In this episode of the L&D Explorers Podcast, we're joined by Bill Raymond, digital strategist, author, and host of The Agile in Action podcast. Bill shares how AI course creation tools are reshaping development workflows—from idea generation to instructional design—and why the future of L&D will still need the human touch.
Whether you’re an L&D professional embracing technology or just curious about the future of content creation, this episode is packed with actionable insights you won’t want to miss!
Key takeaways
1. AI is a powerful assistant, not a replacement
AI accelerates the early stages of course creation like brainstorming, outlining, and even writing objectives. However, human creativity, expertise, and empathy are still essential for meaningful learning experiences.
After I’ve created and defined the content, I run it through AI... That’s one of the most important areas where you really put your time and effort.
2. Start small and experiment
You don’t have to overhaul your entire course development process to start using AI. Begin with smaller tasks — such as idea generation or quiz writing — and build confidence before expanding to larger projects.
I come up with the concepts for what I’m going to train — but then I also ask AI to help me really refine it into a manageable, trainable session.
3. Quality control is critical
AI can produce impressive outputs quickly, but everything it creates needs to be reviewed, verified, and aligned with learning objectives and brand voice. Trust, but verify.
I still like to make sure that I’m doing the writing. I don’t want to lean on AI so much that it just becomes an automaton that writes everything for me.
Skills, not just tools, matter most
AI is evolving fast, but L&D professionals' core skills — like instructional design, learner empathy, and critical thinking—remain irreplaceable. Mastering AI-enhanced workflows will require blending tech skills with deep learning expertise.
Actionable insights
- Use AI for idea generation: Tools like ChatGPT can help brainstorm module titles, course outlines, or icebreaker questions in minutes.
- Create draft materials faster: Let AI help with first drafts for course descriptions, learning objectives, or knowledge checks — but personalize them afterward.
- Establish a quality assurance checklist: Always review AI-generated content for accuracy, tone, and instructional effectiveness before publishing.
- Upskill continuously: Take short courses or webinars on AI in education to stay ahead, and always look for ways to apply what you learn to real projects.
Mentioned in episode
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Discover GenieTranscript:
Dan Gorgone:
Welcome to the L&D Explorers podcast from GoSkills. On today's episode, we talked to Bill Raymond, an author, consultant and the creator of Bill Talks AI. He joins us to talk about AI-powered course development. Bill and I discuss how he started using AI, the strategies he uses to produce high-quality course content and dramatically speed up production, and the advice he shares with other L&D professionals to get started on their AI journey. I'm Dan Gorgone, course producer for GoSkills. I hope you enjoy this episode.
Hey, everyone, welcome back to the L&D Explorers Podcast. I'm Dan Gorgone, I'm the course producer at GoSkills, and joining us for this episode is Bill Raymond. Bill is an author. He's a consultant. He's a podcaster, formerly a Microsoft MVP. This guy knows Agile, he knows AI. He's a great friend of GoSkills. He's done a couple of courses for us. So, Bill, thanks for coming on the show.
Bill Raymond:
Thank you for having me here, Dan. I'm really looking forward to the conversation today.
Dan Gorgone:
Yeah, it was, you know, this was something that actually came out of the new course that just launched on our site From Prompt to Productivity with AI. That's a course that you pitched to us and we were more than happy to get some additional AI content on our site.
And don't worry, everyone watching this is not, you know, an advertisement for GoSkills. Although certainly there's plenty of great courses that you could take — from AI to soft skills to Excel and project management and all kinds of things. But knowing Bill and seeing what he had to say in this course and all the great tips he had to share, we really want to have this conversation with you because these are great tips for a lot of the instructional designers that are watching. Great tips for the different people who are trying to figure out those courses and learning programs for their teams out there.
So, I'm wondering, Bill, if you could start off just kind of tell us about your background and how you went from teaching and having an interest in a lot of the Microsoft projects — Microsoft Project and Microsoft products — and how it brought you to AI.
Bill Raymond:
Yeah, sure. You know, it's interesting. I went to school hoping that I was going to be a software developer. And I was so excited about this possibility of creating apps and capabilities that my customers could use.
What I learned very quickly was that I'm not the best software developer, but I know the technology and I understand it. So a lot of times the software engineers would ask me to help them with planning out the next release cycle and things like that. And so that kind of got me interested. At the time, we called it project management and product marketing before those roles really kind of became formalized and stabilized in these recent Agile years.
And a lot of what I had to do was essentially work with customers, identify their needs and also work with the engineers to identify what the next, if you will, quarter would look like or what have you, so that we could build something out for them and build a project plan. And that's where project management came in.
