Summary: Our 2026 L&D predictions suggest a radical shift is coming for how the learning function operates. AI will finally enable true learning in the workflow, but this technological leap will spark a counter-movement: renewed appreciation for real human conversation and relationship quality. L&D teams will move beyond narrow reskilling to build transferable capabilities for an uncertain future. The separate silos of HR functions will dissolve into integrated ecosystems, whilst organisations risk creating inhuman ‘monocultures’ if they fail to restore humanity in increasingly automated workplaces. Strategic intent with AI – not performative automation – will separate leaders from laggards.
A new year brings another opportunity to forecast how learning and development will evolve over the months ahead. Following TrainingZone tradition, we invited our top writers of 2025 to dust off their crystal balls and share their top L&D predictions for 2026.
The consensus? Transformation is coming – and it’s both technological and deeply human. Our experts foresee AI finally delivering on its promise of learning in the workflow, but warn of the risks: inhuman monocultures, AI fatigue and the erosion of genuine human connection. Yet there’s opportunity too. L&D can reclaim its strategic role, focus on relationships rather than just skills, and build truly transferable capabilities for an uncertain future.
So, let’s dive in. Here are TrainingZone’s nine L&D predictions for 2026.
Prediction one: L&D will focus less on skills and more on how people relate
Dani Bacon and Garin Rouch
In 2026, L&D will shift its focus from teaching individual skills to paying attention to the quality of relationships at work. Feedback is a good example. Most people already know how to give feedback, but it often doesn’t land because the wider conditions aren’t right. Trust is fragile, power dynamics are ignored and people feel judged rather than supported.
L&D will increasingly recognise the need to work at a team and system level, helping leaders and groups shape the habits, conversations and culture that make learning possible. Practitioners who strengthen how people relate at work will drive deeper change that lasts.
Prediction two: Workflow will become the only place people learn
L&D expert Teresa Rose and AI strategist Markus Bernhardt
For at least a decade, we’ve been promised learning in the flow of work. Or, as Jay Cross said, ‘learning is work, and work is learning’. Yet most learning still sits trapped in LXPs and courses, waiting to be found. With AI, we can finally unblend that content and reblend it into real work, turning it into a learning sat nav: always on, context-aware and step-by-step. As this matures, learning in the workflow won’t just be an option. It will be the only way people really learn at work.
Prediction three: 2026 will bring an imperative for a complete end-to-end reset of corporate learning
Josh Bersin, Founder and CEO, The Josh Bersin Company
With AI-enabled L&D, the new expectation will become technology that answers questions, teaches, offers courses and enables role plays – accessible on a phone in any language. Your employees will have AI agents that personalise career advice and follow up on their development activities.
Does this mean that we won’t need L&D anymore? No. This will help shift L&D from tiresome course logging and production to a powerful new role: a business enablement function that is much more distributed into the business, overseeing the application of learning materials to all employees in real time.
Prediction four: Leadership’s greatest challenge will be to restore humanity in workplaces increasingly designed for machines
Thom Dennis, CEO of Serenity in Leadership
As AI becomes woven into every aspect of work, in many instances at breakneck speed, organisations are being re-engineered around technology rather than people. This is creating inhuman, overly controlled workplace ‘monocultures’ that suppress natural human dynamics, creativity and authentic expression.
The pursuit of short-term efficiency and financial gain will continue to erode agency, trust and meaning, creating new forms of anxiety and quiet resistance – disengagement, withdrawal and passive hostility. These are not simply behavioural issues but symptoms of systemic imbalance: power shifting to algorithms, human judgment sidelined and uncertainty normalised.
In 2026, leadership’s greatest challenge will be to restore humanity, voice and purpose in workplaces increasingly designed for machines, not minds.
Prediction five: 2026 will see the steady dismantling of separate people functions
L&D expert Nigel Paine
We will see separate people functions dismantle in favour of an HR Tech ecosystem that binds performance, recruitment and development into a single powerful team working on large-scale transformation. Decisions about what to do and when to do it will be all around refocusing the organisation and reskilling the workforce for a new structure, transformed workflows and processes.
The whole organisation will be expected to move coherently and systematically forward. This is a huge opportunity to make a cross-organisation impact and be a key component in repurposing the organisation in the light of AI’s inexorable and ubiquitous rise. A change of this magnitude cannot be delivered if key parts of the people function seek to retain their own agendas.
Prediction six: AI fatigue will revive the value of real conversation
Coaching skills trainer Matt Somers
As AI tools become more embedded, we risk falling into a loop of machine-mediated communication. AI avatars will attend meetings, take notes, summarise actions and send follow-ups to other AIs, while the humans they represent get on with their lives – or just stay confused.
In 2026, we’ll see a growing discomfort with this and a renewed appreciation for live connection with real-life human beings. L&D teams will need to help people rediscover how to listen, speak and collaborate without relying on prompts, transcripts or tools to do it for them.
Prediction seven: 2026 will see a return to more in-person learning
Management consultant Andrew Gibbons
There will be a recognition that the default to online learning events is driven by cost savings. While these digital events have their place in terms of flexibility and reach they also have their limitations. The value of in-person experiences will gain influence as employers realise that many interactive skills cannot be learned on screen – this requires time in the company of others.
Prediction eight: In 2026, I plead for a focus on transferable skills
Robin Hoyle, Head of Learning Innovation at Huthwaite International
Instead of building skills and capabilities for the long term – applicable to new and unforeseen circumstances – we are too focused on quick fixes to help people perform current tasks.
This is, of course, important. But we need to prepare employees for an increasingly uncertain and rapidly changing future. That means building a repertoire of skills and behaviours that can be applied to meet different needs and undertake tasks as yet unknown.
There have been stories in the press of late about new workforce entrants lacking communication confidence. This may herald a time when organisations begin to recognise a need for upskilling that is separated from performing a specific task. We have an opportunity in 2026 to push for a greater focus on – and acceptance of – helping people prepare to be flexibly capable in a world of continuous change.
Prediction nine: 2026 will be the year of the workflow
Liz Naylor and Lior Locher, senior learning consultants at NIIT
If not now, when? Workflows will have to be about adding value. Be ruthless. Parts of what used to be learning will sit elsewhere in the organisation and efficiency will need to flow across silos. Performance consulting will stay the hottest trend since cats discovered the internet and conversations will encompass Comms, Learning, Marketing, Talent, IT, Data and Metrics.
‘Performative AI automation’ (to be seen as doing something) will no longer excite. AI can add tremendous value if used with strategic intent. Setting up the foundations will set organisations up for future success.
2026 L&D predictions: key takeaways
How should you respond to these predictions in your own L&D practice? Here’s where to focus your attention:
- Strengthen relationships, not just skills. The quality of human connection at work matters more than ever. Create the conditions where feedback lands, trust grows and people feel genuinely supported.
- Embrace workflow learning strategically. Stop treating AI as a performative exercise. Use it with clear intent to embed learning where work actually happens, turning technology into a genuine enabler rather than another distraction.
- Invest in transferable capabilities. Move beyond narrow reskilling for today’s tasks. Build skills that travel – especially collaboration, communication and adaptability – so your people can handle whatever comes next.
- Restore the human element. As automation increases, fight back against inhuman monocultures. Protect space for creativity, authentic expression and real conversation before AI fatigue sets in.
- Break down your silos. L&D can’t operate in isolation anymore. Connect with performance, recruitment, talent and IT to create integrated ecosystems that support organisation-wide transformation.
