Workera, the AI-powered skills verification platform, today announced Talk for Sage, its AI mentor agent, bringing real-time, voice-driven skills verification to the flow of work. Talk turns natural conversation into skill assessments, allowing people to demonstrate what they know out loud, receive adaptive follow-ups, and get measured on how well they’ve applied their skills — not just whether they got the answer “right.”
“The future of skills verification is multi-modal and conversational,” said Kian Katanforoosh, CEO of Workera. “With Talk, Sage listens like a great mentor — probing, adapting, and recognizing partial mastery in real time. It captures the thinking behind the answer, not just the final result, so every learner gets a fair chance to show what they can do and every leader gets sharper, more predictive talent data.”
“Workera’s approach represents a shift in how we measure skills — moving from static metrics to real-time, in-context verification. As organizations demand more actionable insights, Talk delivers skill verification that reflects how work actually gets done,” said Josh Bersin, global industry analyst.
Sage’s voice mode was engineered to feel like a trusted mentor — with natural turn-taking, adaptive follow-ups, and low cognitive load. Every voice exchange is powered by the same deep skill-mapping and psychometric rigor that drives Sage’s text-based assessments, tuned for verbal interaction so learners can think out loud and demonstrate reasoning in their own words.
Sage maintains fluid interaction with sub-1.2 second latency, and supports multiple languages. Unlike generic voice agents, Sage chunks conversations into skill-based challenges, dynamically adjusts difficulty based on performance, and awards partial credit to capture nuance — delivering sharper, more predictive talent data than binary pass/fail systems.
Sage now allows employees to apply their skills in real-world scenarios — from technical code reviews to strategic stakeholder conversations. Sage listens, interprets, and probes deeper, delivering richer, more authentic insights into workforce capabilities.
The launch follows new data from the 2025 State of Skills Intelligence report showing that only 32% of L&D leaders believe their training programs effectively close skill gaps and just 22% of employees feel their organization will be fully AI-ready in the next two years. Verified skills intelligence, particularly in real time, has emerged as a critical differentiator in workforce readiness.
IDC research underscores the urgency: by 2026, over 90% of organizations will face AI-related skills shortages, costing up to $5.5 trillion in lost productivity and revenue. Verified, contextual skills data, such as that provided by Workera, is key to closing that gap.
Beyond Talk: A Smarter, More Personal Skills Platform
The August 2025 release also introduces a series of platform enhancements:
- New scoring model: Moves beyond pass/fail to measure not just what someone knows, but how well they can apply it in high-stakes situations, delivering granular, actionable insights to both the learner and to the business.
- Personalized skill maps: Data-driven learning roadmaps cut through the noise, guiding employees to the next best step in their growth journey.
- Enhanced AI mentoring: Sage tailors resources from existing content libraries and leading partners like O’Reilly, Deeplearning.ai, Udacity, and LinkedIn Learning, mapped directly to verified skill gaps to reduce the learning time required to close verified gaps.
- Supercharged analytics: A real-time, interactive dashboard allows leaders to drill down by role, region, or business unit, benchmark against industry standards, and receive AI-powered recommendations for targeted investment.
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