I moved into the IT space and started doing a lot of very large-scale IT project management style projects, got back into my love of product management again for some number of years.
And recently there was a thing called the pandemic that happened, and a lot of people were kind of sitting at home wondering what's going to happen to my job? How do I change the way we work? We're going to be shifting everything on a dime. Well, over my years as a project manager, I started to shift into Agile, and Agile gave me this opportunity. It's something that I learned through working with software developers.
And I thought, well, you know what, all these great experts on Agile, they're probably sitting at home too. So I created a podcast called Agile in Action, and the more I started talking to them, the more AI and machine learning kept coming up. So I said maybe I should get into that. And I did, just prior to ChatGPT being released to the world. And I created myself an AI model and learned how to actually program one of these things. And it really helped me understand how AI works in the background.
And you know, Dan, we've worked together. There's one thing I always love to do — take whatever skill I've learned and teach it to other people. And that's kind of where I am today. That's why I have this Bill Talks AI newsletter where I converse on really complex topics in fun, lighthearted tones, without jargon and without all the technical speak. I focus on how you can be more productive — not on hype like “AI is dead” or “AI is alive.” Just useful stuff.
Dan Gorgone:
It sounds like you were very natural in terms of adopting AI and jumping right in — building your models and exploring everything. And I mean, we both know that a lot of people can be overwhelmed, very cautious, maybe even overly cautious about what AI can do.
And certainly there are valid concerns. But in your work so far — with the podcast, the newsletter, your work with AI — what kind of fears are you seeing? What are the concerns you're hearing from people that perhaps you can help them overcome? What are the main things that you hear?
Bill Raymond:
Yeah, I think I could look at it in two different ways. And, apologies upfront — and to be clear, I'm going to count myself in the category of an older person for a moment, because I am.
But I do see some of my older colleagues that are of my age saying: “I just don't want to use this technology. It seems very intrusive. I'm not sure if I can trust it.” And therefore, they step back and don't use it. But here’s the thing. There's a new generation of people coming into the workplace who use this to be productive every day. And so, they're now your competition. So I would say — you know, kind of get over that now. That's one of them. And that's real. I have that conversation nearly every day.
And then there's the other one, which is another conversation that happens even more frequently: “I’m encountering a situation where maybe I should use AI, but I don’t know how to.” And so you need to get that muscle memory — of when to use AI, how to use AI.
The thing is — don’t let that little prompt box scare you. You’re not scared to search for a topic in Google, and that’s just a text box. So go to the other text box instead and type it in there and see what happens. And you might be surprised. You might find that there’s a lot more going on than you thought. It’s about building that muscle memory of knowing what AI is really useful for — and then leaning on it as much as you can without removing your own authentic voice.
Dan Gorgone:
That's really great advice, and I think it leads right into the topic that we wanted to talk to you about — the focus of this episode — which is AI-powered course development.
That’s something that certainly speaks to my heart, as well as, I think, many of the people who are watching this — people who have developed courses before. They've spent hours, days, weeks, months building courses — not just course programs and plans for multiple courses — we’re talking about one course. And we know how long that takes. We know the amount of effort that goes into it.
AI has really been a game changer. And many people can admit that, especially once they’ve had direct experience.
Tell us: What was your course development process like before using AI, and where are you using it now?
Bill Raymond:
Yeah. Well, you know, what’s interesting is — of course, I have my own training courses that I do live with my customers. Some even ask me to customize it just for their company. Some of them are public speaking engagements.
And then there are the pre-recorded ones. Those, for example, are the CBTs — the computer-based training programs — that are on GoSkills, for example.
One of the things that I try very hard to do is provide a consistent structure, because I’ve learned what structure is needed just from experience. After a while, you’re teaching these things and you start to see: “Here’s where I need to start,” and “Here’s where we go in the middle,” and “Here’s where we get a little more advanced.” But I still want you to be able to take it all in.
Those are things you learn as a human being interacting with other human beings. That’s how I structure my modules.
I’ll teach a course for free to a group of people and just ask them what to change. Their job is to tell me, really honestly, what I should and shouldn’t be doing. And AI can help with that, but I think it's also in the delivery and all that. So that's important.
When I'm doing these training courses, though, they need to be unique. The structure can be the same, but the content needs to be unique. For example, you don't want to take my course that I might do live and then say, “I'd love to take Bill's GoSkills course,” and see exactly the same content. You want to keep learning. You want to keep learning new things.
