which is an activity designed to help you form a mental model of what your specific code is doing.
These loops help you understand the logic behind each part of your project, so you can confidently apply the same thinking to other sections, or even future projects. This approach also ensures everything you learn is directly relevant to what you’re making — so you don’t have to guess when you’ll ever use this.
Why this is vibe learning (not vibe coding)
A key misconception about AI‑assisted development is that it makes learning superficial. AI Builder challenges that by grounding the entire experience in learning science rather than simple code generation. Our entire system is intentionally designed for you to retain knowledge. So, while it might not feel like you’re taking a course, you’re absorbing key concepts just by interacting with AI-generated code.
A Socratic AI, not an answer-spitting chatbot
Our educational AI chatbot is designed to guide you toward an answer through an in-depth questioning approach that’s based on the Socratic method of teaching. Instead of spitting out shortcuts or answers like AI typically does, you get strategic nudges, hints, and questions that build durable mental models.
Research on AI in education shows that just providing an answer makes it harder for learners to retain the information on their own. Zoe compares the Socratic AI to “a personalized tutor, facilitating you acquiring more knowledge, so you’re not totally left on your own.” Our method encourages you to think critically so you really grasp the concepts and can continue to use them in the real world.
Learning loops with real instructional design
Behind the scenes, every learning loop in the Learn tab is built on proven frameworks like inductive learning and the 5E model, a popular STEM teaching framework that’s shorthand for engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate.
You’ll notice that the questions and exercises in the Learn tab feel different than the rest of our courses and paths, and that’s intentional. “The learning loops are designed very well — they get you there inductively,” Zoe says. They’re exploratory without being overwhelming, and evaluative without feeling like tests.
Negar Vahid, a beta tester for the AI Builder appreciated the AI’s interactive question format. “The question-based learning feels engaging, and the starter project it builds is simple but useful,” she says.
This structure ensures you don’t develop the wrong mental models — a known risk in fully constructivist or student-centered environments — while still giving you the freedom to explore.
Why learn when AI can build?
There are some projects that are well-suited for simply vibe coding, like making a personal HTML website or a single-use script to automate a one-time task. Tools like Lovable and v0 are suited exactly for these types of projects.
The longer your code needs to live, and the more complex your project becomes, the more you need to actually understand what you’re building. Joe Holmes, Codecademy Curriculum Developer in the AI and machine learning domain, uses the term “ignorance debt” to describe what happens when you don’t:
“It’s like tech debt squared. It’s much, much worse,” Joe says. “You don’t know what kind of code is coming out. You just are only looking at: Does this kind of generally appear to be what I asked for? You don’t know if there are security flaws. You don’t know if there are performance flaws. You don’t know if you’re leaking sensitive information. You don’t know how to fix anything.”
The tipping point comes down to two factors: complexity and time. If you’re developing software professionally, you’re legally responsible for the code you output. If you’re building something that will serve actual users, you need to be accountable for security, performance, and maintainability. And if your project will need updates or fixes over time (which most do) understanding your codebase becomes essential, not optional.
The good news? Learning doesn’t have to feel like eating your vegetables. “Kids hate veggies and broccoli because we don’t cook it well enough to make it tasty when we first introduce it to them,” says Nhi Pham, Codecademy Curriculum Developer. The same is true for teaching AI: “If you do it well, you’re inspiring people to have these very hygienic practices when working with AI,” she says.
That’s exactly what AI Builder is designed to do — make learning feel as immediate and rewarding as building, so you develop good habits from the start rather than building a lifelong aversion to understanding your own code.
Get started with the AI Builder
AI isn’t a replacement for learning, it’s a tool — and a powerful one when it comes to education. Our new AI Builder allows for “just‑in‑time learning that’s highly personalized,” Zoe says. Even the best teachers or bootcamps can’t deliver that for every learner, on every project, instantly. Perhaps the most exciting vision is how AI changes what a learning environment can be.
Zoe described it beautifully: “I imagine the AI Builder as a workspace… like having all your resources around you and an AI tutor in the background.”
That’s the shift: from learning before you build to learning while you build. We can’t wait to see what you create.
We often see sites crash or get hacked simply because they aren’t kept current. These situations are easily avoided with a little routine maintenance. In this post, I’ll show you how to update WordPress effectively to keep your site running at its prime.
Responsibilities of WordPress owner
Owning a self-hosted WordPress site is like owning a car. To keep it in tip-top condition, you must perform regular maintenance. Just as a car needs oil changes, your themes, plugins, and WordPress core must be updated to ensure everything stays secure and functional.
The Golden Rule: Back Up First
Updates can feel scary because, on rare occasions, a plugin conflict can cause a glitch.
Because there is a small risk of things going wrong, always back up your database before you learn how to update WordPress and its components.
Issues caused by updates are very rare, so don’t let fear prevent you from securing your site. If you ever run into trouble after an update, contact your hosting provider. Most hosts can help you restore your most recent backup quickly.
Prefer to stay hands-off? We can handle all your updates for you!
WordPress is constantly evolving. Every update is packed with security patches, bug fixes, and new features. Here is why staying current matters:
Security Fixes: According to WPBeginner, 83% of hacked WordPress sites are not updated. Hackers study release notes to find vulnerabilities in old versions. Updating immediately patches these holes and shuts the door on attacks.
Bug Fixes: No software is perfect. While some bugs are minor (like a disappearing sidebar), others can cause site crashes or security leaks. Developers are quick to fix these, but you only get the protection if you actually run the update.
New Features & Functionality: Since 2003, WordPress has been refining its platform. Staying updated ensures you always have access to the latest tools, faster speeds, and improved functionality for your themes and plugins.
How to Spot Available Updates
WordPress makes it easy to stay current. When you’re logged into your dashboard, look for the circular arrows icon in the top menu bar or the Updates tab in the sidebar. Both will show a notification bubble with the number of pending updates.
Clicking either link takes you to the WordPress Updates page, where you can update everything in one place. You can also see specific notifications within your Plugins tab next to any tool that requires an update.
How to Update WordPress
Before attempting any updates, remember to backup your database. It’s also wise to plan to do your updates at a time when your traffic is at its lowest because your site may appear in maintenance mode for a few seconds during the updates.
When you are ready, visit your “WordPress Updates” page to perform your updates.
Once here, just click on any items listed here and click the update button.
WordPress Version
Check your WordPress core first. Most sites now use an auto-update system for minor releases, but if a manual update is available, click the update button to ensure you have the latest security patches.
Plugins
You can update all plugins at once, but I recommend updating them individually. Check your site between each update; if a glitch occurs, you’ll know exactly which plugin caused it. Always verify that the plugin is compatible with your current WordPress version before clicking “Update.”
Themes
Perform updates for the Genesis Framework and even inactive themes. If you are using one of our designs, updating the Genesis Framework is safe and will not disrupt your site’s layout.
Want us to handle your updates and maintenance for you?
Are there any other questions you have about WordPress updates that weren’t covered in this post? If so, please share them as a comment and we’ll do our best to answer them. We can also help you with the updates. Contact us to get more information about that.
Coding has always served two purposes: the intrinsic drive to build something, and the practical path to a lucrative career. Even the most passionate code aficionados don’t dream of variables or syntax — they want to make a website, a tool, a game. For years, the career upside was impossible to ignore. You could land a stable SWE job, bootstrap your own app, or join a buzzy startup as a first hire.
Generative AI flipped the script. AI now handles the repetitive tasks that used to define entry-level developer roles. At the same time, the barrier to entry for coding and building is lower than ever — you can spin up a working prototype with just an idea and a natural language prompt.
This shift hasn’t eliminated the desire to code, but it’s changed what and who coding is for. If you’re not learning to land a junior dev role, you’re learning to build the thing you’ve been imagining, to add a technical skill to your existing career, or to understand the tools you’re already using at work. And here’s the catch: those goals all require understanding your code, not just having code that works.
At Codecademy, all of these changes excite us about the future of learning to code. We’re introducing the AI Builder, a new project-based learning tool that flips the script by teaching you how to work with AI-generated code from the start. Our approach brings together the immediacy of modern AI tools and the rigor of real instructional design.
Why we created the AI Builder
AI’s speed and efficiency often come with a tradeoff; you can get working code immediately, but you don’t really know what it’s giving you or why it’s built a certain way. Developers use the term “vibe coding” to describe this phenomenon — it’s fast, fun, but shallow; great for demos, less great for long-term skill-building.
If your goal is to understand what you’re building, generic AI output alone won’t get you there. And the more you push these tools into real-world complexity, “the harder it is for them to give you exactly what you want,” says Zoe Bachman, Head of Learning at Codecademy.
Switch to Learn for behind-the-scenes insights and your personalized roadmap.
With the AI Builder you get an education along with the AI output. In the workspace, you can toggle between two tabs: Build, where you work directly with a project and can modify and change code in real time; and Learn, where you get a personalized learning roadmap that’s based on your project.
“We pair the experience of having a working app with a learning path that allows you to reverse engineer how it’s built, so you can deeply understand it and modify it confidently,” Zoe says. We’re calling our hybrid approach to learning-driven development “vibe learning” — it’s powered by AI guidance but rooted in learning science.
Build first; learn continuously
With AI Builder, you start with what you want to do: build the thing in your head. Whether that’s a habit tracker, a portfolio site, or the seed of a bigger idea, you don’t need to have prior coding knowledge to learn and build with the AI Builder. In other words, there are no pre-requisites for creation.
You create a prototype by typing what you’d like to create in natural language. The AI chatbot will ask a few clarifying questions about your needs and overall goal before generating the project. Once the project is created, you can use the chat function to continue describing what you want. (You’re also welcome to go right into the code and start making changes if you already know your way around!)
“It was fun to build something so quickly and be able to see the code and a learning plan for it,” says Grace Krishna, a Code Crew member who beta tested the AI Builder.
When you need clarity on what’s going on behind the scenes in your code, or you hit a wall with AI, that’s a great time to flip over to the Learn tab.
We’re calling our hybrid approach to learning-driven development ‘vibe learning’ — it’s powered by AI guidance but rooted in learning science.
