Conversational Agents Won’t Replace Training — They’ll Make It Work
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They’ll (actually) make it work.
For years, enablement leaders faced a structural tradeoff:
Scale structured training OR personalized or small-group coaching.
Rarely both.
Conversational agents change that equation — not by replacing training, but by embedding practice and feedback where it has historically been scarce.
If we look at the learning science, this shift is overdue.
1. A Move Towards Capability Over Content
Most organizations optimize for content production...which is why the AI tools boom created so much hype.
More courses. More decks. More playbooks.
(There's many reasons for why organizations keep going back to courses and resources, but that's another article.)
Expertise research shows that performance does not improve through exposure alone.
Psychologist Anders Ericsson’s foundational research on deliberate practice demonstrates that expert performance emerges from highly structured, effortful practice with immediate feedback and clear performance goals — not from repetition or content consumption alone (Deliberate Practice and the Acquisition of Expert Performance).
Deliberate practice requires:
- Specific improvement goals
- Work at the edge of current ability
- Frequent feedback
- Ongoing self-monitoring
That is fundamentally different from completing a module.
Conversational agents create the missing layer: repeatable, feedback-rich rehearsal.
If your AI strategy starts with content generation, you are optimizing the least important layer of performance.
They shift enablement from knowledge transfer to behavior formation.
2. The Training–Coaching Gap Is Now Measurable
The Salesforce State of Sales (7th Edition) quantifies what many enablement leaders already know:
- 52% of reps say traditional enablement doesn’t provide the skills they need
- 41% don’t get enough opportunities to roleplay before customer calls
- 46% rarely receive feedback on sales conversations
- 40% say managers lack time to coach them properly
This is the structural bottleneck.
Reps want rehearsal. Managers lack capacity. Content alone cannot close the gap.
Conversational agents are not a novelty feature.
They help bridge a valuable gap between scale and human development by scaling enablement experiences.
3. Practice Must Be Embedded — Not Optional
A simulation sitting outside the learning journey will not change behavior.
Deliberate practice works when it is:
- Integrated into structured pathways
- Tied to defined performance standards
- Required before advancement
- Measured against outcomes
We see this across domains.
Medical schools are now using AI-driven virtual patients to let trainees rehearse clinical interviews repeatedly with structured feedback (Digital Docs: How AI is Helping Train Medical Students, Cornell University). Students can iterate until they demonstrate empathy, diagnostic thoroughness, and clarity.
That is not theory.
That is applied deliberate practice in a high-stakes domain.
When rehearsal becomes routine — not optional — skill accelerates.
**I'm writing another article on the opportunities for rapid conversational agent deployment for enablement teams. Stay tuned!
4. A New 70–20–10 for AI Investment in HR
(Credit to Dominic Holmes for pointing me to this article and his analysis as well.)
The temptation with AI is to start with tooling as we did in 2024/5.
But research on AI transformation from Boston Consulting Group shows that organizations generating real value invest roughly:
- 70% in people and process redesign
- 20% in technology and integration
- 10% in algorithms
The hard part is not the model. It is redesigning work.
As Dominic Holmes put it in prep for our corporate webinar with Cornerstone OnDemand about AI Upskilling and agents.
"The companies that win with AI right now invest twice as much in re-thinking people and processes over tool acquisition."
Agents multiply clarity. They do not create it.
If performance standards are vague, AI will scale vagueness. If coaching culture is weak, AI will scale weak signals.
Redesign before deployment.
5. The Strategic Implication
Conversational agents will not replace traditional training.
They complete it.
They create the bridge between:
Structured instruction and Live human coaching
For the first time, organizations can more easily deliver:
- Scenario-based rehearsal
- Immediate, objective feedback
- Purposeful iteration
- Workflow-embedded reinforcement
At scale.
The real question is not:
“Should we use AI?”
It is:
“Are we redesigning enablement around deliberate practice — or are we just producing more content?”
One builds skill.
The other builds noise.
References
- Ericsson, K. A., Krampe, R. T., & Tesch-Römer, C. (1993). Deliberate Practice and the Acquisition of Expert Performance. Psychological Review, 100(3), 363–406.
- Synthesia x Cornerstone Webinar: AI for Upskilling with Conversational Agents
- Harvard Graduate School of Education. The Value of Self Reflection
- Salesforce Research. (2026). State of Sales, 7th Edition
- Cornell University. Digital Docs: How AI is Helping Train Medical Students
- Boston Consulting Group. The Leader’s Guide to Transforming with AI
About the author
Strategic Advisor
Kevin Alster
Kevin Alster is a Strategic Advisor at Synthesia, where he helps global enterprises apply generative AI to improve learning, communication, and organizational performance. His work focuses on translating emerging technology into practical business solutions that scale.He brings over a decade of experience in education, learning design, and media innovation, having developed enterprise programs for organizations such as General Assembly, The School of The New York Times, and Sotheby’s Institute of Art. Kevin combines creative thinking with structured problem-solving to help companies build the capabilities they need to adapt and grow.