So what I've learned is that creating that pitch — that initial “Here's what I want to sell, here’s my target audience” — that’s super important, and I write that myself. That's something I always begin with. I do not let AI write that. Because if I do, then what I’ve allowed myself to do is mentally check out and let it go through all the motions for me. And then at some point, maybe I realize it didn’t recommend the best direction for my audience.
So what I do is create it first. And then after I’ve created and defined the content, I run it through AI. There are these new things called reasoning models, which take a deep, insightful look at your content and say: “Here are some other things you might want to consider,” “Here are some other target audience members you maybe hadn’t thought about,” or “Here are some ways to think about this content to make it more interactive.”
So that’s the first step. And I think I’ll pause there before we get into the further steps. For anyone interested in learning development, I follow this process called ADDIE — and that first letter, “A,” stands for Analysis. That’s one of the most important areas where you really put your time and effort in — and then let AI analyze it and give you feedback.
Dan Gorgone:
This sounds perfect. Because defining the audience, defining the scope of the course by personally understanding the topics, the outcomes, and the questions that are going to be asked by the audience — but also understanding that audience — that’s something you have to do yourself.
You, your organization — if you're part of one — you’ve got to understand it. And you know this is the right way too. Because from what I've seen with the most recent AI models, they will ask those questions.
If you say, “I want to build a course about XYZ,” it won’t just jump in and start creating content. It might give you some suggestions, sure — but it will ask questions. It’s smart enough now to ask things like:
- Who is this course for?
- What level are they? Beginner, intermediate, expert?
- What kind of tools do you want to focus on?
It starts asking all the questions that an instructional designer should already be asking themselves.
So I think that laying that foundation — and then being able to provide it to the AI — is healthy for you. But it’s also going to be very productive for the AI to then take the ball and run from there.
And something that you have said — and this is something you mentioned in your course — but also something I’ve seen on LinkedIn, because I know you’ve been spreading the word about it: You said using AI as a course development tool has saved you up to 70% in development time.
Having done some of this myself, I’d say you’re probably right. Can you tell us more about what exactly you saved? Where did the time savings come from? What steps were most valuable? And — what did you do with all that saved time? Because that’s what I really want to know.
Bill Raymond:
Yeah. Well, I think I’ll start with what I did with the time savings — it gave me more time to advertise what I’d done. It gave me more time to market it. And if I can do that — for your course or my courses — that gives me a larger audience, which turns into more money for all of us, quite frankly. Right?
So time is money, and that’s how I’m looking at it.
Now, people might be thinking — listening to this podcast — that I’m using some sort of AI tool that acts like a virtual version of me, and that’s how I saved time. No. I’ve seen those tools. They’re great! I think they’re great for little shorts and quick little 30-second videos. But no one wants to go down the rabbit hole of watching an AI-generated fake human try to teach you for two hours. Right?
So what I focus on are a few things — and this is really important — and this is where the big time savings come in.
I think one of the most important things is that when you're creating your little modules — because like with GoSkills, and the same with any other kind of course — you want to teach in small bites.
So why not come up with a few ideas and then just ask AI to hash it out for you? Help you write the script. Collaborate with it to get that script going. Then say, “Okay, all this looks great — but is this going to be like a 6-minute talk or a 20-minute talk?”
AI is smart enough to know how long just the word count will take to come out of someone’s mouth. That’s super important.
I come up with the concepts for what I’m going to train — but then I also ask AI to help me really refine it into a manageable, trainable session.
Now that’s just the scripting. And that already saves a lot of time. Especially if every single time you're creating a new course, you're also trying to come up with a brand-new video exercise. That takes a lot of mental effort — and creativity — to design something unique that still gets the point across.
And then you have to try it. You have to go into AI and make sure that it looks good. All of that is planning work that has to happen — and it takes time. So the faster you can get that done, the better. That’s one of the things I really tried to focus on.
The next piece is around video production. And this is where — if anyone takes anything away from this and is still doing everything manually — use AI-driven recording tools.
Okay, so — I’m sometimes reading from a script, and my eyes go back and forth. That can be very disruptive to someone watching me on full screen. But there are AI tools out there that can help focus your eyes on the screen and make it look like you're not reading from a script.
I’m really bad at remembering a script — so I have to read it, because otherwise I’ll mess it up. But with AI, you can identify the parts where you did a terrible job, and the parts where you did a great job — and just keep recording. For example, for a 6-minute video, I might record up to 90 minutes worth of content and finally get one that’s right.
AI can help clean all that up — removing the stuff that didn’t sound good. That’s incredible.