Your project becomes the curriculum
Rather than teaching concepts in the abstract and hoping learners translate them later, AI Builder removes that translation tax entirely. “We’re showing you specifically your code from your project and helping you understand it,” Zoe says.
Rework your prototype in real time with the help of AI.
To build that personalized curriculum, the AI Builder breaks your project’s code into clear milestones and tasks. For each task, it generates an interactive learning loop, which is an activity designed to help you form a mental model of what your specific code is doing.
These loops help you understand the logic behind each part of your project, so you can confidently apply the same thinking to other sections, or even future projects. This approach also ensures everything you learn is directly relevant to what you’re making — so you don’t have to guess when you’ll ever use this.
Why this is vibe learning (not vibe coding)
A key misconception about AI‑assisted development is that it makes learning superficial. AI Builder challenges that by grounding the entire experience in learning science rather than simple code generation. Our entire system is intentionally designed for you to retain knowledge. So, while it might not feel like you’re taking a course, you’re absorbing key concepts just by interacting with AI-generated code.
A Socratic AI, not an answer-spitting chatbot
Our educational AI chatbot is designed to guide you toward an answer through an in-depth questioning approach that’s based on the Socratic method of teaching. Instead of spitting out shortcuts or answers like AI typically does, you get strategic nudges, hints, and questions that build durable mental models.
Research on AI in education shows that just providing an answer makes it harder for learners to retain the information on their own. Zoe compares the Socratic AI to “a personalized tutor, facilitating you acquiring more knowledge, so you’re not totally left on your own.” Our method encourages you to think critically so you really grasp the concepts and can continue to use them in the real world.
Learning loops with real instructional design
Behind the scenes, every learning loop in the Learn tab is built on proven frameworks like inductive learning and the 5E model, a popular STEM teaching framework that’s shorthand for engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate.
You’ll notice that the questions and exercises in the Learn tab feel different than the rest of our courses and paths, and that’s intentional. “The learning loops are designed very well — they get you there inductively,” Zoe says. They’re exploratory without being overwhelming, and evaluative without feeling like tests.
Negar Vahid, a beta tester for the AI Builder appreciated the AI’s interactive question format. “The question-based learning feels engaging, and the starter project it builds is simple but useful,” she says.
This structure ensures you don’t develop the wrong mental models — a known risk in fully constructivist or student-centered environments — while still giving you the freedom to explore.
Why learn when AI can build?
There are some projects that are well-suited for simply vibe coding, like making a personal HTML website or a single-use script to automate a one-time task. Tools like Lovable and v0 are suited exactly for these types of projects.
The longer your code needs to live, and the more complex your project becomes, the more you need to actually understand what you’re building. Joe Holmes, Codecademy Curriculum Developer in the AI and machine learning domain, uses the term “ignorance debt” to describe what happens when you don’t:
“It’s like tech debt squared. It’s much, much worse,” Joe says. “You don’t know what kind of code is coming out. You just are only looking at: Does this kind of generally appear to be what I asked for? You don’t know if there are security flaws. You don’t know if there are performance flaws. You don’t know if you’re leaking sensitive information. You don’t know how to fix anything.”
The tipping point comes down to two factors: complexity and time. If you’re developing software professionally, you’re legally responsible for the code you output. If you’re building something that will serve actual users, you need to be accountable for security, performance, and maintainability. And if your project will need updates or fixes over time (which most do) understanding your codebase becomes essential, not optional.
The good news? Learning doesn’t have to feel like eating your vegetables. “Kids hate veggies and broccoli because we don’t cook it well enough to make it tasty when we first introduce it to them,” says Nhi Pham, Codecademy Curriculum Developer. The same is true for teaching AI: “If you do it well, you’re inspiring people to have these very hygienic practices when working with AI,” she says.
That’s exactly what AI Builder is designed to do — make learning feel as immediate and rewarding as building, so you develop good habits from the start rather than building a lifelong aversion to understanding your own code.
Get started with the AI Builder
AI isn’t a replacement for learning, it’s a tool — and a powerful one when it comes to education. Our new AI Builder allows for “just‑in‑time learning that’s highly personalized,” Zoe says. Even the best teachers or bootcamps can’t deliver that for every learner, on every project, instantly. Perhaps the most exciting vision is how AI changes what a learning environment can be.
Zoe described it beautifully: “I imagine the AI Builder as a workspace… like having all your resources around you and an AI tutor in the background.”
That’s the shift: from learning before you build to learning while you build. We can’t wait to see what you create.
For those individuals who would rather read a summary of the post than the entire post, see below. A.I. created this. I reviewed it to verify and validate the information as accurate. The summary presents key takeaways. To read the entire POST, scroll down after the summary.
Please note that this is a work in progress, but I hope you see value in it. Feel free to write your feedback in the comments area.
There is no simple answer regarding the differences between internal and external learning systems. The landscape is complex with various types of learning systems, including Learning Management Systems (LMS), Learning Platforms, Talent Development Platforms, Learning Experience Platforms (LXP), and Mentoring Platforms, each serving different audiences such as employees, customers, clients, partners, and distributors.
Internal Learning Systems
Internal systems focus on onboarding, skilling, and upskilling employees. Key features include:
Skill Development: Tools for reskilling employees, offering coaching, mentorship, and opportunities to practice new skills.
Content Specificity: Content delivery aligned with job roles and personal development goals.
Skill Ratings and Job Roles: Mechanisms to rate skills and align job roles with opportunities, requiring managerial oversight for approvals.
Challenges include employees’ assumptions regarding opportunities’ approvals and a lack of deep engagement tools, such as integrative video communication for assessments.
External Learning Systems
In contrast, external systems emphasize customer training and engagement, characterized by:
Multi-tenant Capabilities: Ability to serve various external audiences.
E-commerce Features: Systems that support customer transactions, particularly in training environments.
Data-Driven Metrics: Insights centered around customer training, helping organizations track performance and completion rates.
Key Differences
Focus Areas: Internal systems prioritize employee development, while external systems cater to clients and customers.
Metrics Usage: Internal metrics revolve around learning paths for employees, whereas external metrics focus on customer engagement and training effectiveness.
Functionality: Internal systems might lack certain features for external audiences, like extensive e-commerce capabilities.
COMPLETE ARTICLE
There is no simple answer. It is not a cut-and-dry retort.
There are different types of learning systems—LMS, Learning Platform, Talent Development Platform, LXP, Mentoring Platform, mentoring in an internal system (for employees, regardless of whether they are frontline, at a plant—blue collar, if you will, and those in the office—even remote).
External are your customers, clients, partners, distributors.
They can be an association.
You could have an LMS or another learning system offering multi-tenant – think parent-child, portal-sub portal angle.
This allows you, the entity, to have internal and external audiences —perhaps multiple internal audiences—thus eliminating all those other LMSs at your company and, heck, lots of externals.
If that isn’t enough, you could purchase a system that heavily angles internal and goes external, and vice versa.
Ubiquitous plays strongly here.
This gets back to the whole internal vs. external LMS debate (I will use this term simply because it is the largest segment in the learning system space, and even when people seek an LXP, nowadays, they are angling into an LMS with LXP functionality).
How do you define, or let’s get to the point, the differences between internal and external?
This says, “Okay, where should you go?”
Tell me, define it, and explain it in easy-to-understand terminology.
Internal
Onboarding your employees involves skilling and upskilling.
For those who recognize the AI is coming, reskill those you want to do so.
Coach them.
Mentor them.
Place them into an opportunity to practice skills for them.
Provide them with content that aligns with their job role or skills they need or want to develop.
The former, with the assigned angle and/or content, is often needed.
Skill ratings.
Job roles with opportunities (as some systems offer, and the number is growing).
The opportunities are internal and still require the manager to review this to either green-light or not.
Another manager or department head may review this, pushing the two to one category.
The manager initially has a say, and it is foolish to assume they will say, “Okay, you are perfect for the role; you are approved – i.e., hired. “
There are way too many variables at play.
Worse, the employee presumes that by the green light for the opportunity – they have the gig.
Systems today are missing the picture – those that zero in on internal.
I applied for the opportunity based on skills ratings and the skills developed that aligned highest—assuming that is how the system sees it nowadays with vendors leveraging AI—and I submitted.
I get accepted.
The next step should be a video integration, where the manager of said opportunity can talk to the learner and ask questions OR, at the minimum, go text and have the manager ask deep-thinking questions, eliminating the ability for the employee to use, say, the free ChatGPT with a cut-and-paste.
Today, AI is unable to respond to deep thinking.
This would be a straightforward way—frankly, they are this way, for now—to show that the system is truly internal.
A powerful mechanism.
A missed opportunity.
Internal Tricky
The combo systems—those that go internal and external, depending on the higher percentage of the audience base—may skew.
That is changing because the vendors themselves are not familiar enough with the external audience—which is often the case here—and as a result, the system skews more to the employee side.
For me, it is self-evident.
I can tell within the first 10 minutes or less.
The buyer, though, is unaware of the combo audience based on the said percentage.
One would think the feature set identifies the skew.
And you would be right, up to a point.
If said vendor has played, let’s say, over 90% employee focus and now wants to jump into external – a segment that overwhelmingly vendors wish to into the space.
Then, the vendor enters, ignoring the pitfalls, even if they lack the functionality to achieve growth.
They land clients, everybody does – even big names.
A Case Study
Okay, not really.
I will name one vendor who pushes the apparent narrative that it is all about customer training.
SkillJar
I like the system, but on the metrics side, you will see data points tied to completed learning—a tell-tale sign of an internal audience.
Completed means assigned.
And it is only applicable to an external audience – if it is tied to a certification program.
That data point should be visible on the primary data screen.
This tells the head of the association or company that has a certification program a comparison of where that individual or individuals are if the certification is not professional—i.e., a professional-focused association instead of a trade association.
There is a vast difference.
Pluralsight, for example, provides such data—it is clear to anyone looking at it, from the certification of content completion and program steps to the various data points.
SkillJar, though, doesn’t have it.
Assigned learning?
I am an employee who needs to know how to use an MRI machine – the customer/client of the company who makes MRI machines, and thus, that training goes to the employees (a typical scenario).
The employee already knows how to do X and Y and is curious about Z, but maybe only certain pieces.
