Will AI dis-intermediate traditional Learning Management Systems providers? Not if Skillsoft CEO Ronald Hovsepian has anything to do with it...

I'm in the learning space...In that learning space, you have to train humans and AI now. You have to manage humans and AI now. You have to bring all those pieces together.

That’s the challenge that Ronald Hovsepian, CEO of educational learning platform provider Skillsoft sees for himself and his firm, an additional ask against operating against a backdrop of significant macro and geo-political uncertainty and a cautious enterprise spending environment.

But Skillsoft has spent the past 18 months working through its own transition, says Hovespian:

First, we undertook a strategic transformation to reposition the company for where the market is going...We began with a comprehensive assessment of the market, where the customer demand was heading and where Skillsoft could differentiate in a durable way. That work confirmed three foundational assets in the business: our content, our platform and our data. Those assets give us a credible foundation to evolve from a traditional learning company into an AI-native skills platform built for the enterprise needs.

Ah yes, AI, never far from any enterprise discussion in 2026. Hovespian says:

The strategic transformation was necessary with the AI disruption. That transformation is well underway as we re-position the company around AI-native and AI-enabled skills platform model, and that positioning is increasingly resonating with customers.

Traction 

In fact, he argues, Skillsoft is already seeing signs that its transformation work is gaining traction, with its AI capabilities seeing “strong engagement”. He explains:

When we look at the market, many companies are talking about skills and many of them are talking about AI. What we believe differentiates Skillsoft is our ability to bring together content, platform, data and AI in a way that is usable, governed and scalable for the enterprise.

Skillsoft positions its platform as being able to serve as the front end of a learner relationship or as the back end of the skills management process, giving customers flexibility in how they deploy it in their enterprise environments. The firm has three main points of competitive differentiation, Hovespian pitches:

First, our skills intelligence. We have a deep and structured body of enterprise learning data mapped to roles, domains and job-relevant use cases, which gives us a meaningful foundation for a skills-based development.

Second, the integration of content, platform and data. We are not offering a narrow point solution. We are delivering an integrated system that can help customers move from learning activity to workforce capability and measurable outcomes.

Third, our ability to operationalize AI in the enterprise environments. Customers are not looking for AI as a feature by itself. They are looking for trusted partners that can help them apply AI securely, responsibly and in ways that improve workforce readiness in a measurable way.

Disrupted

As to concerns that AI might dis-intermediate companies like Skillsoft, Hovespian sees no reason to worry here:

What we are seeing suggests the opposite - AI is increasing the urgency of workforce readiness. It is widening the skills gap faster than many organizations can close it and driving demand for solutions that can translate into AI true role-based execution. This is not just conceptual, it is showing up in customer behavior in platform usage and in buying decisions.

There are examples of this in practice he can point to:

For example, one of Singapore's largest telecommunications providers selected Skillsoft through a competitive RFP process to support an AI-led workforce transformation mandate, not simply to extend a content relationship. Across the organization's entire user base, Skillsoft is helping support role re-design, develop AI capabilities and embed learning into the flow of work. Early activation includes persona-based learning for an internal AI academy and pilots around AI augmented job redesign.

We saw something similar with a large global health care organization, which entered into a multiyear partnership with Skillsoft to help operationalize an AI-first operating model. They are using Skillsoft to translate AI advancements into role-specific capabilities and move from fragmented learning approaches toward a more centralized and business-aligned skills model. We're also seeing a strong signals in our own engagement data.

He argues that the firm can see in such use cases signs of “active scaled behavior tied directly to workforce transformation” that suggests again that AI is not displacing the need for skills development, it is increasing it:

As enterprises move faster on AI, they're also becoming more aware of the risks of moving without verified workforce capability. AI without demonstrable skills can create a real business risk, including poor decision-making, compliance exposure and lower productivity. That is the one reason buyers are becoming more focused on ROI, measurable outcomes and trusted platforms that can support enterprise execution at scale.

This in turn leads him to predict:

Customers are going to make some big shifts in these next five years, and some of them are going to come sooner than later. When I look at the competition from that perspective, AI will be that catalyst, and it will come in both the agentic workflow, way people consume content and learning experiences that will all tie together. At the end of the day, skills management for the companies is going to be the new high order for what customers have to get done.

That requires a unified platform system that allows a customer to manage that full life cycle and at the learning level, right, not at the system of record down at the HRIS level, they can complement each other. But it's really, how do I take my company on that learning journey?

The platform angle from Skillsoft is again a differentiator, he suggests:

What I see in the market today is a series of point solutions in the market. And I see some people...scrambling to try to fill in some of the cracks around that on their platform stories because their platforms are narrow. They’re point solutions - 'I’m an LMS, now I want to be a talent management system!'. So what I'm seeing right now is the normal re-packaging of the marketing and the materials around it.

He concludes:

As I look forward, where we've positioned ourselves with AI and how we think about AI as part of the customer's journey, the journey for the AI/human part of it and the agent part of it is going to play a key role for us and a key role with the customer. We're as well positioned as anybody with what we're doing with our skills intelligence, what we're doing with our content, what we're doing with our platform and ultimately bringing all that together with the data that we have here over many, many years. 

My take

This will be an interesting space to watch over the coming years. There’s clearly no shortage of demand or need for AI skills and learning platform providers ought to be well-placed to grow. But producing tangible competitive differentiators that stave off the threat of AI itself dis-intermediating providers will be the challenge for many existing vendors.