And then finally — when you do this — one of the coolest things about AI is that it also creates a transcript. It adds subtitles. It helps you clean up your audio.
Right now, I’m sitting in my guest bedroom recording this with you. I’ve got a really nice microphone — but if you're wearing a headset and listening to one of my trainings, you don’t want any noise disruptions. Good AI tools will remove all that background sound. You don’t have to think about it — just press a button.
So all of these things saved me a tremendous amount of time.
There’s one more piece — because you asked what else contributes to that 70% savings — and that is: creating quizzes and exercises.
Now, earlier, Dan, I mentioned that I write all the content myself. So it’s authentic. I’ve written the content, defined what it is, recorded it — so why not have AI create the quizzes and exercises for me?
There’s a lot of work that goes into that. I used to relisten to what I said, pull out the important bits, try to decide what questions to ask — and that would take days. Now, I can prompt AI to do a really good job of that — and I just do the cleanup.
So yes — with all of that, it’s true — I’ve experienced 70% time savings. And if we even look at the example of what we did with GoSkills — when I created my Microsoft Project course — it used to take me about three and a half months to complete. And with you, Dan, we got it done in one month.
Dan Gorgone:
Yeah, I agree with you 100% about where you can find the time savings with AI tools. I’ve experienced some of that myself.
Some of them are fantastic. Some of them — not so much. But you have to try them out. You’ve got to experiment and see what works for you.
I, for instance, edit with Camtasia. It’s a great tool for screen capture, screencasts, and things like that. And they now have an integrated AI audio cleanup tool, which has been unbelievably good. It’s so good — a huge time saver. I don’t have to do the manual audio fixes hardly at all anymore. So there’s a time savings there.
But I encourage everyone watching to look at some of the tools you’re already using. See what AI integrations are in there. But then also — like you were saying, Bill — look for tools that can help you with:
- the video
- the writing
- the prep
- scheduling
- writing scripts, quizzes, notes, exercises — all of it.
I’ve tried those as well, and you’re absolutely right — it’s not just about pushing a button and getting it done. It’s all about collaboration with the tool.
I think of the AI tools I use as partners. They’re almost like contractors. I say, “Here’s the task I need,” and it does it. But I’m still the one responsible. I take that stuff, clean it up — just like you said — and get it perfect.
Speaking of that — and speaking of writing — you mentioned that you wanted your content to be authentic. Do you also, as part of your process, feed it writing samples or video samples or anything to help it understand the right tone and personality for you, so that whatever it produces actually sounds like you — and not some generic AI expert on project management or AI?
Bill Raymond:
Yeah, that’s a really good question — and absolutely I do.
So what I do is — because I write a lot, which is good — I now have writing samples of my work. I can take those and upload them into what we might call a custom GPT. And I even have a name for it — it’s called BillBot.
And BillBot knows how I write.
And here’s what’s interesting about AI — at least, I think it’s interesting: it understands you and the context of your words in a way that’s really nuanced.
It’s not just saying, “Oh, here’s the structure that Bill writes in.” It’s not just tone — like “it’s fun,” or “it’s upbeat.” It actually understands, at a deep level, how I want to communicate to my audience.
So if I ask it to analyze my writing samples, I could actually get a four-page description of how I write. And honestly, I don’t even know if I could do that myself!
It just knows more about the world than I do, and it helps with that.
So yes — when I go and start working on content again, I always write it first myself. And then I ask BillBot to help me — whether it’s for creating an exercise, writing content Sometimes I’ll even just say, “Hey, do a gut check,” because — let’s be honest — sometimes we get busy. And surprise, surprise, sometimes we’re emotional one day. We may not be at our best.
Maybe we’re writing something that’s way too formal — when we’re usually upbeat. Or maybe we come across as a little cranky — when that’s not how we normally communicate.
That happens to me all the time.
And I kind of like having the AI — BillBot — there. Because it can just do a little check for me and say, “Bill, this isn’t quite how you normally write. Can I recommend this instead?”
Usually what I do is take what it gives me and pick out the words and phrases I like the most. Then I’ll go ahead and edit it manually. I know some people are more advanced and they’re comfortable just copying and pasting what the AI gives them. But for me — I still like to make sure that I’m doing the writing.
I don’t want to lean on AI so much that it just becomes an automaton that writes everything for me.
Dan Gorgone:
All right — I love hearing about BillBot. I love that it’s keeping you on your toes but also keeping you you. That’s good to hear.
So, I want to wrap up our conversation with your thoughts on trends and tools as we move into the future. And obviously, everything is evolving at lightning pace.
