Leveraging Internal Experts and External Partners for AI Course Creation

Introduction

Today, organizations are expected to seek out those who have the call and the ability to harness the power of AI for the benefit of the organization and to combat competitors. According to a Forbes Advisor survey, 64% felt that with the advancement in technology, AI will boost productivity.

When it comes to the question of readiness for AI, the recommended solution is creating AI training. However, relevant and improved integrated AI courses should be developed cautiously based on the internal capabilities of companies and other external contributors.

In this blog, we will discuss how internal experts and external partners could assist any organization to upskill its employees. They can help define which trends should be included in the course and what kind of specialty employees and the organization can include when creating the AI courses which can help maximize the revenue of the company in the long run. In addition, you will pay specific attention to improving AI course creation with the support of internal experts and the advantages of external learners’ participation.

For more information on the effects of artificial intelligence on businesses and its implications for training, read the Auzmor blog “Future of AI and How it will impact the workforce and employee training.”

Why is AI Training Critical for Modern Organizations?

Before outlining the points regarding potential course development it is necessary to give an idea of why AI training is crucial in the current context of the contemporary business world in general. AI training is something that is required now more than ever before because as per Gallup only 6% of workers felt comfortable while using AI at the workplace, while others felt somewhat comfortable or very uncomfortable. Furthermore, between 2023 to 2024 respondents’ percentage indicating their willingness to work with AI came down by 6%.

1. AI is becoming widespread: If a company wants to optimize their performance and make most of their functions automatic, it is normal for them to introduce AI to accomplish most of their tasks, from regular day-to-day tasks to complicated ones like integrating pieces of information. This is not only necessary for IT personnel, but it is constructed for intermediate managers and occasional users.
2. Bridging the skills gap: The demand for AI is increasing market competition between AI domains such as machine learning, natural language processing as well as observation of data patterns. A good number of firms are nowadays extending training to AI intending to bridge the skills gap.
3. Driving innovation: Organizations must invest in learning and development to train their employees in the use of AI technologies or make them come across this aspect since this helps employees come up with innovative solutions to the challenges faced by organizations.

Because training in the field of artificial intelligence is considered to be rather in demand, organizations should develop courses that describe the fundamentals of AI and demonstrate the implementations for various fields an organization is engaged in.

Learn how to design an effective AI training program by reading Auzmor’s blog on “Key Steps for Developing an Effective AI Curriculum for Employees”.

Turning to internal staff in the development of AI courses

When it comes to developing the right learning in the form of courses for the industry, it is proven that people with industry knowledge, existing company procedures, and AI tool experience are a massive advantage. Here are some key advantages of using internal experts:

1. Tailored content to business needs: Another reason why off-site employees are more effective is that they actually get a better ‘feel’ and ‘look’ of your organization, the field and the hurdles that the organization may come across. This enables them to develop content that will meet the needs of your organization and transform the training into an idea and show as well.
2. Understanding company culture and workflows: Employees who act as internal experts are from within the organizations, so, they know the kind of culture that has been nurtured into the organizations. The flexibility of the corporations makes it possible to devise programs that are going to speak out for the workers.
3. Cost efficiency: Outsourcing is more expensive than developing and setting up AI training programs using the firm’s internal employees because it utilizes specialists who work for the firm. It also preserves the prior learning of AI-specialized employees which makes the learning more pertinent.

Check out Auzmor’s blog on ‘Key Steps for Developing an Effective AI Curriculum for Employees’ to learn how to create an effective AI training program for your organization.

Now, as you have learned internal experts bring many advantages when creating an AI training program, however, some potential challenges need to be addressed:

1. Limited expertise in course design: There are some internal experts who see AI as an upcoming technology, but they encounter some issues and cannot come up with a framework or content that would benefit other staff members. Circumstances could mean that it is possible to have courses, which are dull, random, ineffective and incapable of engaging the learner.
2. Time constraints: Today AI is a broad and emerging area, therefore the responsibility of tracking down its advancement is enormous. In particular, external partners are capable of ensuring that they update their knowledge with these new trends in AI technologies, research, and practices to inform the employees, who are also the course takers.
3. Narrow focus: The fact is internal experts may be aware of some fields of AI but not the other new interesting fields concerning AI. This may reduce the scope of the AI course and fail to make the employees embrace the captivating things about AI and also the unappealing side of Artificial Intelligence.

Leveraging External Partners for AI Course Creation

The enhanced interaction with the external partners including the third parties, the AI specialized professionals, academic partners, and the training providers will also develop effective AI courses. Let’s focus on the benefits of partnering with external experts:

1. Access to a broader range of expertise: It can be seen that the organization’s external partners have good experience in developing similar training in the area of artificial intelligence. Since they have been exposed to other trends such as AI in the particular field, it will be easier for them to enrich the existing course relevance as well as its depth.
2. Expertise in instructional design: At present, AI is one of the most dynamically evolving trends, and the task of setting out the new findings in it is truly unprecedented. External partners ensure that they are up-to-date with the new and improved strategies in AI technologies, research, and practice to ensure that those employees will be updated after going through the course.
3. Reduced burden on internal teams: It may be true that internal experts have prior knowledge in some fields of AI but they have limited knowledge when it comes to other new interesting fields related to AI. This may lead to a shrunk coverage of the AI course, and the employees in the company will have a poor understanding of – The Best and the Worst of AI.

While external partners bring valuable expertise, relying solely on them may present some challenges:

1. Generic content: You may realize that almost all the products created for the market are not customized for your organization and what you get in the market most of the time is generic products. When taking some of such courses, one can be exposed to some general notions regarding AI. Some of these concepts may make little or no sense in the context of the difficulties you address in your job.
2. Higher costs: Outsourcing the task of AI course creation with credible external suppliers and most importantly those suppliers with expertise in AI is costly at most times. This is especially the case when you need a brand new AI course that has been designed specifically with your organization’s goal and employees in mind.
3. Less knowledge of company culture: Suppliers outside may have some level of ignorance of the culture, processes, or structures of your business. This in turn leads to training material and training programs that may not be interesting to the employees providing no value to the organization.

