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In the fast-evolving world of eLearning, innovation is essential to staying ahead. Open Elms AI has always strived to be at the forefront of delivering cutting-edge solutions, and with our latest updates, we’re raising the bar once again. The new features of the Open Elms AI platform are designed to make learning creation more accessible, intuitive and efficient, whether you’re an educator, business leader, or developer.  With a more instinctual user interface, precise AI image creation, seamless course integration with other platforms and AI powered assistant, we’re proud to present the most user-friendly version of Open Elms AI yet. Let’s dive into the new updates and explore how they can transform the way organisations approach eLearning.   Key Features of the Open Elms AI’s Course Creation 1. A Redesigned Interface Tailored for Efficient Course Creation The updated Open Elms AI platform introduces a completely revamped interface designed specifically to make course creation easier and more intuitive than ever before. This redesign leverages cognitive ergonomics and the latest UX principles to help course creators focus on what matters—developing engaging learning materials. Key updates include: Simplified Design Toolbars: The interface streamlines tasks such as adding multimedia, structuring lessons, and customising content. Intuitive Navigation: Easily organise, edit, and preview your courses without getting lost in complex menus. Enhanced Accessibility: The redesign ensures every tool is simple, straightforward and usable for creators of all experience levels, reducing learning curves and lengthy training. This focus on user-centred design allows course creators to craft high-quality content without being bogged down by technical obstacles.   2. Faster and More Realistic AI Image Creation for Courses Creating compelling visuals is now simpler with Open Elms AI’s upgraded image creation tool capabilities. The tool allows users to produce detailed and realistic images tailored to their learning materials, saving time and resources. What makes this update a game-changer? Realistic Visuals: Generate hyper realistic images that align with your course themes, whether for technical diagrams, interactive elements, or creative concepts. Speed and Efficiency: The enhanced AI ensures that professional-quality visuals are produced in seconds, ready to integrate directly into your courses. Customisation Options: Open eLMS AI generates high quality images to suit course material, with the additional option to regenerate images to perfectly suit the tone and content of your course. Extensive Existing Image Library: Open eLMS AI allows you to upload your own images or select from our extensive library of pre made AI imagery. This improved capability ensures course creators can design visually rich lessons without relying on external tools or designers, keeping everything within the Open Elms AI platform.     3. Instant Embedding of Created Courses onto Websites or Platforms The process of delivering your completed courses to learners is simple with instant integration. Once your course is created using the Open Elms AI course editor, it can be embedded onto any website or platform immediately—no complicated steps or additional software required. Key benefits include: Effortless deployment: Completed courses can be seamlessly integrated into your website or learning hub without technical barriers. Preserve your brand identity: Display your courses within your platform, ensuring learners experience your content in a familiar environment. Quick turnaround: Save time by directly publishing your finished courses, speeding up implementation and training cycles. This feature allows creators to focus on course content while ensuring a smooth transition to delivery, enabling faster adoption by learners.     4. The AI Help Tool: Your Course Creation Assistant One of the most exciting additions is the AI Assistant, specifically designed to assist users in crafting exceptional courses. This smart assistant is available throughout the course editing process, ensuring that creators always have support when they need it. What can it do? Answer your queries: Unsure how to structure a course or use a specific tool? The AI Help Tool provides instant answers. Offer best practices: Receive expert recommendations for designing engaging and effective course materials. Save time: Troubleshoot issues and overcome roadblocks in seconds, keeping your workflow smooth and uninterrupted. 24/7 Worldwide Support: Have your questions and queries answered immediately without the need to wait for support teams. The AI Assistant can answer your questions, regardless of the language, meaning wherever you are and whichever language you speak, support is immediately available. This feature ensures that even first-time users can confidently create high-quality courses, making advanced tools accessible to all. These features collectively make the Open Elms AI course creation tool a robust and user-friendly solution for designing and delivering engaging, professional learning content. Whether you’re an educator or a corporate trainer, the platform’s focus on simplifying course creation ensures you can bring your ideas to life with ease.     What Do These Changes Mean for Users? The latest updates to Open Elms AI are not just about better tools—they’re about transforming the way organisations approach learning and development. For businesses, these features mean faster employee onboarding, effective training programmes, and cost-efficient skill development. The ability to instantly integrate courses into existing platforms ensures employees can access training seamlessly, while the revised editing platform and accompanying AI tools simplify content creation for teams. For educators, the platform offers new opportunities to deliver tailored, engaging learning experiences. The AI image creation tool and intuitive interface free up time to focus on pedagogy, while the AI Help Tool provides on-the-spot assistance, making Open Elms AI accessible to teachers of all technical abilities. For learners, the result is an engaging, accessible, and intuitive eLearning experience, ensuring that training and education are both enjoyable and effective.     The Future of AI in eLearning The advancements in Open Elms AI reflect the growing role of artificial intelligence in education and training. By combining personalisation, efficiency, and accessibility, platforms like this are shaping the future of eLearning, making it more effective and user-friendly than ever before. Whether you’re a business leader, educator, or developer, Open Elms AI has the tools to help you deliver exceptional learning experiences.  Visit www.openelms.ai today to explore these new features and take your eLearning