The employee then will go in and out, focusing on what pieces.
There isn’t a timeframe for completion.
Therefore, the assigned punch shouldn’t be visible.
On the other hand, SJ offers many data points/metrics for customer training.
Which begs the question.
Why not show that on the main dashboard that someone sees?
A combo crux.
Internal – can you tell the difference?
Yes.
To a point.
Ignore all the content assigned to a specific group or just one human – everyone can do that.
Ignore the ability for one group to see X catalog versus another group.
There are only maybe three functions that a vendor who plays strongly—and I mean over 90% externally—will lack or be seriously weak at.
But if you want rule approvals for multiple administrators or something similar, a system that is even heavily internal may not have them.
Does it scream that the system is not focused internally?
The earlier example of missing functionality of, let’s say, even CEUs or CPDs to be assigned to convent and visible is not universal to every system, regardless of target audience.
No, it just means they lack it.
The List of Internal Differences
Goal Management
Workflows—Customer training vendors who have plunged into internal may have it, but it will not be as strong as an internal system —that said, plenty of internal systems lack it.
Workflows that are expanding far more than current – this is a growing trend with internal – Learn Amp has it. Impressive.
Job Roles are intertwined with skills and content and are becoming tied to external sources, too. However, this is not universal. The job roles are the key here. Combos really have it—again, it is not universal.
Job Role driven
Strong level with skill ratings – If a vendor plays internally at a greater level, they will usually have this. Skill ratings are becoming universal, except when the vendor is 98 to 100% only customer training – external. Combos are all over the map with this. For example, Docebo has it and plays stronger externally – audience-wise – but feature sets are a perfect example of trying to do both segments. They have skill ratings, but compared to a Cornerstone, it isn’t at that tier. Neither do several other vendors who are at a Cornerstone level.
Skills Management—From skill mapping to skills capabilities, internal will always be stronger here. Combos can be solid, but they haven’t, in my opinion, achieved a level of heavy internal. And a combo that is more external but plays internal, who has it, has yet to penetrate at a solid level.
Metrics are all around L&D – That said, being great at it versus yuck is common. It seems to be either you are good at doing it or poor. Jekyll and Hyde here. I always note that if you can’t look at your data and get a firm idea of your learning story, which you should, it is a colossal failure. Anyway, this is a key piece I always look at, and I can tell in less than two minutes whether they are heavy internal and good at it or solid or strong internal and horrible at it. External – their metrics are not even close to this, even in the Combo space. If they are only External, their metrics are all around external.
Roles tied to Opportunities—clear. The funny thing is that a vendor who is one of the few attending LXPs out there, as in that is the core, has the roles, skills, and opportunities available. Combos—yeah, it can be brutal out there.
Who does the best job as an internal drive platform?
Any TDP—which means Talent Development Platform—if they say they truly are, then yeah, even if they do not pronounce it as such. But you can see internal, internal, and internal as the forefront—well, you get it.
Learn Amp—They are all about internal. You can do external with them, sure. But their focus and core are internal. That should be a huge hint when you call yourself an employee development platform.
Juno Journey – If a vendor says they are an L&D platform – huge hint – they are core internal.
Cornerstone LMS, even Cornerstone Learn – Internal heavy. Again, you can do external; you get the point if a vendor offers multi-tenant and an extended enterprise option (the term should be customer training). You can do internal only with multi-tenants like you have dozens of LOBs or want to streamline all your systems under them. They now include a mentoring-heavy piece in their LMS – at no charge. Mentoring is internal – down the road, I see it externally, too – as a combo.
BizLMS plus BizSkills – Internal only. I would do it with both platforms. L&D is only here.
Docebo—As my rankings show, they are really good and skew internal, but they do have enough functionality for external. I would put them in play for internal. They are a legitimate threat.
Access Learning – Focus is on compliance – total internal
Acorn PLMS – Internal. Internal – hey, did I mention internal?
Kallidus – Heavy internal. It plays externally, too – but this screams internal.
SuccessFactors LMS—They are as internal as you can get, despite being underwhelming as a system.
Workday Learning—See above. They can meet with SuccessFactors and hang out together. Who brought the hot dogs?
Zensai Learn365 – Internal heavy. You may have heard of LMS365 – that is, well, sort of them, before acquisition.
Absorb LMS—Combo: They can go internal. So why put them here? They have a strong set for internal, yet they play solid external. Personally, I think external for them can be quite good. They are only a tiny list of Combos that are equal feature-wise. The list of the top tiers is here: Docebo and Absorb.
Internal Combos
Here are my top picks, who do an above-average job with most of the functionality. As strong as the others—well, that is up for interpretation.
Spark Learn—It’s all about front-line workers, including blue-collar workers. This is internal. Feature-wise, it’s not strong in many of those areas. Okay, they miss a few. But yeah, internal.
Schoox – They started to enter the customer training segment, which is odd because they are heavily tailored around internal. I wouldn’t buy them for customer training.
KREDO – Internal heavy. They dispute this, and you can go external, but I believe it is more internal.
Thirst—Internal focus. Is it a true LXP? I’m not seeing it. It has a lot of functionality, but from a serious LXP segment standpoint, nope.
Degreed – Internal. The first vendor to offer job roles tied to opportunities in the industry. It is legit and genuinely an LXP.
External
It is a pretty simple differential compared to the above because there are a few focused areas when I look at external – heavily skewed towards it.
Multi-tenant, with many options beyond what an internal can do. The challenge here is those combo systems—they can be a lot like an external, depending on the growth of one segment versus another.
E-Commerce—Customer Training will have it—whether you have to pay to use the service is a different question. In Combo land, the majority offer it—I mean Combo, which means both sides. The top ones on the Combo side do a far better job here.
Assigned Learning isn’t the focus here. If they offer it, well, it means they offer it. Nowadays, heavy CT offers it—not by choice; those darn Combos are causing it.
Metrics—The King Kong—All the metrics are around customer training. You can look at a customer training platform, take a look at those metrics, and it will tell you its learning story. If the vendor plays heavily in association land, then their metrics will have a solid set for external but a solid set for internal. Again, Combo here. This is one way to say, “Okay, this system is heavy for customer training.”
Other functionality-wise, those Combos have brought the whole “your site can look like a place to buy products” thing into play. Back in the day, only external focus offered it.
Now, some Combos do as well, and plenty do.
Again, some are good, but some should not offer it.
The Best for external
Eurekos is 100% focused external. Plus, they bill monthly, so you pay only for those in it—rare but plays well into the customer training side.
Absorb LMS—Combo, but I like them more for external use. They can also go internal. The system goes about 50-50 here. I see them as a vendor who can do some serious damage in the external space, so I slide them here. If you want them for internal use, they have all the items noted above.
D2L Brightspace—Their set for external is excellent. Their metrics are called Performance Management—an awful idea. The metrics are all around external. Why not call it advanced analytics? It’s top for the association space, too.
Docebo – Combo land. They play more on the external side, but as noted earlier, they can do very well on the internal side. Can the top Combos do this? Can the rest? Well, a middle pack, the rest? Forget about
TalentLMS—External—Solid. They push stronger externals, but metrics are a mixed bag. They do compete heavily in the external space. They say free forever when you search for them – it is highly misleading.
LearnUpon – Combo – They do a good job with external, hence the slide here.
Knowledge Anywhere—Under the Radar IMO, they get lost in the shuffle but are heavily external. They lack the metric strength, though. Legit competitor to Talent LMS. Personally, I think they are better.
Brainier – See above. I think they can do better here because they are external. Sometimes, vendors get lost because others take up all the space. Despite them being good at external. Metrics need serious improvement. Aother legit competitor to Talent LMS. They like KA above are similar in price point to Talent.
360Learning—Another Combo; I think they are more potent in external. They will probably tell me otherwise.
Next Tier
Skill Jar—They do have some metrics for externals, but the idea that they are all about external is erroneous, in my opinion. See the case study above for more information on the other part.
Plenty of others – but yeah, I’m sure you found them.
LearnOps by Cognota is training operations, and Training Orchestra is training management.
Two examples play a specific role, so I didn’t place them internally.
That is their fit, feature-wise, not.
NovoEd – I really like them, but while they play internally and externally, as once a cohort platform, they are a bit challenging as to where they fit.
Plus, they have a couple of new solutions coming out soon—this summer—that will significantly differentiate them from the rest of the market.
These solutions will open up new possibilities for learning systems, blurring the lines between internal and external systems.
Bottom Line
The question.
How can you clearly and easily define this complex landscape’s internal and external systems?
You can’t.
Nor should you.
If someone says, “I have the perfect answer,” it’s a sign they haven’t fully explored the segment.
We need to be open to different interpretations.
With so many vendors out there, my list is at the top of the list—after all, there are over 1,400 learning systems in the world.
Thrive is open to where they fit the best.
I see them as internal.
However, as a vendor, they can say no; we are a better fit for external. Cypher learning slides into where they best fit.
They are not strong enough for internal or external – yet as a Combo, they do a good job – from a system standpoint.
The training ops, training management, cohort-specific, mentoring, and coaching platforms are just the tip of the iceberg.
A vendor may call itself an LMS and then change its name to say it is a learning platform—open to interpretation—when it is an LMS.
Part of the problem when trying to say here is how to say it, specifically so everyone gets it.
Life is like that.
AI is an excellent example.
It’s the future, yet a company that says it is environmentally focused or committed to the environment, climate, or whatever uses AI.
AI, though, requires a lot of power, about the same as nearly four coal plants.
It requires water, an essential commodity that we are losing daily. Yet a necessity for AI.
As a company, you are doing this when using AI, which is the opposite of your commitment.
It isn’t so easy.
This is why there isn’t a straightforward response on the best way to communicate this to everyone, both internally and externally.
For those individuals who would rather read a summary of the post than the entire post, see below. A.I. created this. I reviewed it to verify and validate the information as accurate. The summary presents key takeaways. To read the entire POST, scroll down after the summary.
Please note that this is a work in progress, but I hope you see value in it. Feel free to write your feedback in the comments area.