Combining Internal Experts and External Partners for Optimal AI Course Creation

When creating AI training programs, there is a clear indication that the highest impact can be produced with the collaboration that occurs between internal talent and an external training provider.

1. Collaboration and Co-Creation: Encourage a model in which internal professionals and external collaborators will be content contributors to the AI training program. Internal people can contribute rather specific knowledge of business topics, case studies, and examples while external partners contribute state-of-the-art AI technologies and best practices in design approaches.
2. Ongoing Support and Mentorship: As the experience shows, external partners can initiate the AI training in the first place; at the same time, consistent support and the educational effect proposed by the internal specialists must be cut in practice. Many topics may create some doubt as to how these AI skills will be used once the employees are done with courses. Internal experts are regarded as better trainers because they are in a position to meet employees’ needs to deal with complications at first instance.
3. Feedback and Iteration: Assessment feedback should be kept a regular ongoing process where the employees who went through the training give their opinion of the reliability of the AI course. From the details of this feedback mechanism, both internal and external teams can follow up to develop a more elaborate training program or make modifications to the existing one.

Managing Internal and External Sources of Knowledge

As mentioned, leveraging both internal and external experts is considered to be one of the most efficient strategies. It must, however, be noted that especially in cases of creating AI training, it can be identified when it is better to go with internal experts and when it is better to go with external partners.

Besides being conversant with the information needed for the training, experts outside of the organization can introduce new ideas into the training program, hence improving the training. With the collaboration of both types of experts, it is possible to achieve a reasonable and liberal course on the training of AI. Let’s focus on two critical areas to understand this dynamic more clearly: Building an internal Knowledge Base and External Help For New Insights.

Building an internal Knowledge Base
Those employees who have a working relationship with any given organization, gain information about the organization and how it operates. They ensure that the knowledge passed during training is relevant and the problems may likely be met in the organization. However, such practice might mean that some misconceptions about AI are not cleared, and the organization does not understand the improvement in this regard outside the business.

External Help For New Insights
External partners introduce a different perspective on AI and may come bearing fresh thinking and approach that the company’s team may not have heard of. This way, you give better training, because besides training your employees with the information that is within the company, other related information including other areas of AI and existing and future problems that can be encountered should also be addressed.

The problem that arises is how knowledge of internal and external partners can be integrated as a feasible and innovative AI training model. For this, both sides should work together to address the current business needs and condition the staff for more advanced AI.

If the process of connecting internal experts with external partners is to be managed more effectively certain principles of best practice need to be followed.

1. Collaboration and Co-Creation: Check with internal consultants who should understand the firm’s environment and problems. At the same time, external partners introduce AI innovative information and experience in the course construction. The most effective mode of working is to cooperate fully when devising the content to provide solutions that are practical and positive.
2. Customizing External Content: External partners usually have their frameworks in mind. Adjust these to the organization to assess what current requirements they have for culture, goals, and the training paradigm relative to the business objectives.
3. Blended Learning: Integrate with other contents obtained from outside sources of distant learning alternatively, have the practical classes performed by the organizations own staff. This is a good feature from a learning perspective since one can use what they learn while working and get results.
4. Feedback and Iteration: As part of the training procedure, gathering feedback following every module and using it to modify the training would help a great deal.

Knowledge Transfer from External Partners to Internal Teams

To have a sound approach that fits your organization, you must also need a plan to seamlessly transfer the knowledge gained from external training into your internal resources.

• Mentorship Programs: One of the strategies is to hold short-term training where trainers from outside collaborate with employees familiar with the work processes. This way the internal employees of the organization get to understand what AI is and how it has been incorporated into the operations of the organization. In the long run, internal employees get trained on the specific techniques in the processes so that they would be unique and be in a position to input the application all by themselves.
• Train-the-Trainer Programs: Another approach is the “train the trainer “ technique whereby both internal and external experts teach a group of employees and later that group trains other employees. It empowers internal employees and promotes self–development through training and materials sharing.
• Documentation and Resource Hosting: Ensure that with the participation of external partners all material that may be necessary in the future is stored, namely the material used in training including case studies and reference models of AI. On the bright side, internal teams can always use this material and do a refresher or in-house training as deemed necessary.

Conclusion

It is truly overwhelming how fast AI is being implemented across all sectors hence there is a mandatory need for all employees to know about it. But, designing strong meaningful AI training is not always an easy job. This is possible through the use of internal and external sources because it is important to develop a program that will meet all the needs of an organization and at the same time update with the current trends in the market.

Internal experts have the most significant contribution when it comes to formulating the approach to develop the relevant materials for the intended AI programs. They have a good grasp of the company culture, practices, and the challenges that the business encounters. Therefore, any time organizations engage internal employees in the development of the courses, they will always be able to design training programs that are most suitable, relevant, effective, and realistic. Further, subject matter specialists from within the staff, make employees more responsible for what is learned since out of the experience they can identify technologies and best practices in tasks and responsibilities. 

Fortunately, external partners have external points of view about AI technologies, trends, or, for that matter, instructional design. In this capacity, they are ready to create more value and offer new views to an organization that internal teams may overlook. External partners also introduce new enhancements in artificial intelligence into a training course which makes the training relevant to the current happenings. They help shape the content directly in a way that the training per se will be interesting, highly scalable if need be, and for the right impact to be produced on the attendees.

The best method is a synergy of internal and external experts to promote learning and the development of new skills among the employees.