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What happens when decades of trusted learning and development expertise meet purpose-built AI? In this episode, Ken Taylor, CEO of Training Industry, and Amanda Longo, Vice President of Brand Strategy, explore TIA, Training Industry’s new AI-powered assistant, designed specifically for L&D professionals to support learning strategy and performance.

 

Show Notes:

Ken Taylor and Amanda Longo from Training Industry share the benefits of their organization’s AI Agent TIA including these key points:

• TIA is built for L&D and nothing else. Unlike general AI tools, TIA is trained exclusively on Training Industry’s vetted content, including research reports, articles, webinars, and expert contributions. This ensures responses are relevant, credible, and grounded in the realities of learning and development work.
• Transparency and attribution are non-negotiable. A core design principle of TIA is showing users exactly where information comes from. Every response is sourced, allowing learning leaders to explore original articles, compare perspectives, and build confidence in the guidance they receive.
• Guardrails matter for trust and quality. TIA is intentionally limited to Training Industry’s content ecosystem. If the answer isn’t there,TIA says so—reducing AI hallucinations and reinforcing integrity over convenience.
• TIA supports preparation, not content creation. TIA isn’t meant to replace instructional designers or subject matter experts. Instead, it helps learning leaders think through structure, strategy, and next steps—making the human work faster and more informed.
• AI works best when paired with community. TIA is designed to complement Training Industry’s peer and expert network. Learning leaders can use AI-generated insights as a springboard into conversations with practitioners, contributors, and Training Industry staff—turning AI into a catalyst for connected learning.

Related Articles:

[Product Demo] Meet Tia, Your AI Agent for Solving L&D Challenges

How Training Industry Turned Two Decades of Knowledge Into an AI Agent: A Case Study

Powered by Learning earned Awards of Distinction in the Podcast/Audio and Business Podcast categories from The Communicator Awards and a Gold and Silver Davey Award. The podcast is also named to Feedspot's Top 40 L&D podcasts and Training Industry’s Ultimate L&D Podcast Guide.

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Transcript:

Susan Cort: [00:00:00] What if AI could tap into decades of L&D research to guide your toughest learning decisions instantly?

Ken Taylor: So you may be tasked today with rolling out a program across multiple states or across several countries. Well, you could ask TIA how best to do that, and she will access both the research we have in all of the articles that have been written about that, give you the best answer, sourcing it specifically to where she got it.

Susan Cort: That's Training Industry CEO, Ken Taylor. Ken and Amanda Longo, Training Industry's VP of Brand Strategy join d’Vinci President Mason Scuderi and me to talk about TIA, Training Industry's new AI-powered assistant that can help you find the resources you need to manage the business of learning. Next on Powered by Learning.

Announcer: Powered by Learning is brought to you by d’Vinci Interactive. d’Vinci's approach to learning is grounded in 30 years of innovation and expertise. We use [00:01:00] proven strategies and leading technology to develop solutions that empower learners to improve quality and boost performance. Learn more@dvinci.com.

Susan Cort: Joining me now are d’Vinci President Mason Scuderi, and our guest Ken Taylor and Amanda Longo from Training Industry, and we're going to talk about their new AI-powered assistant TIA today. Welcome to Powered by Learning. Ken and Amanda,

Mason Scuderi: Good to see you, Ken and Amanda, great to be here.

Ken Taylor: Yeah, looking forward to the conversation.

Amanda Longo: Very excited to talk to you today.

Susan Cort: Well, great. We're so glad you could join us and it's so good to see you again. And Ken, while I'm sure our listeners are very familiar with your organization, just share a little bit about what Training Industry is.

Ken Taylor: Training Industry is a community of people all focused on helping organizations improve the performance of their employees. So, we have a couple hundred thousand active. Uh, members that come to our, our website, share stories, share ideas, read about what's happening from a research perspective, trying [00:02:00] to understand trends.

It's really just a place and a series of resources there to help training people be better at what they do.

