What Will Learning Look Like By 2027?

Today’s learning management systems are dinosaurs, delivering passive content to an audience that demands connection and constant activity. Here’s the roadmap forward.

by Randall Tinfow
CEO, REACHUM

I’ve been delivering learning for 40 years, starting with vhs tapes accompanied by printed workbooks and moving to today’s adaptive learning platforms driven by AI.

The challenges today are much different than they were in 1984, with “digital distraction” the current headline. More than 90% of learners lose focus within 12 minutes of the start of an online class, which is no surprise, given our need to check phones every 3 minutes!

Try Your Own Social Experiment

You can have some fun by conducting your own social experiment. Ask any college or workplace leaner if they can last through 10 minutes of training without checking their phones. I’ve asked this question hundreds of times and am still amused by the responses. No one is paying much attention to the old training content, which consist primarily of talking heads and narrated slides.

Here’s what today’s learners want:

Message clarity
Active involvement
No overload
Personalized learning paths
Relevance
Recognition for accomplishments
One click continuation
Great mobile experiences
Low stress
Community
Safety
Searchability

This is what management needs:

User management
Fast creation
Intuitive UX
Modest cost
Robust reporting
Gap identification
Simple course management
Less admin time
Accessibility
Continuous improvement
Targeted interventions

LMS are dinosaurs — Learning Management Systems as we know them will soon be considered archaic, the dinosaurs of the learning and talent development worlds.

Human Capital Wasted

Today’s learning management systems are dinosaurs, delivering passive content to an audience that demands constant activity and considers traditional content – long videos and narrated slide decks – “insipid, deadly boring.”

An SVP of a bank confided that she needs to study 40 hours of compliance videos and get 80% correct on exams in order to please bank examiners. She describes the experience as “torture” and explained how “some people cheat” to get through. It seems absurd to subject a valued leader to time wasting of this magnitude, but we hear similar stories over and over again. Today’s training methods are rightly described as “stupefying.”

Replacing the LMS

We are blowing up the LMS model and starting fresh with an Intelligent Knowledge System that captures organizational wisdom and transfers it to users using methods that demand focus and engagement.

All the games, activities, and challenges users love in REACHUM are being ported to the new model. We’ll retain existing LMS clients and the key methods that work – microlearning, game-based learning, and achievement recognition, but by the middle of 2026 we expect that LMS as we know them will be replaced by new, AI driven experiences.

The hot sauce is that the new systems will be conversational, like a personal mentor that is always ready to deliver exactly the right knowledge that you can put into practice.

Intelligent Coaching System

Our ﬁrst implementations are in early release and testing in October 2024. You’ll get to know them as Smart-Bud and REACHUM’s ICS, short for Intelligent Coaching System. They will evolve to become the cornerstone of a new, mobile-first continuous learning platform.

The LMS you know will soon be a thing of the past, supplanted by a smart system that is continually evolving, a dynamic knowledge base that captures, aggregates, and continuously improves organizational wisdom. The revolution is coming and we have two hands on the ﬂag!