Every few months, another company decides to “streamline” learning and development by replacing instructional designers with AI.
They plug a few prompts into ChatGPT, generate a slide deck or eLearning module, and call it training.
(And yes, I hate that word — because real learning is more than training.)
The result? Predictable: Poorly designed learning experiences, low retention, and underperformance that somehow gets blamed on employees instead of the design itself.
The myth: “AI can do what instructional designers do”
AI can summarize, rephrase, and even outline topics beautifully. What it can’t do is design for learning.
Good instructional design is NOT about information delivery — it’s about behavioral change. It’s the art and science of helping people think, apply, and retain knowledge in a way that changes performance.
That requires:
- Understanding how adults learn (motivation, relevance, context)
- Designing practice and feedback loops that build skill, not just awareness
- Aligning every piece of content with business outcomes and measurable results
- Anticipating cognitive load, emotional tone, and learner environment
AI doesn’t do that. It generates words. It can assist with structure or inspiration — but it can’t read a workforce, diagnose performance gaps, or craft experience-based learning interventions that actually stick.
The real challenge: Good instructional design is hard
The best instructional designers blend psychology, storytelling, business strategy, and data. They act like architects — balancing aesthetics, structure, and function.
When you get it right, you see it in the metrics:
- Faster skill adoption
- Lower turnover
- Better engagement
- Real performance lift
When you get it wrong — or skip it entirely — you get endless re-training cycles, disengaged employees, and frustrated managers wondering why “nothing sticks.”
That’s not a content problem. That’s a design problem.
Why skipping design (and hiring AI instead) costs more than it saves
When companies skip instructional design and rely on AI “training modules,” they’re not saving money — they’re buying inefficiency.
Without sound design:
- Learners tune out.
- Knowledge doesn’t transfer.
- Behavior doesn’t change.
- Performance doesn’t improve.
And that all circles back to retention — not just of knowledge, but of talent. People leave companies that don’t invest in meaningful development.
If your learning programs feel like a checkbox, your people will treat them like one.
The bigger picture
AI is an incredible tool for instructional designers — not instead of them.
It can accelerate content creation, automate routine tasks, and give IDs more time to do the creative, strategic, human-centered work that machines can’t replicate.
But replacing instructional designers with AI doesn’t modernize your L&D function — it hollow-outs your learning strategy.
(Note: Next week, I’ll be sharing part two — a closer look at how bad “training” directly contributes to underperformance across organizations.)