Susan Cort: That's great. I know we, uh, at d’Vinci have leaned on Training Industry. It's a very valuable resource and we certainly appreciate you being there and, and appreciate the partnership. Talk a little bit about, Ken and Amanda, what you're both responsible for at Training Industry so people understand where you're coming from.

Amanda Longo: I can jump in. Uh, Amanda Longo. I am the Vice President of Brand Strategy here at Training Industry, and basically that means that I help oversee not just, uh, the strategy of the messaging we have for Training Industry, but all of our sub-brands, a certified professional in training management, the Training Industry Conference and Expo.

Uh, so trying to make sure that no matter where a learning leader might find us, they understand that whatever they're looking at, it's not the only thing we [00:03:00] do, and it's not the only way we can help 'em. So really trying to make sure that, um, our audience knows that Training Industry is your partner. No matter what you're doing in learning and development.

If you're in the corporate space, you should be talking to us.

Susan Cort: Ken, what about you?

Ken Taylor: I'm the CEO here at Training Industry and uh, um, it's been a fun 20 years for sure. Um, we have just a great opportunity to work with so many companies both on buy side and supply side of this market. It's been a great journey.

Susan Cort: Well now we're taking things to the next step with a, another great tool and, uh, I know Mason and I are looking forward to hearing more about TIA.

Mason Scuderi: Oh, absolutely. We're excited to learn more. Well, Ken, let's kick things off with the big picture. Training Industry has spent 20 years putting together knowledge and resource about the L&D industry.

What inspired you to take all of that and uh, put it into an AI tool?

Ken Taylor: Yeah, that was both the blessing and the curse of Training Industry is that there is so much content and so many opinions [00:04:00] about how to improve programs, about how to structure them, about how to source them. We felt we were getting to the point where it was really difficult for somebody to try and navigate through all of the content and information that we have to kind of get to the best answers.

We always kind of believed that if somebody contacted us, we would help them make the connection to what was important and what they should be. Thinking about, but that, that obviously doesn't scale very well. So, uh, we started looking at AI agent platforms early days, um, and we're looking for a way to kind of get the same quality answer to the kinds of questions that we were getting every day, but done by an agent.

Mason Scuderi: That's amazing. Sounds like a big effort.

Ken Taylor: It was certainly a journey. Yes, it was.

Mason Scuderi: Uh, well, I got to interface with, uh, a version of TIA at, the 2025 training industry Expo. Uh, give us the larger landscape of how training professionals can access and, and, uh, get involved with TIA.

Ken Taylor: Yeah, so, so if you're a member, uh, of Training Industry, uh, you get access to TIA plus a bunch of [00:05:00] other really cool, uh, membership type of products and services.

But the point is, this is a, it's an app where you can leave it on all the time and just have it there as sort of a, a helper as you're working through your daily job. So you may be tasked today with rolling out a program across multiple states or, or across several countries. Well. You could ask TIA how best to do that, and she will have access the both the research we have and all the articles that have been written about that subject and, and give you, uh, the best answer sourcing it specifically to where she got it.

Susan Cort: That's amazing.

Ken Taylor: It, it was, it was really, it was super interesting when we were kind of doing the early work. I think the single most important thing to us, uh, when we were doing vendor selection and actually going through the criteria, was the notion of attribution. Because training industry is a collection of voices, right?

Susan Cort: It's not just, it's not it your opinions. Right?

Ken Taylor: It's not our opinions. It's, it's a, it's a whole, a whole world of opinions. So, so what we really wanted to make sure is. If you asked Tia a question that she, [00:06:00] TIA would tell you not only the answer, but where she got it. So you can, you can go and read that particular article in full if you'd like.

Um, so that, that was super important when we were going through the initial criteria because we've ingested into her all of the videos that we felt were, were of high quality, uh, from our webinar series, which is quite extensive research reports that we've written over the years. And then you know, 10,000 articles.

