Report Summary: Learning and Development Global Sentiment Survey 2023

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For the past 10 years, the Learning and Development Global Sentiment Survey has asked learning professionals worldwide about workplace L&D trends and challenges. The 2023 report, unrated, analyzes the feedback of nearly 4,000 L&D professionals from 100 countries on every continent. Learning expert Donald H. Taylor’s survey reveals that interest in data – including its relationship to new AI technologies – has risen sharply over past years. Reskilling and upskilling, though, remain the industry’s top priority. Additionally, L&D is focused on proving its value to business stakeholders.

Take-Aways

• Reskilling and upskilling remain L&D’s top global priority for the third year in a row.
• The launch of ChatGPT caused a resurgence of interest in data and its use in AI, skills management and analytics.
• L&D must evolve to come to terms with the impact data and AI will have on the industry.
• Demonstrating value to business stakeholders will remain among the biggest L&D challenges.

Summary

Reskilling and upskilling remain L&D’s top global priority for the third year in a row.

Roughly half of those surveyed reported they worked as in-house L&D professionals; other respondents identified themselves as L&D vendors, educators or freelancers. An aggregate 12% of these L&D professionals report that reskilling/upskilling remains their primary priority in 2023 – the third year in a row that this concern earned a majority of votes.

“It is not usual for one idea (reskilling/upskilling) to dominate the top of the table for so long.”

Interest has declined about 0.5% as compared to the 2022 survey results, and varies based on locale: 17.9% of respondents from Malaysia identified reskilling/upskilling as a “hot” topic for 2023, for example, while only 10.9% of those from North America did so. As North America tends to serve as a bellwether for L&D trends, this data may indicate that reskilling/upskilling could decline in importance in the coming years.

The launch of ChatGPT caused a resurgence of interest in data and its use in AI, skills management and analytics.

While it did not earn the number one spot in the rankings, the true headline of the 2023 report is the renewed interest in data among L&D professionals. This category includes AI – which garnered the most number of votes after reskilling/upskilling – skills-based talent management and learning analytics. AI, which first appeared as a voting option in 2017, moved from 12th to 2nd position since last year – an increase of 4.5% – which marks an unprecedented shift in the survey’s 10-year history.

“The meteoric rise of interest in AI is symptomatic of a larger story – a story about a post-pandemic shift in sentiment towards data.”

ChatGPT’s release about a week before the survey’s launch is the most likely cause of AI’s dramatic rise in the rankings. However, last year’s report also signaled a potential drift toward AI, so the increased interest in data was likely already underway even before ChatGPT.

L&D must evolve to come to terms with the impact data and AI will have on the industry.

L&D’s traditional role in creating and distributing content will likely come under increasing threat by AI, which can produce text, images and videos on demand. AI is likely to fundamentally change the way learning providers create content.

“AI heralds a new era of how we work, live and learn. Is L&D ready?”

In an AI-driven future, companies will need L&D more than ever, but its function will undeniably evolve. As AI plays a larger role in content creation, L&D will need to focus more on delivering value to stakeholders.

Demonstrating value to business stakeholders will remain among the biggest L&D challenges.

More than ever, L&D will need to demonstrate tangible learning outcomes to business stakeholders – many survey respondents identified this imperative as a key challenge for 2023.

“L&D will need to show the value of learning and its impact on performance.”

Many L&D professionals anticipate struggling to secure budgets in 2023. They see proving the value of learning programs, delivering effective learning in the flow of work, and close collaboration with business leaders as imperatives for obtaining adequate funding.

About the Author

Donald H. Taylor has chaired the London Learning Technologies Conference since 2000, and from 2010 to 2021 was the chair of the Learning and Performance Institute. He speaks extensively on the learning and development profession and is the author of Learning Technologies in the Workplace.