According to the OECD, the average lifespan of a technical skill (or know-how) is 2 years today, compared to 30 years in 1987.
Faced with this observation, 75% of business leaders say they are concerned about the upskilling of their teams. How then can we guarantee the agility and effectiveness of training while maximizing employee engagement?
The alliance between artificial intelligence and collaborative learning could well be an answer.
This model, which focuses on the co-construction of knowledge, makes it possible to maximize the agility of training and maintain a high level of engagement. By combining human intelligence and the power of technological tools, companies can transform a pressing challenge into a strategic opportunity.
These are the topics we explored with Grégory Gallic, Macrodomaine Offer Manager at Cegos, and Elisa Elluin, Digital Learning Expert for 360Learning, during the WILD Days.
Collaborative learning the new paradigm of corporate training
Collaborative learning places learners at the heart of the process: out with the one-way transmission of knowledge, in with the co-construction of knowledge.
The principle is simple: by working together toward common goals, learners create a new form of collective intelligence . Peer interactions stimulate creativity, encourage critical thinking, and facilitate collaborative problem-solving of complex problems. Collaborative learning allows for the combination of individual perspectives and expertise to better understand these complexities.
The Four Pillars of Collaborative Learning in 2025
Collaborative learning is based on four pillars, which aim to fuel a true virtuous circle of skills development.
- Horizontality or the democratization of knowledge: employees are active participants in their own training, learning from each other without hierarchical barriers. This dynamic frees up exchanges and stimulates collective engagement.
- Internal expertise and talent development: Decentralizing knowledge allows experts to share their knowledge directly with their colleagues. The goal is for expertise to circulate naturally within the organization, enriching the collective knowledge base.
- Agility for rapid and continuous adaptation: training evolves in real time according to the needs of the field. Responsiveness allows for content to remain relevant and aligned with operational challenges and guarantees its immediate usefulness.
- Continuous feedback through collaborative improvement: Learners are no longer passive. They actively contribute to content improvement. Their feedback helps quickly identify training needs and adjust content accordingly, creating an ever-more engaging catalog.
By capitalizing on internal expertise and facilitating knowledge sharing, the organization naturally creates an environment conducive to skills development. Employees can easily express their training needs and share feedback on the quality of content, fueling a virtuous cycle of continuous improvement.
Collective benefits focused on impact and relevance
Collaborative learning brings five major benefits that transform the dynamics of corporate training.
First advantage: decentralization, which gives employees back the power to act, democratizes content creation, and promotes internal expertise.
This naturally enhances the relevance of the training. This match between needs and content guarantees training that is immediately applicable and useful daily.
Speed is becoming a competitive advantage. The interest in collaborative learning is, among other things, to evolve as quickly as the world around us by making it possible to identify emerging needs and respond to them without delay.
Finally, the evolving aspect of training represents a real break from traditional approaches. Every employee, whether a learner or expert, can contribute to the continuous improvement of training. This collaborative dimension guarantees content that is always up-to-date and enriched by collective experience.
Combining innovation and performance AI to support collaborative learning
The integration of artificial intelligence into collaborative learning processes opens up particularly promising new perspectives.
Concrete innovations that transform training
“AI streamlines and improves communication and the efficiency of group learning processes,” explains Grégory Gallic. Among the most impactful applications:
- Real-time personalization: AII analyzes learning levels and preferences to adapt courses – a point we develop below.
- Intelligent automation: Generating summaries, transcribing exchanges, instant translation, real-time feedback, assigning tasks, organizing upcoming meetings… AI is becoming a very useful assistant.
- Continuous support: Catbots that answer questions 24/7 or even provide performance supports, such as generating new ideas.
Measuring impact: beyond traditional metrics
Measuring the effectiveness of a collaborative learning strategy requires a holistic approach. To ensure real impact, it’s essential to define clear and measurable objectives from the outset. Indeed, collective intelligence doesn’t automatically translate into performance: it must be channeled and evaluated.
What future?
The alliance between AI and collaborative learning is already well underway, but continued and rapid advances promise to further enrich the possibilities for interaction and personalization. The key to success will lie in organizations’ ability to keep humans at the center while making the most of intelligent automation.
Successful companies will be those that understand this essential complementarity: AI to automate and optimize, the educational expert to guide and innovate, and learners to collaborate and grow together. In a world where knowledge obsolescence is accelerating, it is in this synergy between technology, educational expertise, and collective intelligence that tomorrow’s competitive advantage lies. Upskilling thus becomes not only more efficient, but also more human and more sustainable.