Quick Summary:
AI is making it faster and easier to create learning content. That makes performance consulting more important, not less. When producing a course, job aid, video, or other learning asset becomes easier, the greater challenge is determining what problem needs to be solved, what is causing it, whether learning is the right solution, and how the organization will know if performance improved.
AI can accelerate the work. Performance consulting helps make sure we’re doing the right work.
If We Can Build Training Faster,
Should We Build More of It?
AI has dramatically changed what Learning and Development teams can produce along with how quickly they can produce it.
In a recent TrainingPros benchmarking discussion with senior learning leaders, participants described using AI throughout the development process: generating outlines and storyboards, accelerating course development, creating imagery, analyzing data, supporting quality assurance, and more. Work that once took weeks can sometimes be completed in days.
That’s exciting. But it also raises a question:
If we can create more learning content faster, does the organization actually need more learning content?
The learning leaders in that discussion kept coming back to something else. As production becomes easier, L&D’s value may increasingly come from consulting with the business, diagnosing performance needs, identifying critical capabilities, and demonstrating measurable business impact.
In other words, AI may be making an old L&D discipline newly important: performance consulting.
What Does Performance Consulting Add That AI Doesn't?
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Performance consulting begins before someone decides to build training.
Instead of starting with What should we create?, a performance consultant asks questions such as:
- What business result are we trying to achieve?
- What should people be doing that they aren’t doing today?
- Why isn’t that happening?
- What barriers are getting in the way?
- Is this actually a knowledge or skill problem?
- What intervention would have the greatest impact?
- How will we know whether performance improved?
These aren’t new questions. Performance consulting models developed by Robert Mager and Peter Pipe, Thomas Gilbert, Geary Rummler and Alan Brache, Allison Rossett, and Dana and James Robinson have approached performance improvement from different perspectives for decades.
But they share an important idea: training is one possible intervention, not the automatic starting point.
A review of these models shows instructional design appearing after performance analysis, cause analysis, and intervention selection. The job is first to understand the performance problem and then determine what will address it.
AI doesn’t make that thinking obsolete. If anything, easy content creation makes it more important.
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Are Learning Leaders Seeing This Shift Already?
We’re hearing signs that they are.
On the Learning Leader Spotlight podcast, Laura Campion, Director, Revolution Learning Specialist at Pfizer, described the ability to diagnose the root cause of an enterprise-level problem as a critical skill for instructional designers.
She explained that L&D needs to determine whether it is dealing with a knowledge, skill, or belief gap and recognize that not every problem should result in training. She expects AI to handle more tasks such as organizing source content, while deciding on the right learning solution remains critical work.
That’s a significant distinction.
Creating the solution and determining the solution are two different capabilities.
AI is getting increasingly good at the first. Performance consulting strengthens the second.
Laura Campion speaking about how AI is making
diagnosis of the root cause into a key skill:
Could AI Actually Give L&D More Time to Consult?
There’s another interesting possibility.
If AI reduces the time L&D professionals spend on some production tasks, what happens to that time?
Learning leader Phil Rhodes described using AI-generated efficiencies to put time back into consulting and client engagement. He also talked about a broader evolution from L&D being viewed as a function that produces deliverables toward one focused on enablement.
That shift changes the conversation.
Instead of waiting for an intake that says, “We need a 30-minute eLearning course”, L&D has more opportunity to get involved earlier:
What’s happening in the business? What needs to change? And what’s the best way to help people perform?
That’s what a performance consultant asks.
Which Skills Become More Valuable
as AI Takes on More Production?
Interestingly, the skills learning leaders are emphasizing aren’t primarily technical AI skills.
In our recent senior learning leader Conversations That Count benchmarking session, participants repeatedly pointed to consulting, stakeholder management, business understanding, strategic thinking, critical thinking, relationship building, innovation, and advising as increasingly important capabilities for L&D professionals.
The group also talked about understanding workflows, operational constraints, business priorities, and performance expectations well enough to participate in a business conversation first and determine the learning implications second.