There is no simple answer regarding the differences between internal and external learning systems. The landscape is complex with various types of learning systems, including Learning Management Systems (LMS), Learning Platforms, Talent Development Platforms, Learning Experience Platforms (LXP), and Mentoring Platforms, each serving different audiences such as employees, customers, clients, partners, and distributors.
Internal Learning Systems
Internal systems focus on onboarding, skilling, and upskilling employees. Key features include:
Skill Development: Tools for reskilling employees, offering coaching, mentorship, and opportunities to practice new skills.
Content Specificity: Content delivery aligned with job roles and personal development goals.
Skill Ratings and Job Roles: Mechanisms to rate skills and align job roles with opportunities, requiring managerial oversight for approvals.
Challenges include employees’ assumptions regarding opportunities’ approvals and a lack of deep engagement tools, such as integrative video communication for assessments.
External Learning Systems
In contrast, external systems emphasize customer training and engagement, characterized by:
Multi-tenant Capabilities: Ability to serve various external audiences.
E-commerce Features: Systems that support customer transactions, particularly in training environments.
Data-Driven Metrics: Insights centered around customer training, helping organizations track performance and completion rates.
Key Differences
Focus Areas: Internal systems prioritize employee development, while external systems cater to clients and customers.
Metrics Usage: Internal metrics revolve around learning paths for employees, whereas external metrics focus on customer engagement and training effectiveness.
Functionality: Internal systems might lack certain features for external audiences, like extensive e-commerce capabilities.
COMPLETE ARTICLE
There is no simple answer. It is not a cut-and-dry retort.
There are different types of learning systems—LMS, Learning Platform, Talent Development Platform, LXP, Mentoring Platform, mentoring in an internal system (for employees, regardless of whether they are frontline, at a plant—blue collar, if you will, and those in the office—even remote).
External are your customers, clients, partners, distributors.
They can be an association.
You could have an LMS or another learning system offering multi-tenant – think parent-child, portal-sub portal angle.
This allows you, the entity, to have internal and external audiences —perhaps multiple internal audiences—thus eliminating all those other LMSs at your company and, heck, lots of externals.
If that isn’t enough, you could purchase a system that heavily angles internal and goes external, and vice versa.
Ubiquitous plays strongly here.
This gets back to the whole internal vs. external LMS debate (I will use this term simply because it is the largest segment in the learning system space, and even when people seek an LXP, nowadays, they are angling into an LMS with LXP functionality).
How do you define, or let’s get to the point, the differences between internal and external?
This says, “Okay, where should you go?”
Tell me, define it, and explain it in easy-to-understand terminology.
Internal
Onboarding your employees involves skilling and upskilling.
For those who recognize the AI is coming, reskill those you want to do so.
Coach them.
Mentor them.
Place them into an opportunity to practice skills for them.
Provide them with content that aligns with their job role or skills they need or want to develop.
The former, with the assigned angle and/or content, is often needed.
Skill ratings.
Job roles with opportunities (as some systems offer, and the number is growing).
The opportunities are internal and still require the manager to review this to either green-light or not.
Another manager or department head may review this, pushing the two to one category.
The manager initially has a say, and it is foolish to assume they will say, “Okay, you are perfect for the role; you are approved – i.e., hired. “
There are way too many variables at play.
Worse, the employee presumes that by the green light for the opportunity – they have the gig.
Systems today are missing the picture – those that zero in on internal.
I applied for the opportunity based on skills ratings and the skills developed that aligned highest—assuming that is how the system sees it nowadays with vendors leveraging AI—and I submitted.
I get accepted.
The next step should be a video integration, where the manager of said opportunity can talk to the learner and ask questions OR, at the minimum, go text and have the manager ask deep-thinking questions, eliminating the ability for the employee to use, say, the free ChatGPT with a cut-and-paste.
Today, AI is unable to respond to deep thinking.
This would be a straightforward way—frankly, they are this way, for now—to show that the system is truly internal.
A powerful mechanism.
A missed opportunity.
Internal Tricky
The combo systems—those that go internal and external, depending on the higher percentage of the audience base—may skew.
That is changing because the vendors themselves are not familiar enough with the external audience—which is often the case here—and as a result, the system skews more to the employee side.
For me, it is self-evident.
I can tell within the first 10 minutes or less.
The buyer, though, is unaware of the combo audience based on the said percentage.
One would think the feature set identifies the skew.
And you would be right, up to a point.
If said vendor has played, let’s say, over 90% employee focus and now wants to jump into external – a segment that overwhelmingly vendors wish to into the space.
Then, the vendor enters, ignoring the pitfalls, even if they lack the functionality to achieve growth.
They land clients, everybody does – even big names.
A Case Study
Okay, not really.
I will name one vendor who pushes the apparent narrative that it is all about customer training.
SkillJar
I like the system, but on the metrics side, you will see data points tied to completed learning—a tell-tale sign of an internal audience.
Completed means assigned.
And it is only applicable to an external audience – if it is tied to a certification program.
That data point should be visible on the primary data screen.
This tells the head of the association or company that has a certification program a comparison of where that individual or individuals are if the certification is not professional—i.e., a professional-focused association instead of a trade association.
There is a vast difference.
Pluralsight, for example, provides such data—it is clear to anyone looking at it, from the certification of content completion and program steps to the various data points.
SkillJar, though, doesn’t have it.
Assigned learning?
I am an employee who needs to know how to use an MRI machine – the customer/client of the company who makes MRI machines, and thus, that training goes to the employees (a typical scenario).
The employee already knows how to do X and Y and is curious about Z, but maybe only certain pieces.
The employee then will go in and out, focusing on what pieces.
There isn’t a timeframe for completion.
Therefore, the assigned punch shouldn’t be visible.
On the other hand, SJ offers many data points/metrics for customer training.
Which begs the question.
Why not show that on the main dashboard that someone sees?
A combo crux.
Internal – can you tell the difference?
Yes.
To a point.
Ignore all the content assigned to a specific group or just one human – everyone can do that.
Ignore the ability for one group to see X catalog versus another group.
There are only maybe three functions that a vendor who plays strongly—and I mean over 90% externally—will lack or be seriously weak at.
But if you want rule approvals for multiple administrators or something similar, a system that is even heavily internal may not have them.
Does it scream that the system is not focused internally?
The earlier example of missing functionality of, let’s say, even CEUs or CPDs to be assigned to convent and visible is not universal to every system, regardless of target audience.
No, it just means they lack it.
The List of Internal Differences
Goal Management
Workflows—Customer training vendors who have plunged into internal may have it, but it will not be as strong as an internal system —that said, plenty of internal systems lack it.
Workflows that are expanding far more than current – this is a growing trend with internal – Learn Amp has it. Impressive.
Job Roles are intertwined with skills and content and are becoming tied to external sources, too. However, this is not universal. The job roles are the key here. Combos really have it—again, it is not universal.
Job Role driven
Strong level with skill ratings – If a vendor plays internally at a greater level, they will usually have this. Skill ratings are becoming universal, except when the vendor is 98 to 100% only customer training – external. Combos are all over the map with this. For example, Docebo has it and plays stronger externally – audience-wise – but feature sets are a perfect example of trying to do both segments. They have skill ratings, but compared to a Cornerstone, it isn’t at that tier. Neither do several other vendors who are at a Cornerstone level.
Skills Management—From skill mapping to skills capabilities, internal will always be stronger here. Combos can be solid, but they haven’t, in my opinion, achieved a level of heavy internal. And a combo that is more external but plays internal, who has it, has yet to penetrate at a solid level.
Metrics are all around L&D – That said, being great at it versus yuck is common. It seems to be either you are good at doing it or poor. Jekyll and Hyde here. I always note that if you can’t look at your data and get a firm idea of your learning story, which you should, it is a colossal failure. Anyway, this is a key piece I always look at, and I can tell in less than two minutes whether they are heavy internal and good at it or solid or strong internal and horrible at it. External – their metrics are not even close to this, even in the Combo space. If they are only External, their metrics are all around external.
Roles tied to Opportunities—clear. The funny thing is that a vendor who is one of the few attending LXPs out there, as in that is the core, has the roles, skills, and opportunities available. Combos—yeah, it can be brutal out there.
Who does the best job as an internal drive platform?
Any TDP—which means Talent Development Platform—if they say they truly are, then yeah, even if they do not pronounce it as such. But you can see internal, internal, and internal as the forefront—well, you get it.
Learn Amp—They are all about internal. You can do external with them, sure. But their focus and core are internal. That should be a huge hint when you call yourself an employee development platform.
Juno Journey – If a vendor says they are an L&D platform – huge hint – they are core internal.
Cornerstone LMS, even Cornerstone Learn – Internal heavy. Again, you can do external; you get the point if a vendor offers multi-tenant and an extended enterprise option (the term should be customer training). You can do internal only with multi-tenants like you have dozens of LOBs or want to streamline all your systems under them. They now include a mentoring-heavy piece in their LMS – at no charge. Mentoring is internal – down the road, I see it externally, too – as a combo.
BizLMS plus BizSkills – Internal only. I would do it with both platforms. L&D is only here.
Docebo—As my rankings show, they are really good and skew internal, but they do have enough functionality for external. I would put them in play for internal. They are a legitimate threat.
Access Learning – Focus is on compliance – total internal
Acorn PLMS – Internal. Internal – hey, did I mention internal?
Kallidus – Heavy internal. It plays externally, too – but this screams internal.
SuccessFactors LMS—They are as internal as you can get, despite being underwhelming as a system.
Workday Learning—See above. They can meet with SuccessFactors and hang out together. Who brought the hot dogs?
Zensai Learn365 – Internal heavy. You may have heard of LMS365 – that is, well, sort of them, before acquisition.
Absorb LMS—Combo: They can go internal. So why put them here? They have a strong set for internal, yet they play solid external. Personally, I think external for them can be quite good. They are only a tiny list of Combos that are equal feature-wise. The list of the top tiers is here: Docebo and Absorb.
Internal Combos
Here are my top picks, who do an above-average job with most of the functionality. As strong as the others—well, that is up for interpretation.
Spark Learn—It’s all about front-line workers, including blue-collar workers. This is internal. Feature-wise, it’s not strong in many of those areas. Okay, they miss a few. But yeah, internal.
Schoox – They started to enter the customer training segment, which is odd because they are heavily tailored around internal. I wouldn’t buy them for customer training.
