Digiskills CEO on using AI in learning without getting dumber

Passions run high over artificial intelligence in education: some reject it, others see it as the ideal digital mentor. Honza Dolejš, CEO of the Czech company Digiskills, is convinced that AI has a firm place in learning, as long as it is used so that knowledge can be applied exactly when it is really needed.

According to Dolejš, some people flatly reject AI, others hope it will turn them into experts in everything within a couple of weeks, and still others fear that people will forget how to think and a generation will grow up that is good at polished presentations but does not understand its own slides. At Digiskills they work with AI every day and at the same time teach others to use it safely and competently.

The main conclusion the company has reached is that speeding up course production with AI is not yet a success. “If you use AI to make an average course ten times faster, you still end up with an average course,” Dolejš stresses. He sees the real value elsewhere: in the ability to quickly prototype new learning formats and build them around people’s genuine needs.

Why classic courses don’t work for everyone

Corporate training, Dolejš observes, is still designed for groups: people are divided at most into beginners, advanced users and experts, and then everyone is sent links to a catalogue of videos, a so-called “learning Netflix”. The assumption is naive: that employees will enthusiastically binge Outlook courses in their free time. That, he admits, is how they themselves worked for a long time.

“Great content does not guarantee that a person takes anything away from it. One person needs to get to grips with data in Excel, another wants to write business proposals with AI, and a third has no idea where to start,” Dolejš explains. Everyone can be given the same catalogue, but not the same value: what is missing is navigation that shows the next step.

Three components of the new approach

In its updated model, Digiskills combines education, AI and subscription. A one-off course assumes that a person learns something, ticks the box and forgets it. That does not work with digital technology: tools are constantly changing, and what was a hot topic six months ago is standard today. Continuous learning can respond to that, and thanks to AI an individual approach stops being a privilege of the chosen few with a personal mentor.

The company is building continuous learning that adapts to the individual: their role, knowledge and the goal they want to reach. AI helps arrange content into different learning paths, so equally high-quality development can be offered both to a small firm without an HR department and to a corporation with thousands of employees.

Dolejš considers the word “personalisation” rather overused marketing: sometimes it is just an email saying “Good afternoon, Jana”, sometimes a recommendation for the next video. In learning, he is convinced, one has to go much further. A truly personalised system should understand what a person wants to achieve, what they can already do and what environment they work in, and also show how to make sure the new knowledge is applicable in practice. That idea underlies the company’s new learning platform.

The end of classic courses?

Dolejš has no intention of abandoning seminars, courses and academies: live meetings remain hugely valuable for getting a common foundation, discussing questions or taking intensive training. But their role is changing: they are no longer a one-off event where learning begins and ends, but part of a journey that starts with an introductory diagnostic.

By the Around Prague newsroom