Agentic AI and Credible Learning Content: Driving Performance at Scale

Pauline Taylor is VP of People at HowNow, a learning technology company that transforms how teams learn and grow at work. With over 20 years of global HR experience, she specialises in building high-performance cultures and people-first strategies. Pauline is passionate about creating workplaces where learning, inclusion, and performance thrive together.

Agentic AI is reshaping the employee experience, turning learning into a dynamic, trusted partnership between people, content, and technology.

This is one of the most exciting shifts I’ve seen in my career. Agentic AI doesn’t replace human connection; it amplifies it. It gives us back the time and space to do what we do best: support, coach, and connect with people.

Coming from a People leader, that might sound surprising. After all, HR is all about humans. We’re the listeners, the problem-solvers, the ones who create belonging. It’s why most of us chose this profession in the first place.

But the world of work has changed fast. In the past five to ten years, HR teams have had to navigate rapid business growth, shifting employee expectations, and an increasingly complex landscape, often with the same or fewer resources. Even with the best intentions, bottlenecks form, and the employee experience suffers.

This is where agentic AI is becoming a real game-changer. Imagine being able to resolve pay and benefits queries in minutes rather than days, or having AI seamlessly manage time-off requests or assign extra shifts to those who want them. It’s not about replacing the human touch; it’s about removing friction so People teams can focus on what truly matters: driving connection, culture, and growth.

Solving the skills problem – at scale

Arguably the most pressing challenge for businesses right now, is skills. What skills does the organisation need? Which of these does it already have, and how can the gaps be closed? 

Employers are having to upskill people faster than ever before. At the same time, employees are prioritising upskilling in a bid to stay relevant and progress their careers (LinkedIn’s 2024 Workplace Learning Report actually describes the ‘crave for AI skills’).

But remember those bottlenecks we mentioned earlier…How can a small L&D team possibly upskill a workforce of thousands?

The reality is that unless they can clone themselves many times over, they can’t. 

AI learning agents: building real capability 

The good news is that AI learning agents are presenting a new solution by scaling personalised teaching across an entire workforce – on-demand, in context, and in the flow of work.

These subject matter experts can teach, challenge, coach, and adapt to the individual learner’s capabilities, delivering the right verified knowledge and expertise when they need it. They can understand the learner’s unique skills gaps and even the business context they work in. They can deliver the most relevant learning content, in context, and crucially, they’re able to coach learners, helping them to apply new skills and build real capability. 

Instead of a one-size-fits-all learning journey, AI can create an experience that adapts dynamically, identifying skill gaps, recommending relevant learning moments, and even prompting reflection or action. It’s not just about consuming knowledge but applying it in real time.

This is where HR and L&D leaders play a vital role: ensuring that the AI guiding those learning moments is fuelled by trusted, validated content that aligns with company values and performance goals. Otherwise, we risk creating more noise instead of nurturing capability.

Credible content only!

Agentic AI is only as good as the content it’s fed and that cannot be overstated. Get this right, and you’ll empower your people with the very best knowledge and credible expertise. Get it wrong, and you’ll risk one (or both) of the following: poor content that fails to engage learners yet eats into your profits, or content that is unreliable and which by extension, puts your compliance and business performance at risk.

Trust is a psychological imperative here and it must be upheld if employees are to keep engaging and building positive learning behaviours. It takes time to build and maintain this trust, yet it can be broken in a matter of minutes. This is why organisations must choose their content providers very carefully, opting only for recognised and industry-leading authorities. 

Powering hyper-personalisation

One of the best things about these AI learning agents is their instant recall and limitless memory capacity, which supports increasingly hyper-personalised learning over time. The agent remembers every dialogue with an employee, what was said, how the learner felt, and what they needed to practice more. Each and every one of these details is captured in the agent’s memory, ready to shape the exceptional learning experiences that drive demonstrable upskilling. 

This is why many People leaders like myself are advocating for agentic AI. It’s something to be celebrated because it’s changing the world of work as we know it, and the benefits for people and business are significant. By providing every employee with their own expert teacher, organisations can finally satisfy people’s growing demand for effective learning, driving higher engagement, retention, and performance in the process. Not only that, they’ll also put themselves in a strong position to build critical skills quickly within their business. And in a rapidly changing environment, that’s priceless.

So for those who choose wisely and implement responsibly, agentic AI represents a whole new level of potential. The only question that remains now is this: do we want our people to learn from the very best every day?