Dive Brief:
- Only 32% of digital learning in the U.S. is currently personalized, according to a new study commissioned by Insights Learning and Development and conducted by the Association for Talent Development. Despite this, 94% of learners surveyed said they valued personalization and 64% said it’s extremely important to have learning personalized to their needs.
- Human-led training was called “the gold standard for motivation and trust,” with 84% of learners saying they paid closer attention in live sessions, per the report. Nearly half of learners (49%) said live, instructor-led classroom training was their preferred modality and 56% said it was the most effective.
- The study surveyed 445 TD professionals and 471 learners across industries in the U.S. and revealed “a clear disconnect between the recognized importance of personalization and how consistently it is delivered in practice,” per a press release sent to HR Dive.
Dive Insight:
Although personalization “is widely seen as essential for engagement, motivation and business impact,” learning and development professionals can struggle with integrating this into their training sessions, ATD said.
Respondents rated asynchronous digital learning as the least motivating and the least psychologically safe, with just 16% saying it motivated learners “a great deal.” In addition, 22% of learners reported “inadequate access to the tools they need for digital learning,” which the report said highlighted the importance of “minimum viable tech readiness” in any company’s digital-first strategy.
“As L&D looks further into 2026, the challenge is no longer choosing between digital and human learning but designing the right combination of both: scalable where it must be, personal where it matters most, and always anchored in trust, motivation, psychological safety and meaningful human connection,” Ross Esplin, product and innovation director at Insights Learning and Development, said in the release.
The study also revealed what it called “the growing potential of artificial intelligence to support adaptive learning pathways, skills-gap analysis and real-time feedback.” As AI adoption increases, two-thirds of organizations now offer learner-facing AI tools, per the report. However, human-led learning still outpaces digital in terms of trust and motivation metrics.
“Blended learning emerges as a promising bridge between personalization and scale, but its effectiveness depends on thoughtful design, learner readiness and equitable access to technology,” Esplin said.
