Episode 36: Reimagining Instructional Design with AI: A Conversation with Ethan Webb of Mindsmith

Interactive Transcript

spk_0 This is Demystifying Instructional Design, a podcast where I interview instructional designers

spk_0 about what they do.

spk_0 I'm Rebecca Hov, your podcast host.

spk_0 If you like this episode, please leave a review and like the podcast.

spk_0 Your feedback helps us promote the podcast and allows us to bring you additional exciting

spk_0 episodes.

spk_0 Welcome to Demystifying Instructional Design.

spk_0 I'm Nicole Taylor, your guest host for today's episode.

spk_0 I'm currently a student of Rebecca Hov's in the Instructional Design Master's program

spk_0 at UMass Boston.

spk_0 I've worked as an instructional designer and higher education for the past seven years.

spk_0 Today I'm excited to speak with Ethan Webb, the founder and CEO of MindSmith, an AI-powered

spk_0 course authoring tool.

spk_0 We'll be discussing how AI is shaping instructional design, the evolution of MindSmith, and what

spk_0 the future holds for AI-driven learning tools.

spk_0 Hi Ethan, welcome to the podcast.

spk_0 To start today's conversation, could you introduce yourself to our listeners?

spk_0 Sure, yeah.

spk_0 You kind of already introduced me from a professional point of view.

spk_0 So yeah, I'm one of the co-founders of MindSmith.

spk_0 We're an AI native, e-learning authoring tool.

spk_0 Aside from that, I mean, that takes up a lot of my time being a co-founder of a startup,

spk_0 but I also love to ski.

spk_0 We're based here in Utah, so my wife and I love skiing.

spk_0 We love rock climbing.

spk_0 We have a two-year-old, so that keeps us on our toes.

spk_0 That's pretty much it about me.

spk_0 I kind of fell into the learning space by accident, and as I think a lot of people have,

spk_0 but yeah, I'm excited to be here.

spk_0 Your first interview on this podcast was two years ago.

spk_0 Since then, what has changed?

spk_0 Could you give us an updated overview of MindSmith?

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 When we first came on this podcast, I think we had just started building.

spk_0 It was myself and my co-founder.

spk_0 We were actually still in college.

spk_0 We were building this company while students.

spk_0 And so the product itself has come a really long way.

spk_0 I mean, we had just started dabbling into AI.

spk_0 I think when we first started talking, we had kind of launched our first, and started

spk_0 as we called it, an MVP, a minimum viable product.

spk_0 We had just launched.

spk_0 And it was very emphasis on the minimum, I think, when we started on here, especially looking

spk_0 backward.

spk_0 Anyway, so we've really leaned into how is AI changing the workflow of the learning designer,

spk_0 and how can we design an authoring tool around that changing workflow has really been our

spk_0 focus.

spk_0 We've made a few other pivots.

spk_0 We are really focused in on mostly corporate learning.

spk_0 Most of our customers are in the corporate space.

spk_0 We're also more of a generalized tool rather than a micro learning tool.

spk_0 When we first started, we wanted to stick to micro learning.

spk_0 But since then, we've decided we don't really want to pigeonhole ourselves into necessarily

spk_0 one type of learning.

spk_0 So we're a generalized authoring tool, AI native.

spk_0 We do a lot of really cool things, but that's kind of the core of who we are now.

spk_0 When you first launched MindSmith, did you always envision it as an AI-powered course

spk_0 authoring tool?

spk_0 Or is that just the natural progression of things?

spk_0 Yeah, that's a good question.

spk_0 The answer is yes and no.

spk_0 What happened was when we first started building, when I first met Zach, he had been in the

spk_0 e-learning industry for a while.

spk_0 He realized that authoring tools as an industry had been disrupted for 20 years.

spk_0 There are some really cool things we can do.

spk_0 At the same time, this was in the summer of 22.

spk_0 There was some other start-ups starting to gain popularity in the AI space and finding

spk_0 huge efficiency increases.

