This year, I had the opportunity to attend the 2025 Association of Talent Development Conference (ATD25) in Washington, D.C. Our company was exhibiting and sponsoring “Bark Breaks,” a wildly successful element of the Expo where a wonderful rescue organization brought puppies to the Expo floor so conference attendees could take a break and play with a furry friend (aka cute puppy).
Expo Highlights and Meaningful Sessions
To say I was excited to attend the conference is an understatement. And it did not disappoint! There were demonstrations of excellent new tools on the Expo floor, back-to-basics sessions on so many different concepts, like root cause analysis, and facilitation techniques; and fantastic panels on training your front-line staff.
There were many different topics and experiences, but two things stood out to me the most during the conference:
The Prevalence of AI
As you may have guessed, one of the biggest topics at ATD 2025 was Artificial Intelligence. So much so that a presenter in one of my sessions asked, “How many of you have been to a session that didn’t mention AI at all?” Very few hands went up. Unsurprisingly, AI was a hot topic at a conference aimed at talent developers. The fascinating thing about AI-related sessions this year is that they came with examples. Some companies have been implementing AI strategies and now have stories to tell. One of the simpler examples was a company that used AI to summarize and analyze over 40,000 comments received during an annual survey. Other companies are implementing proprietary systems with great success. Multiple tools on the Expo floor, such as AI video, demonstrated AI’s power. And while it felt like AI was well established as a technology that has changed learning and development as we know it, there was a sense at the conference that we are just scratching the surface of AI for L&D.
A Focus on Humanized Instruction
The other interesting thing to hear were the sessions with messages about “Humanized Instruction.” At one session, we were asked, “What are you doing to humanize your instruction?” That led to an engaging conversation about what that even means. Our group decided that humanized instruction meant connections, learning about the learner, and meeting them at their point of need. It also led to a conversation about “soft skills” that are increasingly important in the world of work. The conversations were creative, thought-provoking, and very “human.”
And then I made the connection for myself. As a self-proclaimed tech geek, I realized that, as excited as I am about the future of AI and other amazing technologies, in the end, these are tools, just like a pencil. And learning professionals will need to know how to use that pencil to create humanized instruction.
Looking to the Future
I’m so glad I got to attend this conference, meet wonderful people, and have these incredible experiences. Congratulations to my colleagues at our company who worked hard to create an excellent Expo presence. Now that the conference is over, I continue to learn about AI and humanized instruction and being reminded of wisdom graciously shared by industry professionals.