Beyond Literacy: Building AI Readiness & Driving Adoption (Wed, April 08, 2026)

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Beyond Literacy: Building AI Readiness & Driving Adoption

Artificial intelligence is transforming Learning & Development—but many organizations are still stuck in the experimentation phase. The real challenge isn’t just learning how AI works. It’s helping L&D professionals confidently adopt and apply AI in meaningful ways that improve learning design, content development, and organizational capability.

In this practical and action-focused session, you’ll explore how L&D teams can move beyond curiosity and prompts to build true AI readiness. We’ll examine where AI is already changing the field and how learning leaders can guide their organizations toward effective and responsible adoption.

What You'll Learn

After this session, you will:

Understand the AI Impact Zones for L&D
Identify common adoption barriers
Build AI confidence within your team
Apply change management strategies for AI adoption

Members: FREE

Meeting Agenda

12:00 pm - 1:15 pm CST - Speaker Presentation + Q&A

Invite your friends by sharing on social media.

Meet your Speaker:

Megan Torrance is the CEO and founder of TorranceLearning, where she leads a team of learning experience designers & engineers in reimagining workplace learning. Her firm has served Fortune 1000 companies, major research universities, global professional associations, and federal agencies for over two decades. Megan brings a strategic vision that helps TorranceLearning bridge vision with execution—delivering innovative, data-informed, and learner-centered solutions.

Megan is the author of Agile for Instructional Designers, Data & Analytics for Instructional Designers, Making Sense of xAPI and the upcoming book, The AI Implementation Guide for L&D. She has facilitated at eCornell in women’s executive leadership, team dynamics and power relationships and taught in Penn State University's Learning Design & Technology Master's program.

How This Session Supports Your Professional Development

Aligned with the ATD Capability Model, this session helps you build skills in three areas:

Personal: Strengthen your confidence using AI tools and identifying where they add value in your work.
Professional: Improve your L&D practice with strategies that enhance content creation and streamline learning processes.
Organizational: Support AI adoption in your organization through effective change management and a culture of responsible experimentation.

Beyond the AI Hype in L&D: Why Connection Over Content Matters More Than Ever (Thu, April 23, 2026)

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Beyond the AI Hype in L&D: Why Connection Over Content Matters More Than Ever

Artificial intelligence is everywhere in learning and development right now. New tools, new features, new promises — often framed as faster, cheaper, and more “efficient” ways to build training. But in the middle of all that noise, an important question gets lost: Are we actually designing better learning experiences…or just producing more content?

In this informal, facilitated conversation, Tim Slade will lead an open discussion about what’s happening beneath the surface of the AI boom in L&D, why “more content” isn’t the same as better learning, and how a renewed focus on connection, judgment, and real-world practice can help us design more meaningful, effective training experiences. This isn’t a pro-AI or anti-AI session. It’s an exploration of the messy middle — where most of the real work, nuance, and truth actually lives.

We’ll talk openly about where AI can genuinely support L&D work, where it starts to create new problems, and what happens when speed and scale become more important than thinking and intentionality. We’ll also unpack the quieter concerns many practitioners are feeling around creativity, critical thinking, and the ethical implications of outsourcing too much of our work — and our judgment — to machines.

The Discussion

In this session, we will discuss:

Where AI adds real value in L&D vs. where it introduces risk
How over-automating design decisions can erode learning quality
What “connection over content” looks like in day-to-day practice
How to stay relevant and grounded as an L&D professional in an AI-saturated landscape

Members: FREE

Meeting Agenda

April 23, 2026 | 12:00 pm - 1:15 pm CST - Speaker Presentation + Q&A

Invite your friends by sharing on social media.

Meet your Speaker:

Tim Slade, Creator of The eLearning Designer's Academy

With nearly two decades of experience in the instructional design and eLearning industry, Tim Slade has worked across almost every corner of the field—large corporate organizations, state government, custom design agencies, tech companies, and his own freelance instructional design business. He has been the practitioner doing the work, the hiring manager reviewing portfolios, and the leader of a global instructional design team at a tech company. Those experiences give him a front-row view of what it really takes to break into the industry and build a successful, sustainable career.

Over the years, Tim has helped thousands of new and aspiring instructional designers build the skills, clarity, and confidence they need to take their next step. Everything inside The eLearning Designer’s Academy is grounded in what he’s learned along the way—what works, what doesn’t, and what truly matters—so learners can move forward with more direction, more momentum, and a lot less guesswork.

How This Session Supports Your Professional Development

Aligned with the ATD Capability Model, this session helps you build skills in three areas:

Personal: Strengthen your confidence using AI tools and identifying where they add value in your work.
Professional: Improve your L&D practice with strategies that enhance content creation and streamline learning processes.
Organizational: Support AI adoption in your organization through effective change management and a culture of responsible experimentation.

ATD - San Antonio Chapter upcoming events

Beyond Literacy: Building AI Readiness & Driving Adoption (Wed, April 08, 2026)

Beyond the AI Hype in L&D: Why Connection Over Content Matters More Than Ever (Thu, April 23, 2026)