Like, it's just a, it's a crazy amount of content. It's interesting too, the way it's architected is it's not, it's not like Chat GPT where you just ask a question and it gives you an answer sourced from somewhere. We've put the boundaries up that she can only answer the questions with the information available, uh, through Training Industry.

So because we vet things like through our magazine submissions, like we, we have sort of a hierarchy of content. She's able to answer most questions using content that exists and, and has been vetted. So that, that was super important to us too. So there's like guardrails around which, how she can answer [00:07:00] and what she can answer.

Susan Cort: That's really smart. Amanda, once this whole idea took shape, you really helped bring it to life with Ken and the team. What was it like to take decades of content from articles to podcasts, all the research and, and turn it into something that now people can use to chat with directly on the training industry platform?

Amanda Longo: Well, it's as exciting as you would expect. Um, and even more so because, uh, my boss gave me a deadline of about four months.

Susan Cort: He's a, he's a tough one. I've heard.

Amanda Longo: As bosses do. Well, you know, I think he knows, uh, if he tells me to get it done, but I'm probably gonna do it. So, uh, but you know, it felt like, it felt like if you were about to have a moving day in a house you'd lived in for 20 years and you had to.

Figure out everything that you did have, decide what was really important, and then how to move it. Uh, so like we've already talked about, we've spent decades building up [00:08:00] our content, uh, you know, hundreds and hundreds of hours of webinars and podcasts and thousands of articles as Ken mentioned. So, the first step was actually just tracking and taking stock of everything that we had, and then how it was already being stored, because that was what came into play for the next portion, which was figuring out how to get all of this knowledge into these digital banks that our agent could then be upskilled on.

So we were, we were then very intentional, I'll say, organizing the content so that the AI agent could ingest things. Um, and then based on content type and, and current location. So ingesting the thousands of articles from our website was a bit of a different process than ingesting hundreds of hours of webinars that we were storing on another site.

So once all that was done, the real fun actually began. What I really enjoyed was helping [00:09:00] TIA become one of uh, the team members, right? So getting her upskilled in such a way that she acts as an extension of one of our team members so that it does feel like you're at our conference and, you know, I've turned around and Susan, you're just sitting right there at the lunch table.

And we have a really great conversation that's based on all of this content that, uh, you know, has come across our editorial and research desks here at Training Industry over the, over the years. So. We got to ask her really like messy, real world L&D questions. We tried to trip her up asking her for, she didn't have, and then we were really able to like shape the way she answered so that she did emulate the tone and the type of ways that we speak.

And our and our contributors speak in the language of learning. It was a lot. It was a lot. But you know, it changed that experience of [00:10:00] like, oh gosh, we have so much content. Let me figure out if I can find the top most recent, most relative five resources and stitch them together. It, it went from that to just having like a working session with everything training industry has learned over the last 20 years.

It's like magic.

Susan Cort: That you keep adding to as well, so it's not like you're not done. I mean, TIA is not a done project. She's a work in progress for sure.

Amanda Longo: Yes, yes. She's a lifelong learner, just like the rest of us.

Ken Taylor: Yeah. We, we, we've been adding hundreds, hundreds of hours of additional videos and we've been, we changed the way, um, TIA, uh, can use research reports, for example.

So there's been a lot of, a lot of, uh, thought, um, and there's also. You know, we we're very particular in training industry about way we way we answer certain questions. 'cause a lot of people will call us up and say, well, uh, who should we purchase this from? And so the easy, it's easy to always have an answer to that question, but [00:11:00] it, I, we don't, we don't believe it's fair to our clients.

Um, so we've, we've really tried to make sure that she would answer the way we would answer it so that she would ask you a question, well, what kind of a project is that we're talking about? You know, have you looked at the top 20 list, you know, some of those things versus just pick, you know, d’Vinci, uh,

Susan Cort: Which is, which is a great choice, I will say.

Ken Taylor: Of course, that would be the right answer. But, but my, my point was that would be unfair to everyone else.

Susan Cort: Mm-hmm.

Ken Taylor: So we had to spend some time on, on some of those behaviors, uh, to make sure it was handled correctly.