spk_0 The most popular at the time was called Jasper.

spk_0 It was an AI service for marketers.

spk_0 And basically, it was a wrapper on top of GPT-3.

spk_0 So it was a fine-tuned GPT-3 model, which was a precursor to chat GPT.

spk_0 And so we did some experiments at that summer of how could we maybe use AI, this new generative

spk_0 AI, LLM thing to help learning designers move faster.

spk_0 And we kind of determined that it was too expensive.

spk_0 It was really expensive back then.

spk_0 You had to fine-tune a model.

spk_0 And it was just really difficult to do.

spk_0 So it just didn't make sense.

spk_0 Well, a few months later, after we had done our initial experiments, chat GPT drop, and

spk_0 all of a sudden, the out-of-the-box models were outperforming these models that people

spk_0 had spent tons and tons of money fine-tuning and training.

spk_0 And it was 10 times cheaper.

spk_0 And so we're like, oh, that just makes sense.

spk_0 So we built a very basic AI feature in an afternoon.

spk_0 My co-founder just threw up something.

spk_0 It was basically a useless feature.

spk_0 Are you typing the title of your lesson?

spk_0 And we just generate the content for you, which obviously, when you're creating custom

spk_0 content, that is not helpful.

spk_0 But we shift this very basic feature just to see how people were reacting to it.

spk_0 And it was incredible.

spk_0 We pushed it out to Reddit and LinkedIn and some of the other forms we were part of.

spk_0 And it like 10X star, new users, and 7X star daily actives.

spk_0 And it was really clear that people were thinking about how is AI going to change the workflow

spk_0 of the learning designer?

spk_0 And so that's where we really leaned into sense.

spk_0 How can we design this authoring tool around this new workflow?

spk_0 And so I guess from the early early days, I would say yes, it was.

spk_0 But we had to time the market right to make sense to actually build AI as a core part

spk_0 of the product.

spk_0 But as soon as Chatchett B.T. dropped it was December of 22, we were like, yeah, 100%.

spk_0 It's time to go.

spk_0 So yes, the answer I would say yes.

spk_0 How does mine Smith leverage AI in course creation?

spk_0 And most importantly, how does it ensure user privacy and data security?

spk_0 Yeah, data security is very straightforward.

spk_0 Basically, we only use out of the box models and we use their enterprise APIs.

spk_0 So none of the models we use, whether it's from open AI or Google, they don't train on

spk_0 anything we pass to them and we don't train any models ourselves.

spk_0 So nothing you have to look at mine Smith gets used to train any models ever.

spk_0 So it's actually very straightforward from a data security point of view.

spk_0 As far as how we do it, there's a really complicated engine in the background where we have

spk_0 to give the AI the right things at the right time, especially when we're dealing with

spk_0 a lot of documents and a lot of content and the AI is having to contextualize all of

spk_0 it and help build the product.

spk_0 So there's a really complicated answer to that that I actually couldn't fully answer for

spk_0 you if I could make sure I found a way to pull out a chart and we could do a deep dive

spk_0 into it.

spk_0 But we want to give the AI the right stuff and we want to kind of guide you through that

spk_0 process of creating content with AI.

spk_0 Switching to a macro level overview, what would you say are mine Smith's core philosophies?

spk_0 Yeah, so the tool itself have a few core philosophies and then we as a company have a few core

spk_0 philosophies.

spk_0 As a company, some of those philosophies are from the very beginning we kind of realized

spk_0 that AI is kind of an arms race.

spk_0 So similar to how computing in the very beginning days of computing ended up being an arms race

spk_0 and actually the computer components and the compute itself ended up being kind of commoditized.

spk_0 We think AI is going in a similar direction where intelligence or artificial intelligence

spk_0 kind of asymptotes at free almost and we can kind of make bets assuming that future models

spk_0 will get smarter and will get better.

