AIs and the metaverse: Navigating the future of workplace learning

As workplace learning continues to evolve, live training, coaching or online learning are all effective employee development platforms in their own right. However, AI-generated training in the metaverse has the potential and ability to accelerate implementable leadership and soft skills faster than any of those platforms, said Arthur Carmazzi, Founder of the Directive Communication Psychology.

Speaking with HRM Magazine Asia, he explained, “Because we learn more effectively from a trial-and-error process, AI technology can now be used to find the root cause of people-related issues. Avatars can then be generated to act out the root cause in an interactive metaverse scenario that stimulates the real-world human resource problem.”

“The users can interact with these avatars and make decisions and fail over and over again while the AI provides suggestions and solutions-based decisions made by learners until they succeed in their own way.”

“Because we learn more effectively from a trial-and-error process, AI technology can now be used to find the root cause of people-related issues.” – Arthur Carmazzi, Founder of Directive Communication Psychology

Carmazzi, who is ranked as the world’s #1 most influential thought leader in organisational culture for 2022-23 by Global Gurus, also highlighted how mentors, coaches and trainers can create a personal AI that applies their unique methodologies and prevents any potential infringement of intellectual property.

“As learners and HR are dealing with real world AI generated simulations, there are no consequences for failure and once they complete their journey, they have the ingrained understanding and confidence to apply their ‘experience’ to the real world,” he added.

This can also be applied to onboarding of new employees, where AI can personalise onboarding experiences by adjusting scenarios based on organisational values and objectives, as well as the user’s performance, background, and experiences. This adaptability, said Carmazzi, ensures that new employees receive tailored guidance and support throughout their onboarding journey.

Pre-hire, AI can also help to vet prospective candidates for the right attitudes and cultural fit by generating quests connected to attitudes on topics such as diversity and inclusion, values, inherent leadership ability, mental health, and succession.

Reshaping leadership and human development in the workplace

Before organisations can explore how AI can help to reshape leadership, they must understand the two key factors that impact good leadership.

Firstly, what is the organisational culture that a leader is leading in?

Carmazzi illustrated, “If you were to swap the CEO of Google with the CEO of Citibank, the leadership competencies that would apply to the one environment may be completely wrong for the other. No matter how competent a leader is in one environment, asking them to lead in a very different culture would not produce the same results. To start, a leader needs to know and understand the culture or the desired culture of the organisation they must lead in.”

Secondly, what is the leadership identity of the potential leader? According to Carmazzi, HR tends to choose leadership training programmes that train specific leadership skills, only to discover that very little of the ‘learning’ is implemented.

“This is because we are unique, and we may have some amazing strengths that could support great leadership, but they may never be discovered because we are trying to follow a ‘leadership model’,” he said.

Instead, organisations should encourage leaders to look at the culture that they must lead, look at the different facets of their lives and how some of these can support their leadership success.

“It may be how you lead your kids, or how you support your friends, or how you deal with your accountant,” Carmazzi identified. “These are who you are, and you will be able to define them and apply them to build your personalised leadership power. Add this to the AI support and metaverse discovery processes where you can discover and succeed in advance, and you have a fast and powerful leadership and culture solution.”

To find out more about technology can shape higher standards of people development in the workplace, join Carmazzi at the all-virtual HR Tech Fest Connect 2023 on September 27. In his keynote address titled, AIs and the Metaverse at Work: Navigating the Future of Speaking, Coaching, and Training, Carmazzi will describe a future where workplace leaders can use their knowledge and wisdom through AI avatars of themselves to support employees to fail with no consequences and develop the skills and mindset to interact with real-world problems.