Mason Scuderi: Amanda, one of the things that we've learned about TIA is, uh, it's transparency. So it, when you, when you ask for a result from Tia, she gives you information but really explicitly shows where that information comes from.

And if Tia doesn't know something, like she's transparent and lets you know that, that she doesn't, um, why were those features important and how do they shape the user experience?

Amanda Longo: [00:12:00] Transparency about sources matters. I'll just period that, um, so when TIA was being built, showing her sources, especially considering our background, right?

When you're on Training Industry's website, when you're at our events, you're not just hearing from us. You're hearing from 500 plus global contributors who are doing the job every day. So we really wanted users to be able to trust the answers that they were getting and not. Trust it blindly. They can click into the source.

Like Ken said, they can check where the information comes from. They can click into the links, they can compare different authors experiences based on like vertical and if it's more relevant to them. So this helps them feel more control obviously, and the experience they're having with the agent and really minimizes AI anxiety, which I feel is quite high still.

Um, so. The second part [00:13:00] of that and kind of touching on what Ken mentioned before was that when TIA doesn't know something, she just tells you, I, I don't know anything about that. Which, you know, further builds integrity that not just TIA, but the, the company that has created her is really focused on making sure that you're gonna get vetted answers.

That are actionable and trusted. So from a business side, for us, it was just really important to stop the system from giving like boldly, wildly wrong answers, um, so that we can create the space for the user to jump in, clarify what it is they're looking for, add some context so it can feel more like solving a problem together.

Ken Taylor: The only thing I'll add to that is we had, uh, in the early days of AI had been doing some testing and we had become pretty convinced pretty quickly that, uh, the quality of the answers that you were getting to some of the questions weren't very good. In fact, we would ask it things [00:14:00] like, uh, please, uh, please, uh, share with me the, the 10 best articles on how to.

Uh, put together a leadership development program and, you know, Chat GPT at the day would come back with a really, really forceful answer that these are the 10 articles, none of which existed. They were all combinations of words and, and phrases that looked perfect. In fact, topically some of the authors that they sourced even could have written on a subject like that.

But they didn't write that particular article, and so that gave us pause right away. It's like, well, hold on a minute, if that's even remotely possible. The last thing we wanna do is have somebody come to training industry and have that kind of experience. Well, here's like 10 made up articles, names that you should go check out.

Susan Cort: Well, and that that answers the question too, that listeners might be thinking like, why wouldn't I just use a Chat GPT, Copilot or some of the other AI tools is built differently to learn from. Those articles and resources you already have on file.

Ken Taylor: Exactly. She has boundaries, um, um, and, and her data bank [00:15:00] is just what we've put in there.

We don't allow her, permit her to answer questions with, uh, outside data. So technically we could allow her, if she didn't have an answer, to go to Chat GPT or to go to Google and search it. But we chose not to. We said, no, it's much better to say that's really not a subject I'm, I know anything about. So, you know, wish I could help you, but I can't.

Amanda Longo: I think we'd really rather have her imagination capabilities be grounded on a foundation in reality, right? So like, yes, imagine what this learning program could be within the context of all of this other real data that's already embedded in your knowledge base.

Mason Scuderi: That really shows the power of a more focused AI tool versus some of the other general options that we're all familiar with.

Ken Taylor: And they're getting better. No question. But there's still, there's still that, that risk where, again, I think all, all of the models are taking attribution more seriously now. And you're starting to see that as, as a lot more common, which is [00:16:00] great ‘cause that's how it should be. I mean, uh, as a publisher, as part of what we do is we publish content.

Um, it, it always pains me a little bit when you don't give the person who created the content. No credit. So we like the direction that they're heading now with the large language models where they're actually sourcing.

Mason Scuderi: Well, Amanda, let's talk about how people are actually using tia. Um, can you give us, give us some examples of about how L&D leaders are interfacing with TIA?