spk_0 So similar to Moore's Law where every seven years you have a doubling of the transistors

spk_0 you can fit on Silicon Chiu.

spk_0 It's a similar thing we believe in AI that this arms race will produce.

spk_0 So that's a core philosophy.

spk_0 It's that the out of the box models will continue to get better, stronger, more intelligent

spk_0 and actually cheaper.

spk_0 So that's one of our philosophies and it's been really helpful for us.

spk_0 Some other companies will spend a lot of time fine tuning a model, which is really expensive

spk_0 or training their own model, which are both really expensive to get a 10% or maybe 20%

spk_0 efficiency boost.

spk_0 And then three months later a new model will make that irrelevant.

spk_0 So it's been a really good philosophy that for us, it's held true.

spk_0 It also allows us to prioritize the long term in terms of the features that we build.

spk_0 So we don't want to go after what's hot or what's new.

spk_0 We want to be purposeful about the AI that we're implementing into the product itself

spk_0 and the relationships that we're forming.

spk_0 So those are kind of the core philosophies of the company.

spk_0 I would say from a tool perspective, we're kind of agnostic about how much AI will quote

spk_0 unquote replace the instructional designer.

spk_0 I don't think anyone can or even should try to postulate that.

spk_0 But we do think that the creation of e-learning content will become better and cheaper and faster

spk_0 as AI gets better and cheaper and faster and smarter.

spk_0 So those are some of our philosophies.

spk_0 For listeners who may not be familiar with the term, could you talk about what out of the box AI models are?

spk_0 Yeah, it's pretty straightforward.

spk_0 We don't train the model.

spk_0 So every time in mind Smith, when you're prompting the AI, it's a new prompt basically.

spk_0 So we just use the API that Open AI has and we provide it with context.

spk_0 And those context windows have gotten really large over time and as the AI's have gotten smarter.

spk_0 So yeah, out of the box is just we don't train.

spk_0 Now that mind Smith has been in the market for a couple of years, what key lessons have you personally

spk_0 learned about running an ed tech startup?

spk_0 Yeah, a lot of lessons.

spk_0 When we first started building mind Smith, I didn't have much expertise in the LND industry.

spk_0 And I've really had to fight hard to gain that.

spk_0 So talking to instructional designers, talking to learning leaders,

spk_0 reading about instructional theory and learning about instructional design has been a huge learning curve for me.

spk_0 As I've learned, we've been able to incorporate aspects of learning design into the product itself.

spk_0 And that has been really helpful.

spk_0 And as we've learned more about the workflow of the learning designer,

spk_0 we've been able to incorporate that into really cool parts of the product.

spk_0 So that's been number one, just learning about the industry,

spk_0 learning how people learn,

spk_0 learning some of the pitfalls of e-learning and thinking through how can we leverage AI to maybe fill some of these gaps

spk_0 to make the learning impactful and meaningful and good.

spk_0 So that's been kind of one I would say also I've had to learn how to do B2B sales,

spk_0 which I think has helped me in other parts of my life.

spk_0 When I started mind Smith, the only sales experience I had was door to door sales, which is very different.

spk_0 I am knocking on a door and I'm closing the deal right there versus B2B.

spk_0 You have to be a lot more careful, a lot more considerate.

spk_0 It's much more longer term, it's much more about relationship building.

spk_0 So I've had to learn how to build those relationships.

spk_0 I've also had to learn how to be assertive.

spk_0 When we first started mind Smith, I was giving away discounts like crazy.

spk_0 You know, I was always like anything to close the deal,

spk_0 bend over backwards for anyone, even if it was bad for the long term of the company,

spk_0 even the long term of my relationship with the customer.

spk_0 I was like anything to get the deal done.

spk_0 And now I can kind of push back a little bit and be like,

spk_0 I can actually teach you about how AI can be used in L&D.

spk_0 And we can tell you how you should buy this product instead of always

spk_0 bending over backwards to the whims of the people working.

spk_0 I mean, we're still very customer-centric.

