April 8, 2025

Contents Key Components of AI That Enable It to Produce Improved Learning and Organizational Outcomes in Skill Assessment The Scaffolding that Supports AI for Learning Assessment Examples from the Field How it Looks in Real Life Key Takeaways: Applying AI in Skills Assessment Learn More Part II What are the key components of AI that enable it to produce improved learning and organizational outcomes in skill assessment? In our last installment, we dug into the impact that AI-powered functionalities have on learning and assessments within organizations. Our research showed that AI’s ability to personalize assessment experiences and interpret data from multiple sources at scale improve efficiency and outcomes of learning strategies and business goals. Learn more here. Having established that the overall impact of AI-driven capabilities on skill development and measurement is net positive, we moved on to our next question: What are the key components of AI that enable it to produce these improved outcomes for skills assessment? The Scaffolding that Supports AI for Learning Assessment There are many functionalities that make AI impactful for assessing skills. Here are some of the most common that we found in our research: Component Algorithms What It Is A step-by-step logic process programmed by humans that serves as instructions for solving problems or completing tasks. Think: if X, then Y What It Enables Adaptive assessments that adjust according to learner performance and preferences Personalized suggestions for learning content Personalized feedback Machine Learning Algorithms What It Is A type of algorithm that can train and refine itself to learn patterns or relationships from learning, performance, and market data. What It Enables Identify knowledge gapsPredict future performance and suggest preventive learning measuresAnalyze learner interaction patternsAutomate adjustments in question difficulty Automate adjustments in question difficulty level according to learner performance and preferences Generative AI What It Is Any AI system that can create new content. What It Enables Creation of customized learning content like industry- or role-specific case studies or scenarios Personalized assessment questions Automatically generated summary materials and study guides Automatically created practice exercises that target specific skill gaps Creation of context- or industry-specific images NLPs + LLMs What It Is Essentially LLMs and NLP are the motors behind GenAI. They are able to understand, analyze, and recognize patterns in text, which then allows GenAI to produce relevant output. What It Enables Automated grading for open response questions Automated, personalized feedback within assessments Simulated conversations, for scenario-based assessments Summarize large amounts of text and create suggestions, like open-ended survey questions DLA What It Is DLA focuses specifically on measuring, collecting, analyzing and reporting on learning data, with the explicit goal of improving training, learning outcomes, and organizational decision-making. What It Enables Track response times on assessment questions or chat interactions – info that can then be used to adjust difficulty level Sentiment analysis of open responses – which can then trigger personalized learning recommendations Predictive analytics for early intervention with employees that may be at higher risk of violating compliance regulations, for example Informing organizational decision making on focus for training programs and resource allocation What It Is A step-by-step logic process programmed by humans that serves as instructions for solving problems or completing tasks. Think: if X, then Y What It Enables Adaptive assessments that adjust according to learner performance and preferences Personalized suggestions for learning content Personalized feedback What It Is A type of algorithm that can train and refine itself to learn patterns or relationships from learning, performance, and market data. What It Enables Identify knowledge gapsPredict future performance and suggest preventive learning measuresAnalyze learner interaction patternsAutomate adjustments in question difficulty Automate adjustments in question difficulty level according to learner performance and preferences What It Is Any AI system that can create new content. What It Enables Creation of customized learning content like industry- or role-specific case studies or scenarios Personalized assessment questions Automatically generated summary materials and study guides Automatically created practice exercises that target specific skill gaps Creation of context- or industry-specific images What It Is Essentially LLMs and NLP are the motors behind GenAI. They are able to understand, analyze, and recognize patterns in text, which then allows GenAI to produce relevant output. What It Enables Automated grading for open response questions Automated, personalized feedback within assessments Simulated conversations, for scenario-based assessments Summarize large amounts of text and create suggestions, like open-ended survey questions What It Is DLA focuses specifically on measuring, collecting, analyzing and reporting on learning data, with the explicit goal of improving training, learning outcomes, and organizational decision-making. What It Enables Track response times on assessment questions or chat interactions – info that can then be used to adjust difficulty level Sentiment analysis of open responses – which can then trigger personalized learning recommendations Predictive analytics for early intervention with employees that may be at higher risk of violating compliance regulations, for example Informing organizational decision making on focus for training programs and resource allocation Component What it is What it enables Algorithms A step-by-step logic process programmed by humans that serves as instructions for solving problems or completing tasks. Think: if X, then Y Adaptive assessments that adjust according to learner performance and preferences Personalized suggestions for learning content Personalized feedback Machine Learning Algorithms A type of algorithm that can train and refine itself to learn patterns or relationships from learning, performance, and market data. Identify knowledge gaps Predict future performance and suggest preventive learning measures Analyze learner interaction patterns Automate adjustments in question difficulty Automate adjustments in question difficulty level according to learner performance and preferences Generative AI Any AI system that can create new content. Creation of customized learning content like industry- or role-specific case studies or scenarios Personalized assessment questions Automatically generated summary materials and study guides Automatically created practice exercises that target specific skill gaps Creation of context- or industry-specific images Large Language Models (LLMs) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) Essentially LLMs and NLP are the motors behind GenAI. They are able to understand, analyze, and recognize patterns in