Those capabilities are at the heart of performance consulting.
Technical fluency with AI still matters. But knowing how to generate a storyboard in five minutes isn’t particularly valuable if no one has determined whether a storyboard is what the business needs.
Does This Change the Role of the Instructional Designer?
It may expand it.
AI can already help instructional designers organize information, generate first drafts, create images, develop assessments, summarize source material, and speed up portions of development.
That doesn’t eliminate instructional design expertise. But it may move some of its highest-value work upstream.
The learning leaders in our benchmarking discussion talked about instructional designers asking questions such as: What problem are we actually trying to solve? What behaviors need to change? What does success look like? What barriers exist in the business? Is training actually appropriate?
Those sound a lot like performance consulting questions.
For instructional designers, developing stronger performance consulting skills doesn’t mean abandoning instructional design. It means understanding where instructional design fits within a larger performance improvement process.
Sometimes the answer will still be a course.
Sometimes it might be coaching, performance support, a job aid, a process change, manager reinforcement, a system improvement, or a combination of interventions.
The value is knowing the difference.
From Instructional Designer to Performance Consultant:
Is AI Making Performance Consulting More Important?
I think we’re asking the wrong question when we focus only on how much faster AI can help L&D create things.
The more interesting question is:
What becomes more valuable when creating things becomes easier?
Our conversations with learning leaders suggest an answer.
It’s the ability to understand the business. Diagnose performance. Challenge assumptions. Identify the capabilities people actually need. Recommend the right intervention. And connect the work to measurable results.
That’s performance consulting.
AI can help us get to an answer faster.
Performance consulting helps us make sure we’re answering the right question.
Comparing the Major Performance Consulting Models and the Evolving Role of Instructional Design
What to Read Next:
Are you still interested in learning more about performance consulting? These articles continue the conversation.
Ready to Work With Us?
Does your L&D team have more projects than people?
Many organizations in this position turn to contract performance consultants to analyze the need for performance initiatives without overloading internal teams. If you’re exploring options or comparing performance consulting companies, you should learn more about how organizations design and scale these solutions.
TrainingPros is a learning and development company that connects organizations with experienced instructional designers, eLearning developers, and performance consultants. We’ve been named a Top 20 Staffing Company by Training Industry and a Champion of Learning by the Association for Talent Development (ATD), recognition that reflects our commitment to delivering high-quality, tailored learning solutions.
To hear ongoing conversations with senior learning leaders, listen to our Learning Leader Spotlight podcast: Apple | Spotify | YouTube
If your learning initiatives require additional support, whether for a single project or a large-scale rollout, our relationship managers can help you find the right expertise quickly and confidently.
When you have more projects than people™, let TrainingPros find the right consultant to start your project with confidence.
Frequently Asked Questions About
AI and Performance Consulting
Can AI perform performance consulting?
AI can support parts of performance consulting by analyzing data, summarizing stakeholder input, identifying patterns, generating questions, and exploring possible causes or interventions. But performance consulting also requires organizational context, stakeholder conversations, judgment, business acumen, and the ability to challenge assumptions. AI can support the analysis, but the performance consultant remains responsible for determining whether the analysis fits the realities of the organization.
How can instructional designers develop performance consulting skills?
Instructional designers can start by moving the conversation upstream. Before discussing content, modality, or learning objectives, ask about the business outcome, current performance, desired performance, barriers, and how success will be measured. Developing stronger business acumen, consulting skills, root-cause analysis, stakeholder management, and measurement skills can help instructional designers expand from designing learning solutions to addressing broader performance needs.
Does performance consulting mean training is usually the wrong solution?
No. Performance consulting doesn’t assume training is the wrong solution; it avoids assuming training is the right solution. If employees lack the knowledge or skills required to perform, learning may be an important part of the answer. If the barrier is a process, system, incentive, unclear expectation, lack of manager support, or another environmental factor, training alone is unlikely to solve the problem.
