From Courses to Coaches: L&D’s Agentic Leap with Lori Niles-Hofmann
🎙️ Harald’s Curious Corner (Pilot Episode)
Reader’s note: This is the pilot episode of Harald’s Curious Corner—and I'm so excited for you to see what I've been cooking up in the last few months. I’ve long wanted to create a space to explore the intersection of learning, technology, and the extraordinary moment L&D is navigating right now. If you’re here, you share that same curiosity—and you’re in the right corner.
If you're a curious L&D nerd like me, subscribe to my newsletter for the wrap-up, insights, and the next rabbit hole we’re diving into. 🧠⚡
For the full conversation (and a great nerd-out), check out the complete episode:
🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHlCo1qbS2XW2b6ZsY3kmMA
🎧 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3ZcrmIlUYIWeKvZnBKY3cM
🎧 My first guest: the brilliant Lori Niles-Hofmann, strategist, veteran of global learning platform rollouts, and author of Eight Levers of EdTech Transformation. Lori has had her finger firmly on the pulse of workplace learning for over 25 years, and it shows.
Check out Lori's book: Eight Levers of EdTech Transformation. I bought it and found it a fascinating prelude to my chat with Lori: https://www.theeightlevers.com/
Episode Intro and Why I wanted to speak with Lori
Why this show, why now
I started this podcast to explore the role of L&D in the age of AI—not to reach a single neat conclusion, but to gather contrasting perspectives, challenge assumptions, and follow a few well-chosen rabbit holes along the way. Some voices are optimistic, others cautious. All are curious. My aim is to spark the kind of conversations that help us make sense of this pivotal moment in our profession.
⚙️ The “new toy” trap
Lori’s first point hit home: buying a platform because the interface looks nicer isn’t transformation.
Technology will (mostly) work — but unless you can show how it helps the business make money, save money, or mitigate risk, you’re decorating, not transforming.
And no, a new platform won’t magically make your culture collaborative.
🤖 Beyond GenAI — welcome to the agentic era
Generative AI made content faster. Agentic AI changes the work itself.
It’s not about “build quicker”, it’s about re-thinking processes — what to automate, what to orchestrate, and what humans still do best.
🎬 Clip 2 — The end of traditional courses & rise of agentic learning
Data spring-cleaning: the job nobody wants but everybody needs
You can’t build intelligent systems on messy data. Before daydreaming about agents and copilots, organisations need to get their data house in order.
That means linking datasets across systems, securing data governance, and ensuring privacy compliance—especially with the European AI Act looming large.
Without clean, connected data, your AI ambitions are little more than a digital daydream.
🎯 From courses to campaigns
Forget the “upload and hope” model. Lori’s future of learning design looks more like marketing automation than course creation. Think trigger-based journeys:
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- A learner completes level four in Spanish → their system prompts them to switch Excel into Spanish mode.
- A manager completes onboarding → they receive a contextual coaching nudge before their first performance review.
This isn’t content—it’s choreography. And it’s where L&D steps into the role of learning experience architect or orchestrator, designing the rhythm and timing of learning, not just its shape.
🧠 Politics, process and people
Agentic ecosystems raise new questions: who owns the “brain”? CIO? HR? AI Officer?
Stakeholder management isn’t admin anymore — it’s survival. And as the work changes, so does the operating model of L&D itself.
✍️ Skills that stand the test of time
Some skills never go out of style: communication, analysis, curiosity.
Add to that a working knowledge of how AI agents actually function. You don’t need to code them — but you do need to collaborate with them.
Bring back the English majors. They’re about to be in demand again.
🔥 A bonfire of bad habits
If we’re burning the old ways, here’s the kindling: 1️⃣ Courses as the default 2️⃣ Sheep-dip programmes 3️⃣ The illusion of a “learning culture” without results
What rises from the ashes? Personalisation. Context. And a renewed human touch.
🎬 Clip 3 — It’s time to burn the course format
The one question every L&D leader should ask
Among Lori’s sharpest provocations:
“How are you using AI to learn?”
If leaders aren’t experimenting themselves, their AI strategies risk becoming empty rhetoric. Getting hands-on builds empathy, sharpens strategy, and reveals the real friction points people face in practice.
🗝️ Make more keys, not gates
L&D’s future isn’t about owning learning — it’s about enabling it.
Partner beyond HR: work with IT, Sales, Operations, Customer Success. Focus on outcomes, not completions. And measure what matters — performance, not page views.
🪄 What this all means for L&D
The future of L&D won’t be built on courses, but on data and design. It’s about cleaner systems, smarter automation, and deeper connection — all working together to make learning more human.
If you're a curious L&D nerd like me, subscribe to my newsletter for the wrap-up, insights, and the next rabbit hole we’re diving into. 🧠⚡
For the full conversation (and a great nerd-out), check out the complete episode:
🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oerVSrkd108
🎧 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3ZcrmIlUYIWeKvZnBKY3cM
Finally got my hands on your podcast and it’s awesome! Packed with great insights on how leaders stay current and accountable on the ever changing L&D world..great work Harald Overaa !
Harald, fantastic pilot. The big takeaway: The future of L&D isn't building courses. It's architecting experiences. Loved your point that L&D must stop being order-takers and start solving the "most expensive problems." L&D needs to get out of its bubble. Great insights! 🙌
Finding the right way to deploy AI is one of the most critical questions for all organisations right now. The garbage in, garbage out conversation is now more pronounced than ever, content creation is so easy that its easy to just say "more". Iterating content and tying learning into wider business outcomes so that you can generate measurable impact rather than running on a digital spinning wheel is exactly what we need to be talking about. Great podcast and insights Harald & Lori!
Loving this Harald Overaa. Very excited to follow this journey!
AI is now a priority for the c-suite, recent reports from Forbes, McKinsey and Thomson Reuters have covered this. The real challenge is how teams inside an organisation work together around it. For L&D, the basics still come first. Clean data, strong governance and leaders who are hands-on with the tools make it easier to take sensible decisions about risk, capability and integration. Once those pieces are in place, agentic workflows and personalised learning are more acheiveable and effective. the pod covered so much - thanks. CIO, AI, Governance, ownership, experiences!