Employee training has come a long way, but traditional methods often fall short. Most workers forget 70% of what they learn within just one week. That's a lot of wasted time and money. But the good news is—AI is revolutionizing workforce training by adapting to individual learning and development styles. It provides employees with instant support, using vast amounts of training data and retaining company knowledge in learning content for easy access.
Imagine a training process that adapts to how you learn best, answers your questions on the spot, and keeps all your company's knowledge at your fingertips. That's exactly what AI employee training programs are bringing to the table. They're not just making training faster and cheaper – they're making it stick. More and more businesses are integrating AI-driven training assistants to their training courses, accelerate onboarding, reduce training costs, show training outcomes and improve employee satisfaction and engagement.
In this article, we'll take a look at some of the top AI employee training tools. We'll also introduce you to Tanka – a game-changing AI learning assistant that's taking employee training to the next level. Whether you're an HR pro, a team leader, or a business owner, you'll want to stick around to see how AI can transform internal training programs, business operations and the way your team learns and grows.
The role of AI in employee training and onboarding
Employee training and onboarding are critical to productivity and long-term success, but traditional methods and training courses often fall short. AI technology is changing the game by making learning and development more personalized, efficient, and engaging. With AI training courses, companies can encourage employees to have personalized learning paths.
Common challenges in traditional training methods
Despite the best intentions, traditional training methods come with several problems that make them less effective and more resource-intensive:
One-size-fits-all training: Many companies use standardized training programs that assume all employees learn the same way. However, some employees grasp concepts quickly, while others need more time or a different approach. A rigid, one-size-fits-all system leaves some employees struggling, while others feel like they’re wasting time on material they already know. This decreases employee engagement in such programs.
Knowledge loss – Studies show that employees forget up to 70% of new information within a few days if it isn’t reinforced. Traditional training programs often consist of a one-time session or a series of lessons without ongoing support. Without repetition or application, knowledge fades, leaving employees ill-prepared to apply what they’ve learned.
High costs and time consumption—Traditional onboarding and training require a significant investment of time from HR teams, managers, and trainers. Preparing materials, hosting in-person sessions, and answering the same questions repeatedly distract key people from their primary responsibilities. In fast-paced work environments, this inefficiency can slow down business outcomes and drive up costs.
How AI improves learning efficiency
AI-powered training solutions address these challenges by making learning more dynamic, accessible, and tailored to individual needs:
Personalized learning: AI-powered training platforms analyze learners' progress and adapt the training content to their learning speed, role, and prior knowledge. This ensures that employees stay engaged, receive relevant material, and don’t waste time on concepts they already understand. Personalized training boosts retention and helps employees apply what they learn more effectively.
Always-on support – Unlike traditional training methods that rely on scheduled sessions or limited HR availability, AI assistants provide instant answers to real-time questions. This continuous support reduces reliance on managers and HR personnel while empowering employees to find solutions on their own.
Consistency is key – AI ensures that every employee receives the same high-quality experience in training processes, eliminating variations in content delivery. This is particularly important for large organizations with multiple locations or remote teams, as it guarantees uniform knowledge and compliance across the workforce.
AI-powered onboarding streamlines the employee training experience by automating repetitive tasks and personalizing learning paths. Here’s how the process typically works:
Preboarding with AI chatbots: Before an employee’s first day, AI chatbots can provide essential company information, answer FAQs, and guide them through paperwork.
Personalized training plans: AI analyzes the new hire’s role, soft skills, and experience to create a tailored onboarding program, ensuring they focus on relevant materials.
Interactive learning modules: AI-driven platforms offer adaptive training with quizzes, simulations, and real-time feedback, making learning more engaging and efficient.
Automated progress tracking: AI monitors learner's progress, identifying areas where they might need additional support and adjusting the training accordingly.
Ongoing AI support: Even after onboarding, AI-powered assistants can provide continuous guidance, answering questions and recommending resources based on performance and learning patterns.
Use cases of AI onboarding
AI-driven onboarding is transforming how leading companies train employees across different industries. Here are some key use cases:
Corporate training: Large organizations use AI to automate training, ensuring consistency across departments while offering personalized learning experiences.
Remote employee onboarding: AI chatbots and virtual assistants help remote workers get up to speed quickly by providing instant support and digital training modules.
Compliance and regulatory training: AI ensures employees complete mandatory compliance training by personalizing content and tracking progress in real time.
Retail and customer service training: AI-powered simulations help employees practice real-world scenarios, improving customer interactions and problem-solving skills.
Technical and IT onboarding: AI assists in upskilling new hires by recommending relevant courses, automating documentation access, and offering real-time troubleshooting guidance.
AI onboarding simplifies the e-learning process, making it more efficient and engaging for e-learning, while reducing administrative workload.
Introducing Tanka: the AI learning assistant for employee training
Tanka isn't your average learning management system. It's an AI learning companion that stays with employees beyond onboarding. It helps them learn and grow at work. Let's see how Tanka is making learning experiences and employee training efficient.
Tanka as an AI-powered training guide
Imagine having a super-smart coworker who never forgets anything and is always ready to help. That's Tanka. It doesn't just provide information to your employees and call it a day. Instead, it answers real-time questions, provides smart guidance, effective and tailored training programs, and retains company knowledge for ongoing learning.