What are some of the trends you're anticipating — things that you’ve got your eye on? What are some tools that you think could be really exciting? And maybe some of the caveats you’re keeping in mind?
And I’ll start with one I found really interesting — it's from ElevenLabs. It’s an AI-generated speech tool.
My wife actually does a lot of content creation herself, and she had an opportunity to clone her voice. It’s incredible — it’s uncanny. It’s really something. So she had me edit a project using that voice — her AI narration — just as an experiment to see how it would work.
And it was very interesting. It wasn’t perfect, but it was certainly something we never thought we’d have — maybe even five years ago. We never thought that would be an option for producing content, whether for YouTube or educational content like we create.
So: trends, tools, caveats — what do you think, Bill?
Bill Raymond:
Yeah, so I think there are a few opportunities — specifically in the learning and development space. Maybe I’ll just focus on that, because obviously there’s a lot going on in AI in general.
Let’s say you’re working in the L&D department of your organization, and you have a safety training program, you want that safety training program to be updated regularly — to make sure it’s as current as possible. And if an event occurs, you want to change that content again — re-scripting, re-editing, creating new lessons and exercises.
You know what? You could automate that. And I think that’s super interesting — to be able to do that at scale.
So I would say: look into those capabilities — especially for areas where you just need to get something across really quickly.
Another nice thing about where AI is going — not just with synthetic voices or synthetic video — is that it’s becoming easily translatable into multiple languages.
So let’s say you have a video that talks about your company’s corporate objectives or policies — you might want to offer that content to anyone, in any language, across your global organization.
Not only can you translate it — you can even dub it automatically.
These are all tools that I think are going to be super useful for people in the L&D space, specifically.
Dan Gorgone:
Yeah, I have to agree. Just being able to provide access to educational content to a broader audience — that’s a game-changer.
And understanding that some of that content may already exist in other languages — but now knowing that you can still bring it to everyone. I mean, think about it — five or ten years ago, the idea of offering training in multiple languages was such a massive undertaking.
You’d have to find someone who speaks the language. You’d need someone to translate the script. Then someone else to do the voice-over. Then someone who could edit, but also understood the language. It was a big deal.
And now? Some of these things can be push-of-a-button solutions. It’s really wild — and it’s really exciting.
Bill Raymond:
Yeah. And I think that goes back to one of the questions you asked earlier — what are some of the concerns that people might have?
I don’t know if you noticed, Dan — but everything I just mentioned, from creating videos, exercises, training materials, to editing audio, transcriptions, dubbing — all of that I can now do in one month, not four.
So now I’m more productive. I’m adding more value. I can deliver faster. Because AI is evolving every day.
That’s why it’s important to think about: What are the tools you’re using? What are the techniques you’re using? Can you take things to the next level with AI?
And I bet you can.
And I’ll leave everyone with one good resource. If you’re ever wondering: “Can AI do that?” — there’s a website for that. Maybe you’ve heard of it. Maybe you haven’t bookmarked it yet. But you should.
It’s called: there’s an aiforthat.com
That site is great. Because if you think there’s not an AI app out there that can help you go faster — you’re probably wrong. At this point, there probably is.
So I recommend checking that out.
Dan Gorgone:
That's a great suggestion, Bill. Bill, I want to thank you for being on the show, everyone. This is Bill Raymond — author, consultant, podcaster. Look for Bill at https://www.billtalksai.com/. You can also find Bill on LinkedIn as well. And anything else, Bill? Anything else you want to tell people? You want to reveal that you're actually an AI speaking?
Bill Raymond:
Oh no, I'm not an AI speaking. But I want to thank you again for having me on this podcast, Dan. And because we have a professional working relationship with GoSkills, I always enjoy working with you and the GoSkills team. And I would actually — actually — might as well make a plug for your Slack channel. I think if you're a learner, then you have access to the Slack channel. And I'm hanging out there, giving away tips.
Dan Gorgone:
That's right — the L&D Explorers Slack channel. It's kind of a companion to the podcast, but there's a whole bunch of professionals over there talking about many things that would certainly benefit other course creators and L&D professionals as well. So thanks for the plug. Hey, we'll take it, Bill. Thanks a lot, man.
Bill Raymond:
Thank you, Dan. Have a good day.
Dan Gorgone:
Hey everyone, thanks for watching this episode of the L&D Explorers Podcast. If you enjoyed it, please give it a like and subscribe — because more episodes are on the way. And no matter what your learning and development goals are, GoSkills can help. Click the link in the description to find out more, and thanks again for watching.
