In the current season of the podcast we foreground the figures helping learning people get their heads around AI. This time we particularly wanted to get a US perspective.
Josh Cavalier is founder and CEO of JoshCavalier.ai, co-founder of Talent Rewire, and author of Applying AI in Learning and Development: From Platforms to Performance (ATD Press). His book proposes a new role, the Human-Machine Performance Analyst: someone who works out how a job divides between people and AI. In this conversation he explains how the role has evolved since he wrote the book, and why he thinks instructional designers will become performance designers. He describes a ‘supervision tax’ that comes with letting AI take out the grunt work. He is frank about job losses, and about the danger for new hires who get the work done with AI without understanding it. And he explains why agents, for all the hype we hear, are still rare behind the corporate firewall.
Josh is speaking at DevLearn in Las Vegas, 4–6 November.
With thanks to our sponsor, iVentiv.
LINKS AND RESOURCES
- JoshCavalier.ai: https://www.joshcavalier.com/
- Applying AI in Learning and Development: From Platforms to Performance (ATD Press, 2025): https://www.td.org/product/book–applying-ai-in-learning–development/112511
- “Rise of the Human-Machine Performance Analyst”, ATD blog (6 Nov 2025): https://www.td.org/content/atd-blog/rise-of-the-human-machine-performance-analyst
- Talent Rewire: https://talentrewire.ai/
- Brainpower, Josh’s weekly live show: https://www.joshcavalier.com/brainpower
- DevLearn 2026, Las Vegas, 4–6 November: https://devlearn.com/
- Robroy Industries: https://robroy.com/about/who-we-are
- Dana Gaines Robinson, James C. Robinson, Jack J. Phillips, Patricia Pulliam Phillips and Dick Handshaw, Performance Consulting: A Strategic Process to Improve, Measure, and Sustain Organizational Results (3rd edn, Berrett-Koehler, 2015)
- Sponsor: iVentiv, https://iventiv.com/
- Subscribe to The Learning Hack: https://linktr.ee/learninghack