spk_0 Any of our customers you'll talk to and we respond to customer needs very quickly.

spk_0 But I have learned to kind of hold my ground on certain things

spk_0 and it's been really helpful, I think.

spk_0 That segues nicely into my next question to shift gears

spk_0 and talk about the user experience.

spk_0 What kind of customer support can users expect?

spk_0 Oh, yeah.

spk_0 Our customer support is great.

spk_0 We're an early stage startup, which means you get direct access to myself,

spk_0 my co-founder and our founding engineers.

spk_0 So we have a live chat on our products where you can chat with us directly.

spk_0 And we tend to respond within, usually within an hour,

spk_0 sometimes within a minute, and at the very long as within two business days.

spk_0 And then we fix bugs like crazy.

spk_0 So here at MindSmith, we ship code every day.

spk_0 There's an update to the software, whether it's a totally new feature

spk_0 or bugs that we're fixing.

spk_0 So it's usually by the next day the bug is fixed as far as if you're experiencing

spk_0 technical customer support.

spk_0 So yeah, very hands-on, I would say, in terms of customer support.

spk_0 How would a user export content out of MindSmith into something like an LMS?

spk_0 One cool thing about MindSmith, we invented this thing that we call dynamic storm

spk_0 and we've actually seen other opting tools start to offer, which has been really fun.

spk_0 Where basically the SCORM file is a link back to MindSmith wrapped in SCORM,

spk_0 which allows us to do some really cool things.

spk_0 The first is that I don't usually mention this, but it's actually a huge thing.

spk_0 The file is tiny.

spk_0 So it will only take seconds to upload to the LMS.

spk_0 The other cool thing is that it's kind of in the name, but it's dynamic.

spk_0 So if you change something in MindSmith, it updates in the LMS automatically.

spk_0 So this is actually a huge operational headache for a lot of organizations,

spk_0 especially larger enterprises, where if you want to change something,

spk_0 you have to lead it from the LMS, often lose a lot of your tracking,

spk_0 change it in the offering tool, read, download it, re-upload it,

spk_0 and it's just this whole long process.

spk_0 But for us, it's just a nice smooth connection between us and the LMS.

spk_0 You can also stage changes if you don't want to do them automatically.

spk_0 We can also do a lot of other cool things like another huge headache,

spk_0 especially with multinational organizations,

spk_0 is managing SCORM versions for different languages.

spk_0 So in other offering tools, you have to export 15 different SCORM files

spk_0 for each of their different languages.

spk_0 But in MindSmith, you can create a new version for each of the languages

spk_0 that are all saved within one SCORM file.

spk_0 So I could create a Spanish version.

spk_0 We use DeepL to give you the first draft.

spk_0 So we translate it for you.

spk_0 You go in, make any changes, and then you upload just the one file to the LMS.

spk_0 And the file itself will read the device language of the learner

spk_0 and give them the version that matches their device language.

spk_0 So if they're phones in Spanish and you've created a Spanish version,

spk_0 it'll give them the Spanish version automatically.

spk_0 We can also do other cool stuff.

spk_0 We can track engagement metrics that don't typically get tracked in SCORM

spk_0 because SCORM is a very limited lockdown standard.

spk_0 So if you want to see where people are dropping off in a lesson

spk_0 or how they're performing on individual assessment questions, stuff like that,

spk_0 we can surface that.

spk_0 We can also do cool stuff.

spk_0 We can do AI grading and we can pass that grade back to the LMS.

spk_0 So we have a short answer tile where you can give the AI example correct and correct answers.

spk_0 And then it will grade the learner and provide that back.

spk_0 So and then we can do other cool things in the future.

spk_0 You know, if we want to do real time adaptive learning

spk_0 or if we want to provide some sort of AI roleplay situation,

spk_0 we can do all of that stuff with a dynamic storm.

spk_0 The funny thing about dynamic SCORM is we actually built it originally on accident.