KREDO – Internal heavy. They dispute this, and you can go external, but I believe it is more internal.
Thirst—Internal focus. Is it a true LXP? I’m not seeing it. It has a lot of functionality, but from a serious LXP segment standpoint, nope.
Degreed – Internal. The first vendor to offer job roles tied to opportunities in the industry. It is legit and genuinely an LXP.
External
It is a pretty simple differential compared to the above because there are a few focused areas when I look at external – heavily skewed towards it.
Multi-tenant, with many options beyond what an internal can do. The challenge here is those combo systems—they can be a lot like an external, depending on the growth of one segment versus another.
E-Commerce—Customer Training will have it—whether you have to pay to use the service is a different question. In Combo land, the majority offer it—I mean Combo, which means both sides. The top ones on the Combo side do a far better job here.
Assigned Learning isn’t the focus here. If they offer it, well, it means they offer it. Nowadays, heavy CT offers it—not by choice; those darn Combos are causing it.
Metrics—The King Kong—All the metrics are around customer training. You can look at a customer training platform, take a look at those metrics, and it will tell you its learning story. If the vendor plays heavily in association land, then their metrics will have a solid set for external but a solid set for internal. Again, Combo here. This is one way to say, “Okay, this system is heavy for customer training.”
Other functionality-wise, those Combos have brought the whole “your site can look like a place to buy products” thing into play. Back in the day, only external focus offered it.
Now, some Combos do as well, and plenty do.
Again, some are good, but some should not offer it.
The Best for external
Eurekos is 100% focused external. Plus, they bill monthly, so you pay only for those in it—rare but plays well into the customer training side.
Absorb LMS—Combo, but I like them more for external use. They can also go internal. The system goes about 50-50 here. I see them as a vendor who can do some serious damage in the external space, so I slide them here. If you want them for internal use, they have all the items noted above.
D2L Brightspace—Their set for external is excellent. Their metrics are called Performance Management—an awful idea. The metrics are all around external. Why not call it advanced analytics? It’s top for the association space, too.
Docebo – Combo land. They play more on the external side, but as noted earlier, they can do very well on the internal side. Can the top Combos do this? Can the rest? Well, a middle pack, the rest? Forget about
TalentLMS—External—Solid. They push stronger externals, but metrics are a mixed bag. They do compete heavily in the external space. They say free forever when you search for them – it is highly misleading.
LearnUpon – Combo – They do a good job with external, hence the slide here.
Knowledge Anywhere—Under the Radar IMO, they get lost in the shuffle but are heavily external. They lack the metric strength, though. Legit competitor to Talent LMS. Personally, I think they are better.
Brainier – See above. I think they can do better here because they are external. Sometimes, vendors get lost because others take up all the space. Despite them being good at external. Metrics need serious improvement. Aother legit competitor to Talent LMS. They like KA above are similar in price point to Talent.
360Learning—Another Combo; I think they are more potent in external. They will probably tell me otherwise.
Next Tier
Skill Jar—They do have some metrics for externals, but the idea that they are all about external is erroneous, in my opinion. See the case study above for more information on the other part.
Plenty of others – but yeah, I’m sure you found them.
LearnOps by Cognota is training operations, and Training Orchestra is training management.
Two examples play a specific role, so I didn’t place them internally.
That is their fit, feature-wise, not.
NovoEd – I really like them, but while they play internally and externally, as once a cohort platform, they are a bit challenging as to where they fit.
Plus, they have a couple of new solutions coming out soon—this summer—that will significantly differentiate them from the rest of the market.
These solutions will open up new possibilities for learning systems, blurring the lines between internal and external systems.
Bottom Line
The question.
How can you clearly and easily define this complex landscape’s internal and external systems?
You can’t.
Nor should you.
If someone says, “I have the perfect answer,” it’s a sign they haven’t fully explored the segment.
We need to be open to different interpretations.
With so many vendors out there, my list is at the top of the list—after all, there are over 1,400 learning systems in the world.
Thrive is open to where they fit the best.
I see them as internal.
However, as a vendor, they can say no; we are a better fit for external. Cypher learning slides into where they best fit.
They are not strong enough for internal or external – yet as a Combo, they do a good job – from a system standpoint.
The training ops, training management, cohort-specific, mentoring, and coaching platforms are just the tip of the iceberg.
A vendor may call itself an LMS and then change its name to say it is a learning platform—open to interpretation—when it is an LMS.
Part of the problem when trying to say here is how to say it, specifically so everyone gets it.
Life is like that.
AI is an excellent example.
It’s the future, yet a company that says it is environmentally focused or committed to the environment, climate, or whatever uses AI.
AI, though, requires a lot of power, about the same as nearly four coal plants.
It requires water, an essential commodity that we are losing daily. Yet a necessity for AI.
As a company, you are doing this when using AI, which is the opposite of your commitment.
It isn’t so easy.
This is why there isn’t a straightforward response on the best way to communicate this to everyone, both internally and externally.
Top 10 Learning Systems of 2024: Key Insights & Rankings
As 2025 approaches, the learning technology industry has seen significant advancements, with competition among the top systems tighter than ever. The rankings highlight various platforms excelling in employee development, customer training, and skills-based learning.
Key Trends & Insights
Narrow Margins & Ties—The competition was razor-thin, with several systems tied in rankings, reflecting the industry’s rapid evolution.
Diverse Solutions – The list includes platforms catering to enterprises, customer education, and upskilling.
AI’s Role – While some vendors integrate AI for personalization and automation, AI adoption did not influence the final rankings.
Top 10 Learning Systems of 2024
Learn Amp – Best for employee development, featuring a modern UI/UX and powerful reporting.
Cornerstone OnDemand – Strong in skill management, mobile learning, and user-friendly design.
Docebo LMS – Notable for extensive features and AI-driven content delivery.
Thought Industries – Excels in customer training but could improve data metrics.
LearnUpon & D2L for Business (Tied) – Both are praised for streamlined administration and customer training.
Eurekos – Effective in customer training with a strong focus on analytics, preparing for future AI integration.
CYPHER Learning & 360Learning (Tied) – Stand out for collaboration-driven learning and user engagement.
Learnster – Uses AI for highly personalized learning experiences.
Hive Perform – Specializes in sales training with AI-driven practical scenarios.
Skillable – Known for its hands-on lab-building tools but needs improvements in user engagement.
With these innovations, the learning technology space is set for even more significant transformations heading into 2025.
Post
What a year.
I won’t get into the “Let’s review 2024” post because that’s slated for January 2025, and what a gem that will be.
Instead, this is the end of the year, Awards for 2024 – Top 10.
You can’t get any better than that.
Razor’s slim margins between the top three learning systems, along with a historical three-way tie for #5 and multiple ties at the 6, 7, 9, and 10 rankings, underscore the significant progress the industry has made in developing elite-level systems.
Each one is special in its way.
The best systems from Enterprise and Large Enterprise are here.
Systems that were in the top two for customer training? Here.
Best learning system for skills? Here.
A vendor can refer to themselves as “whatever works for them” angle.
It’s an employee development platform (the vendor refers to itself as that), but I see it more as a talent development platform.
The grouping includes multiple LMS vendors, a learning platform, a skills-based platform, and a sales training enablement platform.
Some of the vendors’ analyses will be shorter than the others.
I only wanted to highlight some items/functions that intrigued or interested me.
These vendors believe I should have mentioned this or that.
Well, I didn’t.
Next!
The Acronyms
If the system is on my platform, FindAnLMS, it will be noted as FAL.
I want to make it very clear that whether or not one was on FAL was a zero-factor in the decision-making process.
While the goal is to have the world’s best learning systems, we recognize that not everyone has access to them.
Nevertheless, we continue to work towards that objective I set forth when launching the platform years ago.
An acronym you will see
Combo—This is the most common type of system in the industry. It focuses on internal (L&D, employees) and external (Training, and what I wrote up around CS) aspects. The system always skews one way (internal) or the other (external). And yes, it is common to have a combo system that offers multi-tenant—aka parent-child.
I didn’t place in verticals (because vendors always claim they cover all verticals or selectively choose them). However, if a MonsterXTW company with 500,000 users, not in their vertical, comes knocking, I’m betting they’ll take MonsterX.
If the system is heavy on compliance, then that is horizontal and goes across industries.
If a system focuses solely on FS and has functionality explicitly designed for FS and nobody else, that is different.
None are in the top 10, so it isn’t at play here.
AI did not play a role here because only some have it. Did I see it as a plus for 2024?
Sure.
I will mention it when I see significant successes with it, specifically to those vendors.
A great system in the top 10 doesn’t have it yet but will in 2025.
The system is still fantastic.
Knowing what I know for 25, with AI for them, impresses me.
It did not factor into the decision – i.e.24 vs. 25.
The analysis is based on 650 systems around the world.
One other piece of info before diving into the rankings is about AI.
Regardless of the rankings here, more of an FYI, because so many people read this post.
I want to clarify this: even if the AI LLM is trained with your data or the vendor’s data and has only your content in the system, it may still produce fake or false information.
I cannot stress this enough.
There are a couple of issues with AI today—every LLM, whether commercial or not, is built from scratch by the vendor, and the company added guardrails, RAG, and so forth—it doesn’t matter. It is a flaw of AI.
Secondly, there is no perfect LLM. Each has strengths and weaknesses.
Hence, the value of multiple LLMs.
If a vendor claims to be LLM agnostic, it’s likely a load of baloney. I could go on about the issues they are finding and what I hear vendors say, which seriously makes me wonder who is feeding them this garbage (when it comes to some claims they make).
Is it the exact old same that I’ve seen with other technical skills-focused systems?
Or does it bring something new and unique to the table?
Wins
Not everyone can jump into a lab and figure it all out. And frankly, I don’t believe that the administrator—or whoever is tasked with creating the lab or its content—can either.
When it comes to training people or Learning and Development, there’s often an assumption that IT will handle it. But let me be clear: this is a scenario I do not recommend.
So, what is Skillable Studio?
At its core, Skillable Studio is an authoring tool designed specifically for creating labs.
However, it goes far beyond the basics.