Unlike traditional training tools, Tanka is built with AI memory. It understands company processes, policies, existing systems, and team structures, offering instant, relevant insights whenever employees need them.
Key features of Tanka as an AI training assistant
AI-guided onboarding helps new hires navigate company tools, processes, and best practices without constant human supervision.
Use case: If there's a new hire in the sales team, Tanka can provide AI sales training with a personalized onboarding experience tailored to individual roles, ensuring employees quickly adapt to the company environment.
Real-time AI coaching: Tanka acts as a virtual mentor, answering employee questions on the spot. If your employees are stuck on something, they can ask Tanka. It will give a personalized response based on how your employees learn best.
Use case: Interactive AI platforms offer personalized learning pathways that account for an individual's skills and preferred learning styles for effective training.
Context-aware learning: Unlike static LMS systems, Tanka retains context, allowing employees to ask follow-up questions and receive relevant responses.
Use case: Employees can easily verify workflows or document templates directly within group chats, streamlining collaboration and reducing administrative overhead.
Seamless integration with business tools: Tanka works within Slack, Microsoft Teams, WhatsApp, Gmail, and Notion, embedding training directly into employees’ daily workflows.
Use case: Ensures that learning materials and real-time feedback are accessible directly in the tools employees use, promoting seamless learning adoption.
Knowledge retention and reinforcement: AI tracks employee training and development progress and automatically reinforces key training topics over time.
Use case: It simplifies employee surveys to gather insights into training requirements, helping to identify areas for improvement and optimize future learning programs.
With Tanka, employee training isn't just a one-time thing – it's an ongoing conversation that helps you get better at your job every day.
AI-powered training solutions all aim to improve training and development programs, but they don’t all work the same way. While traditional AI training tools focus on structured courses and assessments, Tanka takes a more dynamic approach to improve employee training, by adapting to each employee’s learning style and integrating adaptive learning directly into their workflow. Here’s how Tanka stands apart:
Personalized learning vs. static training programs
Tanka: Instead of relying on generic lessons, Tanka customizes training to match each employee’s experience level and learning speed. It provides real-time guidance, helping employees grasp concepts at their own pace. Whether they need a quick answer or an in-depth explanation, Tanka delivers relevant information without forcing them through unnecessary content.
Docebo, Coursera, Google Cloud Skills Boost: These platforms provide pre-built courses designed for broad audiences. While they cover a wide range of topics, they lack the ability to tailor content to an individual’s needs. Employees must complete structured lessons in a set order, even if they already understand some of the material, which can slow down the learning process.
Onboarding assistance vs. traditional LMS
Tanka: Acts as an interactive onboarding assistant, offering real-time support from day one. Employees can ask company-specific questions—like how to request time off or where to find internal documents—and Tanka provides instant answers. This removes the frustration of searching through manuals or waiting for HR responses.
Other AI tools: Traditional learning management systems (LMS) primarily offer standardized courses that cover general topics like compliance and workplace policies. While helpful, they don’t provide real-time, company-specific guidance, leaving employees to figure out many aspects of their new role on their own.
AI memory vs. session-based learning and development programs
Tanka: Unlike most AI training tools, Tanka remembers previous conversations. If an employee asks a question about a process one day and needs clarification later, Tanka recalls past interactions and builds on them. This continuity helps employees retain knowledge and reduces the need to repeat the same queries.
ChatGPT, Docebo, and Google Cloud Skills Boost treat each session as a fresh start. If an employee asks the same question multiple times, they’ll receive a response as if they were brand-new users. This lack of memory forces employees to re-enter information, making the learning experience less efficient.
Seamless workflow integration
Tanka: Works within company communication tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, or other workplace platforms. Employees can access training and get answers to their questions without switching between different apps. This seamless integration keeps training unobtrusive and part of their natural workflow.
Other AI tools: Require employees to log into separate platforms to complete courses or access training materials. This disrupts their workflow, making it harder to balance training and development with routine tasks. As a result, training can feel like an extra chore rather than an integrated part of their job.
Tanka’s ability to provide personalized, real-time guidance, remember past interactions, and safely integrate new technology into daily work makes it a more effective and engaging AI training and development solution. Unlike traditional AI training tools that rely on static courses and separate platforms, Tanka ensures that the training experience remains natural and efficient.
Conclusion: Choosing the Best AI Tool for Employee Training
Not all tools offer the same level of support for AI-powered employee training. Platforms like Docebo AI, Coursera, and Google Cloud Skills Boost provide a solid foundation with pre-built training content, but they lack real-time AI coaching and interactive guidance. These tools work well for structured learning content but lack the adaptability and responsiveness for truly personalized training.
Tanka, on the other hand, takes AI-driven learning to the next level. With interactive onboarding, real-time AI coaching, adaptive continuous learning, and context-aware knowledge retrieval, Tanka ensures employees get the right information when needed—without wasting time on irrelevant content or repeating the same questions.
Make onboarding and training seamless with AI-powered learning. Try Tanka today and experience how AI technology can transform your business growth and workforce development programs. Sign up for the free Beta now!