spk_0 It kind of has a work around because SCORM is a huge headache to actually implement.

spk_0 And we have it now, the static SCORM, the typical SCORM package, but it's so annoying.

spk_0 And so my co-founder was like, what if we just linked it back to us and wrapped it in SCORM?

spk_0 And that was our solution.

spk_0 And it worked amazingly.

spk_0 And we realized we can start to do some of these really cool dynamic things.

spk_0 And our customers have loved it.

spk_0 So it kind of happened by accident, but it's been a huge innovation in the e-learning industry

spk_0 because SCORM is so ubiquitous.

spk_0 Lots of LMSs happen to adopt some of the other standards like LTI or an XAPI

spk_0 can be a real headache to implement.

spk_0 And so you get the ubiquity and ease of SCORM with all the benefits of other standards.

spk_0 So that was a long answer to your short question, but it's a feature that's really exciting

spk_0 because it's actually outside of the AI, but it's a really cool thing that we've done

spk_0 that our customers just go bananas over.

spk_0 They love it.

spk_0 You touched a little bit on open-ended questions.

spk_0 What types of assessments and activities can you create in MindSment?

spk_0 Yes, we have assessments and then we've got Interactives.

spk_0 So assessments are very straightforward.

spk_0 It's a multiple choice on short answer.

spk_0 That's all we have right now.

spk_0 I can see us getting into some other cool stuff.

spk_0 We can add grading for some of our other Interactives, but that's all we have for assessments right now.

spk_0 Interactives, we have all the Interactives you would come to expect.

spk_0 Like drag and drop sorting, drag and drop matching.

spk_0 We've got hot buttons.

spk_0 Our scenario feature is really cool.

spk_0 Where you can actually generate a branching scenario with AI.

spk_0 So you tell it, this is the character the learner is interacting with.

spk_0 Maybe it's an angry customer.

spk_0 This is my learner, there are retail employees who has overcome objections.

spk_0 And I want you to follow a happy path and when they say the wrong thing, loop them back or something.

spk_0 And the AI will create a first draft of that.

spk_0 And we have this really nice.

spk_0 If you haven't gone into MindSment yet, we have this really nice editing interface for these branching scenarios.

spk_0 Where if you use Figma, Fig Jam or Lucid, you can see the different paths that a learner might go down.

spk_0 We draw them out for you and you can edit the scenes natively in this kind of canvas structure.

spk_0 Anyway, that was kind of tangential.

spk_0 We have branching scenarios and all of the Interactives that you would need.

spk_0 Switching over to accessibility.

spk_0 Accessibility is essential for inclusive learning.

spk_0 How does MindSment ensure its content is accessible to all learners?

spk_0 Yeah, we've designed accessibility.

spk_0 Just baked it into the product as we built.

spk_0 So everything out of the box is what Cag.

spk_0 AA accessible.

spk_0 So it's out of the box.

spk_0 You can tap through it.

spk_0 We've got screen reader accessible, all of that stuff.

spk_0 The one thing you can break is our theming.

spk_0 We allow you to not do options that are within Cag. AA contrast ratio standards.

spk_0 But we'll yell at you.

spk_0 We'll be like, hey, this is not within accessibility standards.

spk_0 Maybe consider switching your theme.

spk_0 And then we have a v-pad and all that stuff.

spk_0 But yeah, we want to make sure that all learners can experience MindSment too.

spk_0 It's full potential.

spk_0 So we want to make everything fully accessible.

spk_0 In the course offering tool market,

spk_0 how does MindSment compare to competitors such as Articulate Rise?

spk_0 Oh, yeah.

spk_0 That's kind of a spicy question.

spk_0 If you work at Rise and you're listening to this, don't be offended.

spk_0 Not kidding.

spk_0 Compared to Rise, we switch over a lot of Rise customers.

spk_0 The biggest thing is the AI.

spk_0 So MindSment is an AI native tool.

spk_0 And so every part of MindSment is thought through with an AI lens.

