Chris Eigeland argues that L&D teams must stop measuring success by the size of their content libraries and start curating smarter, skills-led pathways. With AI, governance and better evaluation, organisations can reduce waste, improve engagement and build learning cultures focused on application, performance and meaningful career growth for everyone involved.
Learning and development leaders have access to unprecedented volumes of training content, but the disconnect lies in managing, impact and evaluation. While 80% of L&D leaders claim satisfaction with their content, the depth of content libraries, sourced from various providers, hinders efficiency and measurable learning outcomes. Most of all, learning engagement and impact suffer.
Organisations are investing in learning libraries that feel complete, but adding quantity without strategic curation is wasteful, for leaders and learners. In fact, 78% of L&D leaders admit that at least 10% of their L&D budget is wasted on ineffective or unused content, and over half of those leaders report losses of up to 25%. This exhibits a blind spot in content-effectiveness evaluation.
Understanding how content quality and intelligent curation can boost learning outcomes is the key to moving forward.
Barriers of fragmentation
L&D leaders want rich, performance-driven content; however, when the depth of the content library becomes unwieldy, coming from multiple sources, it loses its impact. Up to 40% of organisations use five or more content providers, and 14% use 10 or more. More specifically, L&D leaders are split between creating and curating upskilling content, with 65% purchasing from third-party specialised providers, 63% developing content in-house and 44% purchasing from their LMS provider. This creates a patchwork system.
Inconsistent formats, repeated topics and scattered learning paths reduce engagement and retention. Learners benefit most from a cohesive, curated journey and to strengthen the L&D pipeline, leaders need to reduce the noise.
This also requires leadership orchestration. L&D should convene HR, IT, business-unit heads and executive sponsors around a single skills framework, shared success metrics and a content governance model (what to keep, what to sunset, who owns relevance). When stakeholders align on priorities and decision rights, technology can enable the strategy rather than attempt to replace it.
Quality over quantity
More content does not equal better learning. Leaders who want measurable outcomes will need to think less like content buyers and more like content architects. That means shifting focus from “what do we have?” to “how does this connect, guide and develop expertise?”
Learners lose motivation when presented with too many options or encounter the same topics repeatedly. Engagement also lessens when the material feels redundant or disconnected from personal or organisational goals. The desire by L&D leaders to change this is evident: 67% claim that connecting L&D paths to employees’ career paths is a top priority, but 33% say content relevance and personalisation remain a challenge.
When learning is sequenced in a way that feels purposeful, learners are more likely to stay the course and benefit from it. Here’s what this looks like in an actual workplace setting:
- Duplication vs. clarity
Instead of three different communication skills modules from different providers, a curated journey would align a single, vetted course to organisational competencies.
- Overwhelm vs. direction
Instead of a catalogue of hundreds of unranked modules, a skills-based pathway would recommend the next best module tied directly to the learner’s goals.
- Passive vs. applied
Rather than consuming fragmented content, learners move through structured modules that build toward measurable skill application on the job.
Clear, guided pathways eliminate decision fatigue, streamline focus and make progress visible. Simplifying the stack and populating it with high-quality content in a central hub will help learners stay on a pathway that starts with their skill gaps and leads them toward proficiency.
Smart curation and personalisation
Content curation is essential, but it can be highly time-intensive for L&D leaders. An overwhelming 93% of L&D leaders dedicate at least one hour per week to content sourcing and management, and within that, an incredible 74% spend three or more hours per week. This time spend puts both leaders and learners at a disadvantage. What’s more, nearly half (47%) of leaders struggle to find training content that fully meets their needs.
In addition to being more selective with content, organisations have the ability to tap into AI and data-driven tools to recommend tailored content. Generic, one-size-fits-all content may be easily scalable, but it may not deliver real impact. Progress becomes about checking boxes or logging hours. In these scenarios, the responsibility shifts unfairly to the learner to navigate clutter and figure out what matters.
When content is sequenced with intention, every step feels relevant and purposeful. Learners understand why they are completing a module, how it relates to their role, and where it leads next.
Adopting AI capabilities
AI insights and analytics will be central to making this shift possible. A significant portion of L&D professionals are leaning into AI to help make personalisation at scale possible, with 71% exploring, experimenting with, or integrating AI into their work.
L&D leaders can better identify what content drives the best organisational outcomes when they have access to data on learner behaviour and engagement. With measurements, content can be optimised. This turns curation into a data-driven process rather than an educated guess. Instead of measuring how much content was delivered, the emphasis is on how much learning actually occurred.
The shift from more to smarter content
For many organisations, there’s a smarter way to manage content, and it comes from investing in an infrastructure that evaluates, organises and delivers content more effectively.
A forward-looking L&D strategy should emphasise:
- Curation over collection
Smaller, sharper libraries aligned to skills frameworks rather than an endless shelf of courses
- Centralised experiences
One place for learners to navigate, track progress and see how their training links to their career growth
- Adaptive pathways
Content that adjusts based on learner needs, reducing redundancy and driving engagement
- Evidence-based evaluation
Measuring completions as well as application and performance impact
At its core, the ultimate goal is for L&D teams to spend less time managing content and more time developing people. L&D programmes should be ever-evolving, and 91% of L&D leaders agree that continuous learning is more important than ever for career success.
This shift allows leaders to focus on supporting learners, identifying emerging skill needs and creating experiences that truly resonate. Ultimately, learning becomes less about the library and more about the people who use it.
What’s next: from content volume to learning cultures
The future of workplace learning won’t be shaped by who has the most content but by who uses it with purpose. Organisations should focus on how learning is applied, sequenced to roles, integrated into work, and reinforced through coaching, rather than how much content they own.
Building a learning culture means aligning leaders on shared skill priorities, rewarding real-world application and developing the human skills that drive performance. With strong leadership, cross-functional alignment and data-driven curation, AI can amplify this culture at scale, personalising pathways while keeping people at the centre.
Chris Eigeland is CEO & Co-Founder of Go1