When you use Studio, you also gain access to analytics tied directly to its usage, offering valuable insights.
Other standout features include:
An interactive instructions editor,
Tools for lab configuration and cost controls
A wealth of pre-made templates.
These templates are handy for individuals who prefer ready-made solutions but still want the flexibility to customize. Think of them as tools to support tailored training and instructional design, helping you develop guided lab experiences that meet diverse needs.
If gamification is on your radar, Skillable incorporates it seamlessly into its labs.
That said, it is not without its challenges.
While Skillable’s UI/UX is solid, they still need some refinement.
Specifically, the platform falls a bit short in terms of learner engagement—something I believe users would greatly appreciate.
Another point of contention for me is the option to bring in content from third-party vendors.
Skillable makes it clear they are not a content library, so this choice feels a bit contradictory.
It raises an important question: why even offer third-party content integration in the first place?
From the moment it launched, I saw a big-time winner.
The pre-skill mapping to content was, to me, genius. I’m baffled by why other vendors don’t do this, which they could even do with third-party content from another provider.
It is a huge pain point for many people who have to do it themselves.
Moreover, BizSkills’ capability to incorporate job roles into its system is truly impressive, providing a comprehensive learning experience.
The user interface and experience of BizSkills are designed to be intuitive and user-friendly, making it a comfortable tool to work with.
It’s a fresh visual that captures a learner’s attention and encourages their use.
BizLMS
Super refresh with the LMS, and I love it.
The custom dashboard, on the admin side is sweet and easy to use.
Anyone, regardless of whether they have an L&D, training, or none at all—which is expanding in the industry—could figure this out.
Look at it. Not the assignment status – but the initial top
Create Learner – Anyone can see this and go, okay, click
Create Learning Initiative
Create Featured Playlist
And it goes on.
When you look at some of the data, what I love is what I don’t see.
I never understood why vendors show the number of licenses on the main dashboard page.
Who cares.
Nor views.
You are not a search engine.
Views do not tell your learning story.
It tells me someone clicked into the content, may have looked at it, and left.
What sets BizLMS apart is its ability to provide a comprehensive view of your learning journey, not just a mere ‘view’ of your interactions with the content.
From there, the head of L&D or Training can extrapolate and figure out what it means and how to tap into it.
Big Wins
The revamped UI/UX of BizLMS is a game-changer. It’s not just visually appealing, but it also makes the system incredibly easy to use, which is a win-win for both the client and the user.AI in BizLMS is not just a buzzword. It truly taps into a holistic approach to learning, a feature that many systems claim but few deliver. This should give you confidence in the system’s capabilities.
A video player with translated closed captioning in 11 languages and the ability to change the text into your language in handouts and materials.
Many systems do this, but it is often cumbersome. BizLMS isn’t.
Learner Onboard workflow is another slick look.
Straightforward with the following options:
a. I’m here for exploration
b. I like to learn really fast
c. Remember, people will retain and understand more when they select topics of interest.
Plenty of data shows that the #1 reason people leave a company is the lack of personal and professional development.
If you want someone to go into the system repeatedly to learn something beneficial to them (which should be your objective), interests will do it.
Clever.
I won’t dive into BizSkills right away, because you need to experience the system firsthand to see why it’s so useful for onboarding. Here is just a quick look:
Lastly, you may think this system, with everything it has, would be expensive. Nope.
It is very affordable, and that includes the content if you wish to have it (it may or may not be an additional cost).
BizLibrary verifies that you don’t have to drop a lot of $$$ to get a robust system.
I love that you get the power pack of sales learning developed by learning experts with a nice feature set of sales capabilities.
The latter includes real-world scenarios via sales coaching intertwined with AI.
Pipeline management is there.
Perform offers the ability to target specific strategies to improve sales reps’ performance and deal outcomes.
The system comes with a training repository so that content always stays updated.
There is a lot to digest here.
The system uses AI – called Sidekick.
The positive aspect is that it allows the use of thumbs up and down pieces, enabling someone to indicate, “If they pick thumbs down, this is incorrect.”
The downer is that Perform does not mention anywhere that AI may produce fake or false information.
It’s a rare occurrence, even in today’s AI landscape, for vendors to openly acknowledge the potential for AI to generate fake or false information.
This lack of transparency is a significant issue in the industry.
If you are seeking a system that is driven and heavily leverages AI, here you go.
I named them the #1 Learning System for AI in 2024.
They believe that, when used properly, AI should be based on learner engagement and organizational reach.
Not just productivity.
Big Wins
You want AI? Here you go. Yes, we are still in the baby stage with AI – nevertheless, they lead the industry.
Learning Companion – The companion is all about informal learning, whereas a learner using AI can choose text, quizzes, learning casts, and other formats that suit the way they learn. This includes thereafter learning paths for that specific learner – HUGE
The ability to select a variety of synthetic voices for your personal agent, including specific accents. Do you want an agent to have a British accent? You can.
Remixes are the coolest capability I have seen, period. A learner using their space can select a variety of pieces of content, including say podcasts (coming in 2025)—but I mention it here only because of how this works—and remix them in a different journey. Thus, maybe organizational content, third-party courses, PDFs, audio files, and remix. I love it.
When using AI – you choose your companion mode – Scholar, Coach, Expert – the system is all about learners first – which it should be. And individuality – rather than the assumption, let’s push out content and quizzes for everyone – assuming everyone learns the same way.
Compliance capabilities – Data visualization and the key information you need to know
Needs Improvement – or Tweaks
The home page, while currently resembling a familiar layout seen in platforms like Netflix, is in need of a fresh and innovative approach. The industry is saturated with similar designs, and it’s time to break the mold. Inspire with something new and exciting.
Better metrics—the internal is solid, but what about customer training? Not so much. Plus, on the metrics side as a whole, ensure it tells me my learning story.
360Learning does have AI but lacks the notification that it may create fake or false information, and you should always review before accepting it as correct.
I honestly can count on two hands the number of times I have seen a vendor post it—not just on the admin side, content creator piece, or anything that uses AI, but also on the learner side.
Anyway, one downside of AI with 360Learning is that they push the narrative around AI.
There are, though, plenty of pluses.
Wins
Their mobile app is the highest-rated app for learning systems on Google Play and iTunes.
I know plenty of people will be like, “Big deal.”
It is a huge deal.
One of my biggest pet peeves is vendors who roll out these apps, show them off, and then you read the reviews and see it is trash.
Or it is never updated.
Or it doesn’t work with the latest version of Android or iTunes.
I’ve seen vendors who still only have a mobile app for iTunes.
Ignoring folks who use Android.
Other wins:
I like that they follow the structure of the TOC, using the term chapters that are appropriate for WBT.
One of the cool aspects is that under each chapter or page you are viewing, you have the option to select either a thumbs up—I liked it, a smiley face—I learned something, another icon—this is outdated, or another icon—I have a question.
From a content creator standpoint, they have the best one in the industry using AI.
On the content side, it is all about collaborators—and in the system itself, they have a lot of power in terms of what they can do.
As the admin, you decide who a collaborator is, but once you do, you need to select the right folks.
Their 360Learning Skills has a few added pluses, such as the ability to integrate your own skills ontology or framework, with role development for onboarding, upskilling, and, to me, a crucial piece rarely mentioned by vendors – reskilling.
The most significant improvement in their skills is the data visualization for the dashboard.
This is what attracts attention and is easier to understand than a lot of what I see from other systems.
On a side note, they do allow clients to identify minimums, such as 1, which means you have zero knowledge about anything (uh, you choose what you want).
I am hyper-promoting this because so many systems do skill ratings and never tell people what a 1 to 2, etc., actually means—besides average.
Never use the term Rubrics for the explanations – You are not an elementary school teacher.
The overall UI/UX is solid.
But this system, while it offers many whams across the platform, does have a few warts.
Need tweaks:
The metrics for activities include “views” – you already know my feelings there.
The system’s SCORM feature, while functional, could be more user-friendly.
It’s not immediately clear that the system supports SCORM 1.2, SCORM 2004 3rd edition, and SCORM—xAPI until you click SCORM.
This lack of clarity could be improved.
The collaborator’s aspect, even after I was shown how it worked, left me with some concerns.
I didn’t see a comprehensive list of their capabilities within the system, which made me feel uncertain.
The lack of visible metrics to gauge their success or failure on the learner side seems like a missed opportunity for improvement.
Screens (Homepage showing the Collaborators piece, Mobile view – hey there is a reason their scores are the best)
Cypher Learning has some wonderful approaches to learning and strong AI, which is number two in the industry.
Wins
The task journey feature, located on the right side of the screen, is a valuable tool that guides users through tasks, enhancing their learning experience. The content creator, listed as a course, offers a range of options including gamify, writing style, persona, and synthetic audio, each designed to enhance and personalize course content. The writing style was also engaging. There were a few options, but I didn’t see how I could see what each style “looks” like. A hover item would suffice.
The admin side was both a plus and a minus. There were a lot of options on the plus side, but I felt it could have been streamlined.
The whole copilot mechanism played off, IMO, is the term itself. Does copilot have a place in the AI industry since Microsoft led the charge? It has some issues. And why would I want it when a personalized agent can go way beyond copilot – now, and I believe as AI evolves.
Gamification was another winner—from the standpoint that you could offer it in ways such as optional tasks people have to do—although there are potential consequences.
From the Gamify standpoint, I did find that different departments, for example, can create their own learning games
AI may produce fake or false information, so check before accepting it. It appears in various places on the admin side.
UI/UX is slick
Skills are strong in terms of approach, design, and output.
I like using Multiple LLMs, rather than the common method I see, where vendors are using only one
Needs Tweaks
Under the content creator (again, they note this as a course), I was baffled as to why traditional educators and another type of educator were listed. If I am targeting corporate, why would I select educator, which is a higher education and even a primary/secondary option?
I didn’t like the option of having this as a micro-learning course because the term alone is misleading. Anybody at any time, even back in 1999, could create a short – mini-course. I get that people still think this is “magical” because some vendors push this term or state their platform is a micro-learning platform. Always remember that short means short, and the duration will differ depending on what the learner wants to do in the course. Anyway, short never means good.