Amanda Longo: Sure, I'd love to. Um, well, they are really using it in very practical ways that kind of fit right into their day-to-day work, right? So some are asking for full training programs, uh, which is really great because TIA is built with a capability to kind of, uh, take you through all of the base level questions.

How many days, um, how many people, is it a dis dispersed workforce? Um, people are asking if it needs to be multimodal [00:17:00] or something more specific, you know, and then there's, they're giving able to give outlines and ti or get ti outlines timing activities in a full plan. And of course it's a draft, but man, that draft came to you in about three seconds.

So a small conversation and it's like your personal assistant has just given you what a real personal assistant probably would've taken three to 10 days to provide to you. Um, we've seen other people kind of lean on it for strategy, right? So really big this last fall, of course, was building a 2026 learning plan on a tight budget.

Um, how to uh, shape an upskilling roadmap. Um, maybe for a specific vertical. There's like drafting of an L&D mission. So it, it really runs the gamut of what the learning leader is using or are invested in [00:18:00] that day. So I'm excited as we're getting into like your two, two-ish here, two and a half-ish. I'm excited to start being able to look at trends over time.

So obviously in the fall, we know they're looking at their, their, their planning programs for the next year, but I'm interested to see like, what are they do asking right? When they get back in January? What, what does it feel like, uh, in the middle of the summer that learning leaders are, are, are really doing and using TIA four?

So I think what's interesting to watch is that. What we are finding is members really are using it in the flow of work. It's normal work day times. It's not the usual workday times. It's not like users go in and I'm using TIA every day at 9:00 AM No, it's all over the place. It's based on the need. Um, which is wonderful that she's able to support these people when they are looking for answers and they're able to find that, you know.[00:19:00]

Completely contextualized specific next step without having to spend 30, 40 minutes, an hour, two days researching on who knows where online or at training industry. Even if you're just searching all of our articles.

Susan Cort: Well, and you're all about, you know, making that data meaningful to training industry, uh, members and followers, and it sounds like TIA is, is actually helping you, I think, Ken, you mentioned that at, you're using it as an internal tool as well, because you can kind of monitor what some of these trends are from how people are using TIA.

Ken Taylor: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, uh, our internal team now knows what we have a big thing, um, but, but also knows what we don't have. Um, so when, when there are certain question areas that, um, that again fall within the expertise of a learning leader, right? Um, so when you're in that zone, if there are certain things that we haven't covered off, like perhaps, I don't know.

Uh, maybe [00:20:00] we're not very deep on how to structure a compliance program. Well, maybe we can go and get some more content on that. Um, so we're, we're able to look at what, uh, questions she's not answering well or not answering at all. Um, I think the thing that's, that, uh, I think the one area that we've had to do some, uh, member education on is that t is not meant to create your course.

TIA is meant to help you prepare to create your course. Um, she's not a subject matter expert on medical devices or on, or on any subject like that. She's a, a subject matter expert on learning and development, and I think that's, uh, that's been the, I think the, the biggest coaching or the biggest nudge we've had to give the community just to make sure they understand, like, no, you can't ask it to build a, uh, a training program for field managers.

She'll give you an outline. She'll tell you how it should be structured, which what it should include, um, but not topically be

Susan Cort: Yeah. And there and there are so many other tools that can help with that.

Ken Taylor: Exactly.

Mason Scuderi: Well, it's awesome [00:21:00] that TIA's included, uh, in your, with your training industry membership. Um, but I, I know there's other benefits that come with that.

Uh, Amanda, can you tell us a little bit more about how tia's connected to the peer and expert community?

Amanda Longo: Sure. Um, you know, I, I don't think, um. Ken made a wild choice in picking me in, in doing this work and helping with this special project in building TIA because as the kind of the holder of our training industry, messaging, I know better than anyone else that at our core we make connections.

It's just, it's. Part of our DNA, if it's around, if it's focused on the business of learning, if you need to talk to someone, you need a resource. We, we are passionate about helping you get that. And so there was no question in our mind that if we were gonna build this AI agent, we had to partner it with a vibrant.

