AI in Learning Design

Why AI?

Welcome! This guide, developed as part of a Harvard Graduate School of Education class, provides learning designers with relevant and easy-to-implement guidance to effectively integrate AI into their workflows.

"AI won't take your job, it's somebody using AI that will take your job."

Economist Richard Baldwin, at the 2023 World Economic Forum's Growth Summit

Data from the 2024 State of AI and Instructional Design Report revealed that 95.3% of the instructional designers interviewed use AI in their daily work. And over 85% of this AI use occurs during the design and development process.

We wanted to know how Learning Designers are using AI for their work.

We surveyed 30 practicing LDs, and found surprising results.

"I do a lot of writing from audio recorded interviews, I use AI to help clean up the transcriptions, which are almost always a mess before using AI to clean them up."

Scott, EdTech LD and Harvard Graduate Student

"I've started using generative AI in data (survey) analysis to generate actionable insights that can be shared with stakeholders."

Jillian, Instructional Designer

"My most common use is running sentences by ChatGPT for ideas on alternate phrasings and generally get good results. Sometimes I'll run a whole script through and ask for ways to make it more concise."

Adam, Instructional Designer