Day 1 of ATD: “The Only HR Solution with Real AI”

    

Advantexe is pleased to share with our Learning & Development colleagues our thoughts and insights from the floor of the Association for Talent Development (ATD) International Conference and Exposition. Each day we will share three megatrends and provide some insights and observations.

Day One

“We have the only real AI”

The Advantexe team arrived on Saturday in New Orleans to set up for the Conference kickoff onAi-atd Sunday. As we were setting up, we took a quick glance around the Expo Hall and there was one very significant trend: everyone thinks they have the only AI-driven HR solution. I literally saw 2 companies with booths right next to each other claiming they have the only solutions with “real AI.”

The takeaway from our perspective is there are a lot of Training and HR solution vendors making a lot of claims without really understanding what their claim is, or worse, what the AI solution really is. It seems like they are throwing the words out there to see what sticks but as most L&D organizations have learned, real AI is not easy and there must be a well-defined application.

The best example of effective AI that we have seen this year was actually developed by the IT Team of one of our Medical Device company clients. For this client, we created a really fun and cool “Escape Room” business simulation that revolves around an important new process and the client developed their own Chat GPT to go hand in hand with the simulation. As teams of participants were trying to escape the various rooms by answering questions, they could leverage the Chat GPT to ask it questions to gain insight into the best practices of using the new process. The AI was customized to their learning needs, and it was the perfect accompaniment to the simulation.

Doesn’t Seem Like as Many Vendors as Last Year

The ATD conference, from a vendor perspective, feels a lot lighter than last year in San Diego. We spoke with several of our colleagues and partners in the industry and heard from them they didn’t think the Return on Investment was great and that they were going to invest in other marketing efforts.

For Advantexe, we look at the ATD conference as an opportunity to network with clients and colleagues and a chance to learn about the trends of our industry. For example, our newly promoted to Director and the Leadership practice @tarynfoy is going to as many concurrent sessions as possible. She will provide some insights in a further blog from the week.

An interesting side note: I am always amused by the new companies that show up that nobody has ever heard of. Big booths, lots of people, and clearly Private Equity backed. This is still an industry where great products matter, relationships matter, and knowledge of how Talent Development matters.

Partnerships Among Vendors

One of the most encouraging trends of the past few years which has continued has been thespice-up-atd collaboration and partnerships between vendors. What is encouraging is that great solution providers are focused and shouldn’t try to do everything. They should be good at a few things and deliver them very well. Smart T&D organizations have always asked their vendors to collaborate, but the proactive vendors have driven their own innovative collaborations in support of their clients.

For example, Advantexe and Blanchard have many shared clients and we proactively integrate our solutions so we can offer our clients the best possible outcomes on their investments in competency building.

At the year’s ATD, Advantexe (Booth 2510), Blanchard (Booth 2301), Cloverleaf (3718), and Management Concepts (2204) have joined together for a promotion where a conference participant who stops by our booths receives a custom jar of spices. If participants visit all four companies, they receive a full kit! It’s a fun promotion and allows the partners to build relationships and cross-promote to each other’s clients.

We will be back tomorrow!

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Robert Brodo

About The Author

Robert Brodo is co-founder of Advantexe. He has more than 20 years of training and business simulation experience.