The L&D responsibility revolution: why this matters now

Recent Ipsos research with UK adults presents a telling contradiction. When asked about artificial intelligence (AI) in the workplace, 40% of UK adults feel comfortable with AI personalising training programmes for employees. Yet 56% are uncomfortable with AI monitoring employee performance. We want help, but we fear judgment.

This isn’t just an AI problem. It’s a symptom of where we are in 2025. We’re finding ourselves in a mire of multiple tensions – cutting costs AND improving value, leaning more into technology AND being more human.

The question isn’t whether they exist, but how we step up and choose to navigate them. This is what we’ll explore at OEB’s Plenary “The Responsibility Revolution: How Learning Leaders Shape Tomorrow’s Workplace.“

Three tensions reshaping workplace learning

These aren’t abstract concerns. They’re measurable realities creating urgent pressure on learning leaders right now.

The first is what we might call the AI Adoption Paradox. Employees are using AI three times more than their leaders realise. Nearly half want formal training that they’re not receiving. Meanwhile, 92% of companies plan to increase their AI investment, yet only 1% have reached what they’d consider AI maturity (McKinsey 2025). We’re racing ahead whilst standing still.

The second tension sits between the transactional and the transformational. Nearly half of employees view their work as purely transactional, a way to earn money and nothing more. Employee engagement hit an 11-year low in the US last year. Yet research consistently shows that high-performing organisations focus on transformative innovation, not incremental gains. How do you transform when your workforce is in survival mode?

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