Ajla Rroshi
How Artificial Intelligence is Impacting the Effectiveness of Formal and Non-Formal
Training
Artificial Intelligence has slowly made its way into almost every part of our lives, and
education is no exception. Whether we’re talking about a university classroom or
someone taking an online course on their own time, AI is changing the way people
learn and I think it’s changing it for the better. That doesn’t mean it’s perfect, but
overall, the shift toward AI-supported training is making the learning experience
more effective than it used to be.
What I find interesting is that AI isn’t just impacting one type of learning
environment, but it’s actually affecting both formal and non-formal training equally.
In universities and schools, AI tools are helping identify students who are falling
behind, automating repetitive tasks, and giving educators more time to actually
teach. On the non-formal side, platforms like Coursera or corporate training systems
are using AI to recommend what you should learn next, track your progress, and
personalize the whole experience. So whether you’re sitting in a lecture hall or
studying from your couch, AI is likely already part of how you’re learning, even if you
don’t notice it.
One of the biggest things AI gets right is personalization. For a long time, education
worked the same way for everyone. It was the same content, same speed, same
approach, regardless of who you were or what you already knew. AI changes that. It
picks up on how you’re performing and adjusts accordingly, giving you more support
where you’re struggling and letting you move faster where you’re not. That kind of
flexibility makes a real difference, especially for people juggling work, life, and
learning at the same time. You’re not stuck waiting for the rest of the class, and
you’re not left behind if you need a bit more time. It just makes the whole process
feel more human, ironically enough.
The other thing that genuinely improves learning is instant feedback. In a traditional
setup, you’d submit something and wait a couple of days to find out if you even
understood it correctly. By then, you’ve already moved on and the moment is gone.
With AI, you get that response immediately, while the material is still fresh. Whether
it’s a quiz, a coding exercise, or a language practice session, knowing right away
where you went wrong gives you the chance to correct it before it becomes a habit.
This matters more than it seems, besauce it’s far easier to fix a mistake the moment
it happens than to unlearn something you’ve been doing wrong for a long time.
Correcting early means you’re building the right foundation from the start, instead of
having to go back and undo it later.
That said, I don’t think AI can fully replace human trainers, and it shouldn’t try to. For
routine stuff such as delivering structured content, grading straightforward
assessments, answering basic questions, sure, AI handles that fine and it frees up
teachers to focus on more meaningful interactions. But there are two areas where I
think AI genuinely struggles, and they matter a lot.
The first is practical training. If you’re learning to perform a medical procedure, work
with heavy machinery, or develop a physical skill in any field, no AI system can
substitute for actually doing it under human supervision. You need real
environments and real feedback from someone who’s been there. The second is
cultural sensitivity. Good training doesn’t just deliver information — it considers who
the learner is, where they come from, and what context they’re working within. AI is
trained on general data and often misses those nuances. A skilled human trainer
reads the room in a way that an algorithm simply can’t.
My biggest concern though isn’t really about what AI can or can’t do, but it’s about
how we use it. There’s a real risk of becoming too dependent on it. When every
answer is a click away and AI is constantly guiding your next step, it’s easy to stop
actually thinking for yourself. The struggle that comes with learning something hard
is part of what makes it stick. If AI smooths everything out too much, you might get
through a course without really learning anything deeply. That’s something both
learners and institutions need to be aware of as AI becomes more embedded in
education.
At the end of the day, I think AI is a genuinely powerful tool for training — not
because it replaces the learning process, but because it supports it in ways that
weren’t possible before. It personalizes the experience, speeds up feedback, and
makes quality training more accessible across the board. But it works best when it’s
used alongside human expertise, not instead of it. The goal should be smarter
learning, not easier shortcuts and as long as we keep that in mind, AI has a lot of
good to offer.