AI cross-check is interesting, but for all the info about notifying people about fake or false information, it doesn’t appear with cross-check
Metrics need improvements
I’m not a fan of the fact that depending on whether or not it is successful in terms of features or capabilities rolled out using learners/admin, etc., it will get shelved.
Why?
It implies that you are not the expert – which is what you will assume when you buy the system.
If you add a feature you are unsure about, don’t add it.
After years of complaints about having to choose between systems, Absorb took the “you get it all” approach and executed it effectively.
The LMS comes with stronger analytics, which are far better than the usual out-of-the-box metrics I see with so many other learning systems.
Wins
You get it all, including AI-powered Skills piece, Content Creator, and Assessment Engine (both are driven by AI)
Oh, did I mention that you can do AI voice-over with the Content Creator – Nice
If you want to elevate your content, they offer a package of pre-built courses, including ones that you can edit and customize. There are no more limitations to a compliance course that is the same one everyone else gets. Now, you can tailor it to your specific state requirements, for example.
AI-driven content recommendations by role – personalized for each learner (again, not universal, all for one – as though you are a Musketeer)
Advanced-level analytics for skills (think BI)
Stronger UI/UX on the learner side and admin side, especially with the dashboards (Oh, BTW, Absorb was the very first vendor to have dashboards on the admin side, for high-level info)
More than 100 new enhancements and updates – including new functionality in 2024
Together by Absorb is a mentoring platform that comes with the LMS, or if you have another system but want a good mentoring platform, you can purchase it as a standalone
Absorb, though, is the only one to have it here—or buy it as a standalone—that is in the Top 10 Learning System Rankings.
Improvements
While the data is all there, I wish it had better visualization.
The interesting item is that it does exist in some areas of the system, yet it is not universal.
I like the skills journey in appearance and ease of use, but I’d like to see more adaptive path options—like this way or that way, or that can be further this way or that way.
To date, no vendor has truly achieved what I am referencing, but hey, I’m greedy—here you go, Absorb—be the first!
Screens (Skills, Together by Absorb – Mentoring – it is included as part of the LMS)
The administration side has a very modern look. I like that you can add a signature, and it is evident in the elements—options right on the main screen.
AI currently exists in the question/assessment tool. You can take content, such as text from a course description or even the code script.
You (not the AI) choose the number of questions you want and their type, and then the AI generates them.
I’m intrigued by the possibility of integrating items from external training into the system.
The ‘External Training’ option on the learner page, nestled between ‘Learning Journeys’ and ‘Learning Paths ‘, is a promising feature that piques my interest.
I really can’t recall seeing that option on the home screen, with the others front and center.
Sure, I’ve seen calendars and listings of live events, but these aren’t internal live events; they are external—not associated with the company.
LearnUpon’s newest offering is Learn Anywhere.
There are pluses here, but at the same time, a bit of concern – because you have to remember who is behind the screen – and not it is not the Wiz. (i.e., Wizard of Oz)
It could be someone who has no idea what embed code is, which is worrying.
Anywhere achieves this as an integral part—which is to say you can put a course or content anywhere—from another platform to your web site to wherever.
It is a partial Content Delivery System (CDS).
This opens up the possibility of saying, “Okay, I want to embed some content into my Instagram feed or in Salesforce or HubSpot.”
LearnUpon tracks everything from learner clicks, progress, completions, and even exam results—because, yep, you can place assessments, PDFs, or this or that anywhere.
Due to its unique features and impressive capabilities, I believe D2L is underrated, often perceived as only an EdTech (K-12, Higher Ed), and lacking what others have in the industry.
Wins
D2L’s extensive set of metrics and data is not just a feature, but a practical tool that tells your learning story. Functionality-wise, it matches the well-known players in the market that people perceive as leaders in the various segments
It is way better than Crowd Wisdom, the leader for reasons I still can’t figure out beyond it is tied to an association management platform – which FWIW D2L can tap integrate with too – plus any other association management platforms too (I should note that D2L has a system for associations, which I love as well)
D2L is the #1 learning system for the association market, three years running
They play strongly in the customer training market, with, wait for it – unlimited multi-tenant (parent-child, i.e., unlimited children). Do you know how many vendors do this? I can tell you, not many. In fact, on my top 10, three – including D2L. You may think, well, that is a lot – but seriously, beyond those three, not an extensive list does. Minute is the right word.
Content Creator+ offers numerous options for delivering content. One factor in its power is the acquisition of H5P, which provides flexibility for those who have some ID skill sets.
Workforce development components that are easy to use and figure out—I kid you not, there are a lot of vendors whose WD options are easy to use —and ease of use are two terms that should not be combined as one.
Ease of use—on the learner and admin sides—is enormous for the admin side. The learner is good, too, but the admin is big.
AI
For an additional fee, you can get Lumi. What is Lumi, you ask?
A series of AI learning tools.
Generate questions, answer questions, create content, and reduce workflow.
I liked it.
It opens up a lot of possibilities, and I look forward to what it can do in 2025.
That said, I wish it was included at no additional cost.
The UI/UX on the learner side is #1 for 2024, and their onboarding of clients is #1 for 2024.
This is the #1 system for customer training for 2024.
It was #1 in 2023 and #1 in 2022.
However, in 2024, the system dropped to number four, primarily due to the following two items:
However, they lack some data/metrics that I expect for a top-tier system, particularly when the core is customer training (they note it as customer education).
I’m not entirely sold on the entrance into L&D – simply because while they have skills and additional functionality to leverage strongly into that audience, it is an expansion.
I have a couple of concerns—whereas some folks would be “big deal,” and others, well, that is your aspect.
The system continues to charge a fee for Panoramas, which looks outstanding but should be included.
While the additional cost of multi-tenants (aka extended enterprise) is common, it’s important to question why this is the case and whether it’s justified.
Let’s jump to wins
Their onboarding approach, identifying and training two additional folks who are not on the training side, is brilliant. If the admin or head of training wins the lotto, who is going to jump in and handle it? Not Barney in HRIS—unless Rubble is their last name.
The system’s robust data reporting for customer training is truly impressive, providing a wealth of information and insights.This executive Summary gives you a quick snapshot of your site, learners, and financial performance—right to the point data that you will need.
Their learner side’s functionality is strong and easy to use, to exist.
It is a very robust system that still understands who is overseeing it, including who is running training or whatever their title is. Customer training is overwhelmingly about making money, and having metrics that identify what is working is huge.
Early adopters of AI – and they are very aware of the pitfalls, and recognizing that we still have a long way to go
An admin “zone” where everything you need for a variety of tasks associated with customer training, and yes, L&D—internal—is available. You do not need to look for these options, as many systems require you to do so—and I am referencing specifically for VLT and ILT.
Dedicated project manager and implementation consultant – LOVE it.
Add-ons you will need
Purchase the following add-ons to tap into the system completely.
Essential IMO.
Advanced Enhancement
Panorama
E-Commerce – I wish this was included as part of the system, without you having to pay extra for it – very robust with everything you will need, without having to go all over the place to find 3rd party pieces
Advanced integration – BI-Connector – should be an extra cost, along with other integrations – very common in the space to charge; some items should be included. IMO
Dashboard that the Learner can see (first screen), Second Screen – Executive Summary
Pronounced (Doh-Che-Bo). Think Italian because that is where their corporate HQ used to be and where the story of Docebo began.
Wonderful system, overall.
Wins
#1 Large Enterprise System 2024
Docebo was the first system to introduce the ‘content catalog where the publisher who created it is visible’ feature. However, they realized that this information was not relevant to users, so they restructured it by category, without displaying the names of the publishers. This was a smart move, and they have continued to improve this feature in 2024.Skills continue to improve, and new options and new capabilities.
Another vendor who added AI
Insights go beyond the out-of-the-box nothingness I see way too often. Insights tell the learning metrics of your system; however, does it tell the full learning story? Not yet unless you purchase the analytics advanced add-on. You will go, “Oh yeah,” and thank the Gods for it.
Admin side increased ease of use, learner side ditto.
AI capabilities that went beyond
Enrollments
Translations (seen in other systems, but still, their version stands out)
Content tagging
Automation of Skills tagging
Insights
They offer AI authoring, a content creation tool, for an additional fee. This includes the use of AI for revisions and rewrites, to name just two, plus the creation of activities, which is a bit different and offers additional potential down the road.
After listening to my ongoing irritation with their pricing structure, they have now gone tiers—and visible no less for anyone to see.
I love the new communities that are in the system.
To get communities, you must purchase either the Elevate tier or Enterprise.
Here are the tiers and what you receive in each one.
Elevate Pricing Tier: This should suffice for most folks.
There is a lot here to get when you buy the system.
I won’t regurgitate it.
That said, there are way too many à la carte (add-ons) for the Elevate tier.
This answers the question: Do you want to lead or be like others?
The items I dislike being add-ons in the Elevate Pricing Tier:
E-commerce—you need it for customer training or any training you want to charge a fee for, even offering it as a freebie. Worse, you pay yearly for this privilege. If you are buying the system for customer training, give it to this use case for free. Simple.
Extended Enterprise is a legacy term since the key monsters in the space use either customer training or customer education. Anyway, it is a yearly fee, and they charge, I believe, to buy the number you want (on top of that). If my use case is customer training and I have five children, give it to me for free. Ditto if I have 25 children. There is a reason why, but this isn’t the time for it.
Salesforce—Nowadays, it is quite common in the industry to integrate and use your content, blah blah. I know of vendors who jumped into this before 2015. Ditto on the Microsoft Teams angle, too.
The other add-ons make total sense.
I remain unconvinced that AR/VR will succeed in immersive learning, primarily because viewing content on a mobile device without a headset doesn’t constitute authentic VR learning.
To do that, you need a headset. AR? Sure, but VR is far better. Plus, the future ix XR.
Docebo isn’t the only vendor plunging full steam ahead with AR or VR as an option for their learning system. Cornerstone #2 offers the same thing.
C-O-R-N-E-R-S-T-O-N-E (whew, repeat three times, – like a choo-choo steam engine, whoosh). Why, you ask? Well, it’s more fun that way.
And oh, how fun we are having, unless you are not Cornerstone LMS, or you think they are some ‘traditional’ or ‘legacy’ system incapable of new functionality or unique value propositions, or you have been told that hey, they are too old to do anything that is on the edge like us.