April 14th, 2022: A Date to Remember They say you always remember where you were during life-changing events: Kennedy’s assassination, the moon landing, or England winning a major football trophy. I’ve often felt like I was born a little too late to witness such monumental moments firsthand. However, on April 14th, 2022, I experienced my own watershed moment.  I was in the office when I first saw it—an image of a blue bicycle, seemingly ordinary yet extraordinary in its implications. At that moment, everything changed. AI had transitioned from the realm of theoretical and scientific applications into something far more tangible—design. And that’s my field. Suddenly, AI was no longer just about solving complex problems; it was offering a solution to image design, albeit in a crude form. It was a glimpse of limitless possibilities. That moment marked the beginning of our journey into using AI for learning—an exploration that has transformed how we approach education technology.   A Rapid Evolution: AI and Visual Media Fast forward a year, and the advancements in AI are staggering. Take media production as a barometer for change. A year ago, the images AI could produce were crude and barely recognizable. Today, AI-generated visuals are often indistinguishable from reality, capturing subtle details like shadows, textures, and even cultural nuances like Chinese writing on objects.  I recall showing a similar image last year to an audience, and their gasps of disbelief were palpable. Now, this level of realism is simply accepted. Humanity has an astonishing ability to normalize even the most incredible technological advances, especially when they arrive incrementally. But what does this rapid pace of change mean for the future of media, design, and—most importantly—learning?   The Future of AI in Media: From Bicycle to Blockbuster If we leap forward another year, we encounter something even more dramatic. AI engines like OpenAI’s Sora have advanced to the point where they can generate entire cinematic scenes from a simple text prompt. In one instance, the Sora engine created an opening scene of a film set during the Gold Rush era. Though not without its quirks—like the occasional two-legged horse—the technology is breathtaking.  This advancement is more than a novelty. It’s a disruption. Hollywood executives who witnessed these AI capabilities realized they were witnessing the future of filmmaking. One major studio reportedly canceled plans to expand its studio space, recognizing that AI would soon replace or at least enhance many aspects of film production. Just as CGI eliminated the need for thousands of extras, AI is poised to revolutionize how movies are made. I once predicted that AI would impact the movie industry within five years. It turns out I was overly cautious. The future is much closer—perhaps just two years away.   The Exponential Rate of AI Advancement To understand the speed at which AI is progressing, let’s talk about Moore’s Law. Since the 1960s, Moore’s Law has held that computing power doubles every two years. This steady growth has brought us from rudimentary calculators to incredibly sophisticated machines capable of mind-boggling feats of computation.  But things are getting “silly” now. Quantum computing and the new generation of AI chips, particularly those from Nvidia, have torn up the old rulebook. We’re now witnessing the doubling of computational power every three to four months. What does this mean? According to Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, “The next year in AI will be the most interesting in human history…followed by the nine years after that.” Prepare for jaw-dropping moments: robots mastering tasks without instruction, AI-driven doctors and lawyers, and the looming reality of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). Demis Hassabis of DeepMind has predicted AGI by 2030, and rumors suggest that OpenAI might already be closer than we think.   The Question of Learning: Why Bother? With all this progress, it’s natural to wonder: why are we still learning? Should we sit back, wait for universal basic income, and let robots take over our jobs?  The short answer: not yet. While AI is undeniably powerful, the practical and economic challenges are significant. The energy costs alone are astronomical. Even if AGI were available tomorrow, the environmental and financial costs would make its widespread adoption prohibitive. We’d need breakthroughs in nuclear fusion to offset these energy demands, and while progress has been made, we’re still a long way from solving that problem. High-value jobs like surgery may become the domain of AI, but there are still many tasks—such as eLearning design—that aren’t cost-effective to automate entirely. However, that’s not to say AI can’t drastically improve the process.   Applying AI to Learning Technology This brings us to my field—learning technology. Since 2003, my company, Open eLMS, has been developing platforms that are now benefiting from AI in profound ways. Both our Learning Management System (LMS) and authoring tools are leading their categories, and AI is revolutionizing how we approach eLearning design.  AI allows us to create high-quality eLearning content faster than ever before. Take, for instance, our world’s first text-to-learning generator, Open eLMS AI, launched in early 2023. This multimodal system designs courses, writes scripts, generates images, and inserts video presenters—all based on simple text inputs. The result? A fully designed eLearning experience in a fraction of the time traditional methods would require.   Guided Learning and AI: The New Era of Assistance Remember Microsoft Clippy, the animated help tool from the late ’90s? It may have been rudimentary, but it laid the groundwork for what AI is accomplishing today. Modern guided learning systems are far more sophisticated, providing real-time, conversational support that can dramatically enhance the learning experience.  In a competitive LMS market, these AI-driven support tools are invaluable. They help users navigate complex systems and offer best practices, ensuring that learning is both efficient and effective.   Learning Delivery and Curation: AI’s Role in Structuring Knowledge Beyond content creation, AI is making waves in learning curation—selecting, organizing, and managing resources to ensure they align with specific goals. Our system, Open eLMS, uses AI to structure entire