The Multiverse blog

In this environment, a single shot of learning early on in life is clearly no longer sufficient.

Instead, we need to embrace a model of lifelong learning, where opportunities for growth and development are available to people of every age and at every stage of their career. That’s why at Multiverse, we deliver programmes that enable everyone to benefit from continuous, applied learning.

In the lead up to National Apprenticeship Week, we commissioned new polling with Public First to understand more about how people perceive their career journeys, from early career starters to more experienced workers - and found some surprises along the way…

Gen Z are just as worried as their parents about the threat of more tech-skilled workers

The rapid pace of technological change, particularly in the field of AI, has led to a widespread feeling of anxiety about being "left behind". And you might expect that this would be significantly more common among older generations.

But no: this concern isn't limited to older workers. It spans across ages and career stages.

Gen Z are similarly likely to think that they’re being overtaken by tech-savvy younger workers as those their parents’ age, with nearly a third of 18-24s expressing agreement compared with a third of the 45-54s.

This tech anxiety is also more pronounced in those who have taken extended leave from the workplace. Women who took extended leave are more likely than average to say they think they are perceived as not tech-savvy (37% vs 34%), and that they’re being overtaken at work by younger, more tech-skilled workers (38% vs 33%).

Career progression slows as you grow — but should it?

Our research found that those in the first decade of their career (18-24-year-olds) have seen much greater recent progression than those approaching the last decade of their career (55-64s).

Nearly half (47%) of career starters told us they have been promoted within the last two years, compared with just 12% of the 55-64s.

This career plateau needn’t be the case. Particularly with the UK government’s ambitions for growth and boosted productivity, there is no reason why more experienced workers shouldn’t also be enabled to seize the skills opportunity alongside their early career counterparts. After all, AI wasn’t around when most older workers began their careers.

In their working lives they’ve been witness to the death of the fax machine, the rising tide of email, the advent of the internet and the move to mobile. And they’ve tackled them all. Who says there’s such a thing as too old for AI?!

With this stark data, it’s perhaps unsurprising that more than two in five workers aged 55-64 (42%) express negative feelings towards their current pay level, and the availability and frequency of payrises (49%) and promotions (44%). Reskilling could be a solution: not just for individuals. Imagine the national economic upside if those in the last decade of their careers were promoted with the same frequency of those in their first.

More experienced workers recognise the need to reskill in tech

Despite feeling like they are not a priority for training and development (two in five agreed), older workers are more keen to develop their digital and AI skills than younger cohorts.

While some people might have the perception that older generations are tech-resistant, this data demonstrates loud and clear the fact that age doesn’t correlate to willingness to learn new skills.

Women who took an extended period of leave from work are also more likely than average to say that they need training at work to become capable of using new tech (45% vs 37%). They also express the desire to gain improved digital and AI skills from training.

These differences in priorities highlight the need for tailored approaches to skills development, ensuring that everyone, regardless of age or career stage, has access to the training they need to succeed. This was one of the core principles included in our Skills Mission report - we know from polling we commissioned last year that 9 in 10 workers support the right to reskill.

Taking learning out of the classroom and into the workplace

The evidence is clear: learning shouldn't be a one-time event. By prioritising continuous learning, we can help to ensure that there is equitable access to economic opportunity for all.

This helps employers - because it offers them a more skilled and engaged workforce, who they’re more likely to be able to retain.

And it helps learners - because it empowers them with the tools they need to succeed in a world brimming with change.

You’re never too old to try something new. You’re never too young to recognise the substantial effects of technological change.

Methodology

Public First online survey commissioned by Multiverse for the period 17 to 21 January 2025 with 2011 participants. All results are weighted by interlocking age and gender, region, and social grade to nationally representative proportions.

Capita launched its Data and AI Academy last year, designed to equip employees with new skills to use AI responsibly and drive business outcomes.

Lisa told us about her vision for AI skills at scale, the value of internal storytelling, and her lessons for leaders embarking on multi-year transformation journeys.

First things first. Can you tell us a little about your experience, your role at Capita, and your career journey to your current role?

I’ve been with Capita for 19 years and have a broad remit, looking after all things performance and development, culture, responsible business, and our early careers and apprenticeship offer.

I fell into learning from recruitment, and developed a fond love of lifelong learning as a result. When I left school, I went straight into an apprenticeship with a car manufacturer, and then joined Capita in a recruitment role, where I was lucky enough to study my CIPD part-time to get my HR qualifications.

Recently I’ve done my Master's in Leadership as well, funded through the Apprenticeship Levy, which was a fantastic opportunity to go back and study. So I’m a huge advocate for all things apprenticeships!

How is Capita approaching the opportunity of AI?

AI is fundamental to Capita’s ‘Unlocking Value Together’ strategy. We’re helping to reduce operational costs for our customers and enable them to provide higher-quality work to their employees, by removing repetitive and mundane tasks.