I’m unsure what that means unless the ‘edge’ is a cliff, in which case, yes, I have heard of such a term.
The rest of us?
Okay, off the mountain top and onto the ‘edge.’
Look, I made a funny.
There is nothing funny about the latest version of the LMS.
It’s not just about being innovative, it’s about being user-friendly.
Which Cornerstone achieves with a bonus of AI.
It is still the leader in skill management (as they were in 2023).
They have a powerful mobile app with solid functionality.
They continue to add resources to the system’s development—not just once a quarter, but on an ongoing basis.
That doesn’t sound like a ‘legacy’ or slowly creeping along system.
Wins
#1 Skills Management 2024 (yeah, I mentioned it above, but folks can easily skip and go right to this section
#1 Compliance Management 2024
Top five for AI, 2024 – They have AI folks who understand the essentials for learning/training – that’s important
The UI/UX on the learner side is the best it has ever been, and I know this because I have seen this system every year it has been around.
Vast improvement for data visualization – You see nice dashboards
Assignments design – yeah, when you are focused heavily around L&D – onboarding employees too, this is relevant
Mobile app – It is good and capable of on-the-go learning with on/off synch.
HUGE WIN ALERT – HUGE WIN ALERT – A DAP (Digitial Adoption Platform) built into the LMS and included at no charge.
A DAP, for those unaware, is a platform that provides a ‘how to do it, show me, let me do it” approach, which everyone I ever met in L&D and Training loves – uh, the folks behind, and even learners – ‘Show, Tell, Let me do it.”
I’d argue for technical training, as well as business, customer service, and other relevant fields.
That is a DAP.
You can be a standalone that says they can do way more, but at the end of the day, its core is what I mentioned, and it is all you or your learners need.
Plus, I’m not just zeroing in on the learner but also on the admin.
Here is how the admin taps into it.
I need to know how to do this – because nobody trained me, I can’t remember, I was handed this ‘THING’ and need to figure it how to upload something called courses or add ‘learners’ to it. A DAP says okay, type in either a word or a series of words, and it will go to the specific area on how to learn that. Then, it shows you step-by-step. A good one goes further – ‘let’s do it together.’ Finally, you can do it. To learn how, simply repeat the steps or revisit a specific one.
Trust me, it will save you a lot of time.
You don’t have to go to some HELP section (which nobody uses) or watch videos (which are boring, and whoa, is that my pen?).
Nor contact the vendor’s support and ask them how to do it, because well, let’s just say some vendors’ support is lackluster.
A DAP takes that – away.
Which is why you see DAPs being sold as standalone to whatever “tech” training you need.
2. The Learner side—This is where a DAP can really help. It follows the same approach as above.
It leverages the system, though, by saving the ADMIN a lot of headaches. Learners are known to say, “My system doesn’t work.” “I can’t access blah blah because this is junk.” “I can’t find my catalog, so there must be something wrong with the system.”
Then, assuming they don’t just say “forget it” (using other lingo), they contact the admin and tell them about all those problems.
An admin who has been trained to do their own Q&A will first see if they can replicate the issue. Then, and only then, if they can’t find the problem (not the nav thing, which screams learner, not the system has a bug in it, or is actually junk), they—the admin—contact the vendor’s support.
99% of all issues learners contact an Admin on are human error—i.e., the learner hasn’t been trained on it or is unaware, and thus, it’s not an Admin’s responsibility to contact vendor support.
The vendor wants to avoid the calls because they cost them money, and you can see where this goes.
Hence, the DAP – with the learner using it too.
Skills mapping with AI
Mentoring – with the usual deliciousness of the learner being matched with the mentor, based on whatever variables (options the mentoree) selects.
They select the mentor(s) they want because they may need one for this or that.
Mentoring is not the same thing as coaching.
Any vendor who says it is or believes the word is interchangeable as baloney is to salami must try both and then ascertain if that is correct.
For those folks who are selected by the company to acquire skills in being a good listener, the company hires a coach or nowadays has you either going to a ‘coaching session’ or workshop or talking to an AI coach.
Do you want to know what is going to really take off in 2025, with systems tied within an LMS or LXP or learning platform, OR vendors who will launch their own on top of what exists today?
MENTORING
Anyway, it comes with the system, and Cornerstone recognizes its importance.
Course Content player with AI in it – yes, others have it too, I get that, still a plus
The admin side has vastly improved UI/UX-wise – including the reporting piece and the metrics that appear.
Can you tell me what your learning story is?
Yes.
It offers those metrics, right out the gate.
Cornerstone has data connections to hundreds of systems, including the ability to connect with other learning systems, not just HR systems.
Yes, other vendors can do this, but not all can say, “If so, go do this.”
Think Zapier, but you can experience offerings like Zapier without the disconnects.
Improvements needed
The visualization of data has the same issue as most systems in the market – out of the box – overall – looks like Excel 2000. I can get the same pie charts, too. It should appear modern. Yes, good data is presented, but you can’t get by or shouldn’t get by seeing such when, in other places, you see a different appearance of data – even on the same screen. Again, Cornerstone is not the only one in this approach. But if you want to lead…..
The reporting can be streamlined. The two biggest complaints I hear about Cornerstone are that the admin side is hard to figure out (that has been fixed) and that the reporting is challenging to understand and get the information—as in cumbersome.
It has improved. It can go a step further. That’s all.
Learn Amp identifies themselves as an employee development platform.
Learn Amp, a platform that is not just a learning system, but a platform that is solely dedicated to the development of your employees.
I know there will be vendors who say, “Mine does, too. ” Okay, then, why do you also accept customer training? You can accept employees and customers and then focus your system on one segment.
Thats fine.
Learn Amp says, “No. We see ourselves only for employees – that’s it.”
I could easily see them saying, “All aboard, the employee cruise ship to wonderment, where learning is free (for your employees), design is special – just watch out for icebergs (other systems that promise but fail), and engagement to what is needed and requested for you, is delivered on time (except your postal – HA).
Wins
Top 10 for AI
Wonderful UI/UX – Learner, Admin, and Manager
The important essentials you need as a manager – everything you think is relevant, well, for many companies, it may not be – Learn Amp has figured it out – what is essential for what you need
Easy use, figure out and extract your learning story
Ability to leverage tagging tied around skills with AI
AI recommendations include content and expertise.
AI skills taxonomy – I love that you can create a taxonomy quickly. That is big.
Opportunities
More than 50 canned reports (I counted them, and since they continue to add ongoingly) out of the box with relevant data to enable you to really get a solid grasp of your learners and thus learning
Create custom reports (I know folks will go, “We can too) with a built-in BI tool (as in built into the system already). Thus, why buy a BI solution for your learning and use a BI tool created for BI data? Trying to mush that into learning is a headache—and reading that info is a migraine.
However, many companies have already purchased their own BI tool or data lake and want to use it for learning.
You can – with over 100 data points combining your data with Learn Amp’s data – The “already you have a BI or data lake,” and get that info is an additional fee (other systems charge for a BI connector – as well, but how many data points they offer varies)
Outstanding support and service—I again, am aware that lots—okay, every vendor out there on the planet says they have outstanding support and service—but trust me, they really have it and back it up day by day.
I believe that folks who want performance management—unless they are buying a performance management system, talent development system, or management system—should have it available as an add-on and not just stuck into a system.
Not everyone who is all about employees wants or will use what comes with performance management that one vendor offers versus another.
Learn Amp sees it that way, too. If you want the full-throttle PM options, they are available as an add-on here; if you don’t and are fine with what we offer out of the box, they are included here.
Later, you can push it up to the next tier PM or say, “You know what comes with the system is perfect.”
I like that they list quite a few features of items, but you can read all of that on their website, so I didn’t see the need to rehash it.
Okay, two I will point out – the communities’ piece – which can easily be utilized as cohorts, and their widgets options – quite a bit to pick from – which your learner will see.
Add-ons
Everyone now knows (if they didn’t know before) my vibe around add-ons.
Advanced analytics – Okay, maybe – Definite if is its BI level
Performance Mgt – Yep
With Learn Amp, the two above are add-ons, and they have another add-on called,
“Advanced,” which, when you read it, is confusing regarding what some of that means.
When they explained it, I admitted, “I’m thinking WHAT?”
Then I thought, okay, the advanced analytics+ is there (which is also available as a standalone add-on), and there are other items in there that I would see as advanced tools.
However, multi-branding—white-labeling, for example—should be free and not part of the Advanced add-on, ditto for a custom domain. I will be clear that when a vendor says custom domain, it usually means your name. vendor name.com—which is garbage.
This is yourname.com or, let’s say, RubbleConsultationUni.com (you get the point).
This should be included. It is not as though custom domains are expensive.
I am very aware that the number of vendors who give a free custom domain (i.e., they never charge you) is few and far between.
And the whole multi-tenant (the number of children you get, which should be free, as you are aware, only a smattering of vendors do) includes it for free (heck, only a couple in the top 10 do).
I wish Learn Amp would do the same.
Excluding that aspect, I still say “Tally-Ho.” (That means, yeah – they deserve to be #1)
Skills Reporting, Roles and Opportunities
Bottom Line
There will be a version, second edition, available as a PDF arriving before the end of the month. It will cost you..NOTHING. It’s free but will have additional items such as updated images (when available – this requires vendor permission) and an AI synthetic voice – could it be mine (replaced by AI)?? – I say with a Jekyll like laugh!
The second version will be available by download – so you can share with colleagues.
I am aware of typos in this post – and rest assured that everything will be cleaned up by mid-next week (i.e. the 10th or so of Jan).
My goal was to publish this before the end of 2024, however, I wanted to provide as much depth an insight without this being an extensive report, that folks have to purchase to read or view.
For those keeping track – what you just read = 8,129 words, with an estimated read time of 49 minutes. Although for folks who skim, that means 10 minutes.
I’m fine with either. Take your time, take a few. The read time is based on a fancy reader thing I got, which I ignore, but since people always add “duration” to their course, and others mean it has to be, well, here is my fancy reader thing, and I added the duration, even though I promise to ignore it.
Executive Summary