Online community, we needed to recreate kind of the energy you feel at our [00:22:00] in-person events around very passionate, um, practitioners sharing best practices. And so members shouldn't use TIA in isolation. They should use TIA as a springboard, uh, and then shift into the community, right? When someone drafts a training plan or a learning strategy.

With the, with the agent, they can then bring that into the member forums, the groups, uh, the soon to be live sessions that we're going to have to just ask, has anyone done this before? Um, you know, as Ken was saying, if she gives you kind of like the prep to do something, maybe you take that prep into the community and you ask.

I'm doing it in this context. Can anybody help me take it a bit further? So, um, you are not just working with your AI agent in the dark somewhere. You have all of these learning leaders who might not be. Next to you in your office, in your department, in your company even. But [00:23:00] they've, they're experiencing the same challenges that you are and sometimes have already conquered those challenges.

So it's a great way to vet the information you're getting or clarify things further and get that human element of support.

Ken Taylor: Yeah. And just one thing to add to that too is, um, training industries, employees are all on there also, uh, in the community. So a lot of times we'll see a question come in and go like, oh, we have a, we have an answer for that.

Mason Scuderi: Nice.

Ken Taylor: And so we'll share the answer because we just, you know, I, there may be an who just happen to have written a great article on that piece or, or, uh, just, uh, edited a, a recent. Research report, report that covered that exact topic. It's just make the connection, you know?

Amanda Longo: Yeah. I think in that way, um, to Ken's point, the agent and the peer network kind of feeding into each other, turns membership into this ongoing connected learning experience, rather than the one-off interaction you're gonna get with a general [00:24:00] agent like ChatGPT.

Mason Scuderi: Well, what an exciting platform. Uh, thank you for sharing it with us today, and we're excited to, uh, get further integrated with TIA, uh, here at d’Vinci Interactive and, uh, dive in deeper. Um, so to kind of wrap things up for today, uh, why don't you tell us what's next for TIA? Uh, what features on the horizon and what can we look forward to?

Ken Taylor: Well, one that excites me is the, uh, the possibility for voice interaction with her, and that's because I'm a slow typer, so, um, anything I can do to help there is great. Um, but, but I think that's, that's really exciting. Um, the, the newer versions of the large language models that, uh, TIA runs on are getting better and better.

So we anticipate her getting better, better at what she does too. So, so that's also pretty exciting. And just all of the new content that's coming out at training industry and getting that content in it and then, uh, having it being served in a way that's super easy for people to, to interact with. I think those are the big [00:25:00] ones for me.

Amanda Longo: Yeah, I would, uh, second all of that. I would also say that, you know, there's more and more opportunities for there to be kind of more focused agents. Uh, so maybe in the future you'll see from us role-based or topic-based agents. So drilling down even further, uh, into expertise, uh, so that you can hone in on a specific, um, area that you're focused on in on at work.

But. Going back to what's paired with the agent, um, in our community, I mentioned there's soon to be, uh, several weekly events with some of our industry experts and on the team. And so I know that they, and some of our contributors, contributors not on our team, and I know that they'll be in there talking about.

Using TIA to solve these problems and then how they're actually solving them. So just another opportunity for, um, growing those connections between learning [00:26:00] leaders and the technology that supports them in their initiatives.

Mason Scuderi: Sounds awesome. We look forward to seeing more.

Susan Cort: Thank you Ken and Amanda for joining us today.

And thank you for sharing information about your AI agent, Tia, and how she's continuing to build a great sense of community within training industry.

Amanda Longo: Really love being here for today's event.

Mason Scuderi: Thanks so much, Ken and Amanda, we'll talk to you soon.

Susan Cort: My thanks to d’Vinci President Mason Scuderi, and our guest Ken Taylor and Amanda Longo from Training Industry.

If you have an idea for a topic or a guest, please reach out to us at Powered by Learning at dvinci.com. And don't forget that you can subscribe to Powered by Learning wherever you listen to your podcasts.