Most instructional designers are still using AI chatbots while software engineers are automating entire workflows with AI agents. This session names the role built to close this gap: the learning engineer, who improves human performance at work by building software. The learning engineer follows a strict order: automate what doesn't need a human, put light support in the workflow, and then train what's left with realistic practice.

The term is decades old, but the full job is now within reach of one practitioner thanks to AI agents. Some instructional designers are already doing this work without realizing they've started a different job.

To make it concrete, I'll walk through a few case studies, including one of my client projects. At each turn, you'll call the next move, and we'll compare what an instructional designer would do with what a learning engineer would build. I'll close with Q&A and take the strongest objections head-on, including "this is just instructional design rebranded."

For example: a Fortune 500 company's doctors spend about eight hours training every new telehealth hire, and the company wanted self-paced training to free the doctors for revenue-generating work. An instructional designer would design the training. A learning engineer would automate as much as possible first, then build realistic practice for the rest with the same tools software engineers use. 

In this session, you will learn...

• How a learning engineer triages a problem: automate, embed support in the workflow, and then train what's left
• How to use the same tools as software engineers so that you can build faster (without a development background)
• How to prove results with operational numbers instead of survey data
• What to learn first if the learning engineer path is your next step