spk_0 It's kind of a classic disruption theory, where Articulate has this

spk_0 very old code base and they have a product that people are actively using.

spk_0 And switching the way that people use the product is actually very, very difficult.

spk_0 Much more difficult for them than it is for us.

spk_0 And so November of 23, they were like, we're going to do AI stuff.

spk_0 They announced it at DevLearn or something.

spk_0 And they're like, Q1 of 24.

spk_0 We're going to have our AI features.

spk_0 And Q1 came and went, Q2 came and went, Q3 came and went.

spk_0 And then they're like, oh, now we're having an AI assistant.

spk_0 And the assistant can convert a tile into a different tile type.

spk_0 And we've had that for a year and a half.

spk_0 Our assistant can do all of that.

spk_0 And more, plus we have this entire workflow built around AI.

spk_0 So the way that we've thought about it is, how do we help you formalize your AI usage

spk_0 for creating e-learning content instead of being ad hoc,

spk_0 instead of feeling like an ad on really building it from the ground up?

spk_0 The other thing is, of course, I mentioned this already,

spk_0 but dynamic squarm is actually a huge reason our customers buy from us.

spk_0 We actually built a rise squirm importer.

spk_0 So for our customers who are switching over, they just upload their

spk_0 rise squirm files.

spk_0 And we'll turn them directly into minesmith courses to make it really easy to switch over.

spk_0 And we've got a few other authoring tools in our backlog of switch over that we're building.

spk_0 So the biggest thing, AI number two is dynamic squarm.

spk_0 Number three is UX.

spk_0 So minesmith is a lot more intuitive.

spk_0 There have been a lot of changes in the way we think about building great products in the last decade or so.

spk_0 And minesmith has been able to take advantage of a lot of those things.

spk_0 So you'll notice things are a lot more drag and drop.

spk_0 They're a lot more wizzy wig.

spk_0 Our branching scenario feature is designed around Figma and Lucid

spk_0 and these just really nice new modern tools.

spk_0 And then we have other stuff.

spk_0 We have real-time collaborations.

spk_0 So you see the cursor of the person you're working with.

spk_0 And that's actually been a huge unlock for a lot of our customers where

spk_0 now people can work at the same time.

spk_0 Instead of having siloed instructional designers working individually,

spk_0 now we can collaborate between instructional designers or also bring other people to the table

spk_0 if you want to have a smee, a subject matter expert in minesmith helping you create content.

spk_0 We can do that as well.

spk_0 So there are a bunch of things, but we're thinking through modern e-learning authoring.

spk_0 If you are comparing the two tools, yeah, I invite you to just try both and decide on which one you like more.

spk_0 Looking to the future, where do you foresee minesmith going?

spk_0 Where would you like the company to go?

spk_0 Yeah, this is an interesting one.

spk_0 So there are a lot of directions that we can go.

spk_0 And I actually don't know fully the future of minesmith.

spk_0 I know what we're building for the next six months.

spk_0 And I know some really cool things that we can build in the next year, year and a half, maybe two years.

spk_0 I guess I can talk about a few of those kind of longer term things that we've envisioned.

spk_0 One is we would like to include AI for the entire workflow of the learning designer.

spk_0 So right now, we come in after you've done your needs analysis, after you've collected your content

spk_0 from your subject matter experts, and maybe even have a vision about what you want the AI to produce.

spk_0 And then you jump in, you tell us your vision, you edit the storyboard, you generate the content,

spk_0 you have an assistant to kind of edit the content, and that's where it ends.

spk_0 But I could see us reaching or kind of thinking through other parts of that workflow.

spk_0 So one might be an AI quote unquote agent.

spk_0 I know that's a buzzword, but an AI assistant would maybe help you interview a subject matter expert

spk_0 or interview other stakeholders to gain a needs analysis.

spk_0 Because maybe you learning actually is not what you should do to try to solve this problem.

