From AI access to measurable adoption
Providing AI tools was only the beginning. Pluralsight needed to equip its employees with the skills, confidence, and practical experience to make AI part of their everyday work.
965
Employees
30%
Initial adoption
87%
License utilization
The challenge
AI licenses alone weren't driving adoption
Pluralsight deployed an AI assistant to 965 employees, but access wasn't translating into behavior. A year in, only 30% were using their license in a given month.
This is a pattern we hear broadly: licenses get issued, some employees figure out how to use AI on their own, and the rest of the investment sits unrealized on the shelf.
We knew that there was an appetite for our team members to leverage AI in their workflows, but many were struggling with where to start, what tools to use, and how to use them safely. The solution was right in front of us—leveraging our own product, AI Academy, to give team members a roadmap for AI success and to drive innovation and efficiency across the organization.
Erin Gajdalo
CEO, Pluralsight
The solution
Creating AI readiness across every role
Pluralsight recognized that the problem was helping people build the confidence, skills, and role-specific habits to confidently use AI in their work. In response, Pluralsight rolled out AI Academy company-wide, requiring every team member, regardless of role or tenure, to complete AI literacy and role-specific productivity training.
To ensure the program’s success, leadership prioritized applicable learning content, self- and expert-led practice, and a system that fostered both support and accountability. A few key elements that supported this structure include:
- Leadership enablement: Team leaders were supported through a strategic drip campaign of content that included strategic mission alignment, enablement resources, and time for discussion to ensure team leaders were aligned, informed, and empowered to drive program participation.
- Built-in support: Participants were provided with a dynamic FAQ that was updated throughout the program as well as a Slack channel where SMEs would promptly address questions from participants.
- Function-specific prompt training: Once participants completed the shared foundational learning, they completed a “choose your own adventure” style for AI prompting. Employees focused on tasks relevant to their roles, showing them where AI could improve the work they already do every day.
- Instructor-led training: In addition to self-led coursework, all participants engaged in two two-hour instructor-led sessions, ensuring that learners receive expert training and an opportunity to apply what they are learning in a supportive environment.
- Tied to performance: AI Academy participation and completion was included for all employees as a 2026 performance goal.
We made a simple decision: no exceptions. Every person, every role, same starting line. That gave us a shared experience the whole organization went through together. From there, we differentiated: functional-specific practice for most, deeper tracks for leaders driving the work forward. We brought it to life through leadership enablement, real-time support, and consistent communication. This isn't a program we finished. It's a foundation we're still building on.
Beckey Woodard Cole
Chief People Officer, Pluralsight
The results
AI platform utilization by the numbers
Turning AI skills into everyday productivity
Among the employees who were already using the assistant before AI Academy and remained active through the measurement window, usage grew 46.5%. The program not only prompted new users to get started, but it also drove existing users to go further with a tool they had already adopted.
I've never been a late adopter, but with AI moving so fast, I was genuinely worried I'd get left behind. AI Academy changed that. After going through AI Academy Level 1, I built my own custom tool to help review course outlines, something I now use every day. Work that used to take me a full day now takes about an hour. I've gone from being nervous about AI to actively building tools with it, and that's the kind of investment in your people that pays for itself many times over.
Erica Shahinian-Miller
Senior Content Project Manager, Pluralsight
Lasting adoption
Building on early success
Pluralsight’s investment continued to deliver. 91% of newly activated users were still active 12 weeks after the conclusion of the program. This ongoing utilization proves that AI had become part of how people actually worked, not a one-time box to check.
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The biggest ah-ha moments for me have come from co-workers sharing their creations and uses. Just seeing how my fellow teammates have created solutions with… AI tools opens my mind to possibilities of solving my own problems faster. That’s what gave me the confidence to ask Claude to build me a dashboard and it came together, including troubleshooting and fine-tuning, in about three prompts. Now, research that used to take hours or even days takes minutes.
Dave Haskin
Senior Solutions Consultant, Pluralsight
What’s next
From AI adoption to advanced capabilities
Twelve weeks demonstrated that AI Academy can help close the gap between buying AI and using it. But for Pluralsight, adoption is only the beginning.
The next challenge is ensuring that teams continue to upskill their AI use as technology advances.
Adoption was the easy part to measure. The harder part is making sure this doesn't fade into a program people remember instead of a habit they keep. That's what Levels 3a and 3b are built for—people who are ready to go further, build their own AI-powered tools, mentor others on their team, and show real efficiency gains in their role. We're building that next phase around how people are actually using AI every day, so their skills keep pace with how fast the tools themselves are changing.
Beckey Woodard Cole
Chief People Officer, Pluralsight