spk_0 So kind of an AI on that first and maybe collecting documentation, categorizing it, talking to people,

spk_0 maybe it generates that first draft for you, kind of works in collaboration with the instructional

spk_0 designer. And then after you've released the lesson into the wild, just shared it on your LMS,

spk_0 we'd love to have some sort of optimization on the other end. So an AI that looks at maybe some of

spk_0 the data analytics. And it's like, this is an anomaly, people are not performing very well in this

spk_0 assessment question. And it can A, B test, maybe the question itself. So maybe the questions

spk_0 a bad question, or it can A, B test the content. Maybe it's not being taught in the right way.

spk_0 And it can do that in real time. One of my observations, as I've talked to learning leaders,

spk_0 is that sometimes L and D feels like they don't have a seat at the table. And it's been

spk_0 traditionally really hard to prove ROI. And I think that that step can help with that quite a bit,

spk_0 where we kind of turn an L and D team into taking on almost like a product management function,

spk_0 where they're doing A, B tests, they're proving that what their sharing works. Instead of this was

spk_0 based off of these 15 theories. And I'm pretty sure it's going to work because we're using learning

spk_0 theory. No, what is it actually doing? How does it actually impacting people? So would love to do

spk_0 AI on the other side. So that's kind of the first answer. I would be interested to see

spk_0 how we can build AI into other parts. The other stuff is bringing AI to the learner directly.

spk_0 There are a lot of tools doing some of this stuff. AI role plays, adaptive learning.

spk_0 The biggest hurdle is of course hallucinations if you're generating content in real time for your

spk_0 learner. So that's a problem that's really exciting and fun. And I think that we could solve it as well.

spk_0 So those are some of the grand visions. Maybe we do build an L and D employee. But the AI gets smart

spk_0 enough and we free up L and D to do more consulting stuff for take on more higher level vision stuff.

spk_0 And we're the e-warning employee. I don't know. But that's kind of some of the things we're thinking

spk_0 about. There's a lot more. But that's some of the things that are exciting to me.

spk_0 This has all been very insightful to tie into my final question. How do you see AI influencing

spk_0 the future of instructional design in general? Yeah. I wish I had just a solid answer for this.

spk_0 Similar to what I was just talking about. There's a lot of directions that this can go

spk_0 for instructional design. What I can speak to is the technologies that instructional designers use.

spk_0 I think there's a possibility of disruption on the distribution and presentation of content.

spk_0 So we've kind of started to see the rise of the headless LMS. And a lot of people are like

spk_0 sass at the end of the day is just a database with a front end to present the database. And as AI

spk_0 coding agents get better, maybe that becomes more commoditized. So I think maybe people are going

spk_0 to rethink how content is distributed and measured and tracked. And maybe it becomes more in the

spk_0 flow of work. And I think AI helps with a lot of that. And it obviously helps with personalization

spk_0 is kind of the obvious answer. I would hope that AI does a better job at really following

spk_0 learning best practices and principles. That's something we're actively thinking about as well.

spk_0 Is it helping you practice or is it just checking your retention and memory? And what do tools

spk_0 look like that are helping people put things into application? So there might be a pop-up of more

spk_0 practical L&D applications, I think, would be really cool. Yeah, that's some of the things that I'm

spk_0 thinking about. I don't know at the end of the day what the future of instructional design is.

spk_0 I know that our instructional designers love moving faster. And AI has empowered them

spk_0 to feel less like order takers. So that's what I'm excited about. I'm excited to empower L&D

spk_0 organizations. Thank you, Ethan, for this insightful conversation. And thank you everyone for joining

spk_0 us today. Thank you for listening to Deemystifying Instructional Design. I'm Rebecca Hogue,

spk_0 your host. If you liked this episode, please leave a review and like the podcast. Your feedback

spk_0 helps us promote the podcast and allows us to bring you additional exciting episodes.

Episode 36: Reimagining Instructional Design with AI: A Conversation with Ethan Webb of Mindsmith

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