We’ve been partnering with several local authorities on proof of concepts to test out new AI tools. For example, we're helping advisors in our contact centres with a more human-centred and empathetic approach to how we deal with customer enquiries. AI allows us to listen to live conversations and seamlessly stitch together the council services in the background. It equips advisors to answer many enquiries much faster. It’s reduced our average call handling times for clients by 20%, which has a brilliant impact on our customer service and CNPS.

A separate trial for the British Army uses AI to streamline and process medical records, reducing processing times for applicants by 30%.

We're also drawing on the expertise of the highest calibre AI engineers and partnering with technology hyperscalers, including the likes of Microsoft ServiceNow, Salesforce and AWS, to develop efficient, ethical, impactful solutions, which now underpin our operations.

How is AI transforming the skills teams need at Capita?

We’re having to think about skills in a completely different way. As part of our workforce planning strategy and the work of my team, we’re looking at how we augment humans with the AI capability we’re bringing in – it’s a huge shift in mindset.

I’m really thinking about the skills the organisation needs in the future. The reality is that AI is transforming how teams operate, automating more repetitive tasks, and simplifying workflows.

It’s allowing us to focus on different skills, and for us, we’re prioritising data literacy. The AI we’re using is only as good as the data that we’ve got. We’re therefore trying to enable teams to interpret that data as fluently as possible. It doesn’t mean we’re training everybody to be data scientists, by any means, but it’s giving anyone the fundamental skills to ask the right questions, and critically analyse AI-generated insights to make better informed decisions.

We’re also looking at the behavioural skills that go alongside that, creating curiosity and an adaptive learning mindset. For instance, we need higher levels of emotional intelligence than before to help with critical thinking and problem-solving.

One way Capita is taking action has been launching the Data and AI Academy. Can you tell us how that idea came about and the goals of the programme?

The Data and AI Academy has been fundamental to us shifting the dial. The need came from a multitude of different skills we were looking to develop, particularly around technical proficiency.

For our employees, it’s about understanding the benefits of AI, the basics around data science and machine learning, as well as AI literacy. Ethical considerations and the responsible use of AI are also massively important.

We can’t underestimate AI's impact on frontline colleagues, so we’re focussing on adaptability: giving individuals the skills to be curious and continue to learn. We want our employees to make that human judgement and be creative for the parts that AI can’t replicate.

Data management and analysis is another area. We want to ensure everyone understands data governance, security practices, and the data lifecycle.

We’re proud of the programme we’ve built in partnership with Multiverse. We’ve got 86 learners on the AI for Business Value apprenticeship, and that's had a significant impact on our business.

I’m also incredibly proud of the materials we’ve built together for colleagues who sit out of the Levy-funded options. It’s important we’re developing AI literacy right across the business.

What made you decide to work with Multiverse?

The reason we chose Multiverse was their ability to demonstrate thought leadership in the AI space. We felt that out of all of the providers that we have worked with, or we went through a procurement exercise with, Multiverse was able to demonstrate the link to the actual business benefit.

Multiverse took the time to understand the transformation and change journey that Capita is on, and build something that was appropriate and meaningful to our employees.

The flexibility that Multiverse has given us on content and delivery styles for different audiences, from lower levels to leadership, has been fantastic, and we've seen a huge impact from that.

The biggest thing is true partnership. It's listening, it's understanding each other and building something that's successful together.

What’s the biggest success you’ve seen from the AI Academy? And what are you proudest of so far?

I’m proud we’ve got people talking about AI and the impact it can have while dispelling some of the myths.

It’s been lovely to do some internal storytelling around people's success on the programme. We often do things like fireside chats where individuals share their proof of concepts. One apprentice recently shared the impact of manual processing changes they’d made within back-office operations. Hearing somebody bring it to life and talk with such fluency around their AI solutions was fantastic.

I’m also hugely proud of our Microsoft 365 Copilot rollout, which is happening across the business. Using the AI for Business Value programme, we’re integrating our internal learning alongside how we’re developing Copilot's impact on our business.

How are employees responding to AI-driven changes in workforce development and skills programmes?

The business has undergone a huge transformation, and naturally, there has been a lot of scepticism about AI replacing human interaction. What this programme has done is demonstrate the advantages that you can have with AI. Our employees are now much more curious – the programme has made them keen to be involved and learn more.

Where there was maybe a fear of job displacement or reluctance to change previously, we’re finding that people are embracing AI.

Learners on the apprenticeship sharing their stories and successes has been fantastic – it’s bringing more people to the table and making them want to be part of the journey. We’re now seeing the knock-on effects where we’ve got people breaking down the door to be part of the next cohorts – it's exactly the success we wanted to get.

Let’s talk strategy. How does workforce transformation in AI support Capita’s broader strategic goals?

A big part of my role at the moment is leading our cultural transformation globally, and emphasising AI's ethical and responsible use across the business. It’s part of our Better Company pillar, which ladders up to our Unlocking Value Together strategy.

We have to align our cultural transformation with AI, so we can drive operational efficiencies, improve governance, and create better skills development to support our tech-enabled culture and future.

We're also refreshing our values at the moment, which I’m leading. It’s been fantastic hearing people so energised in focus groups about the opportunity that AI and data presents, and the opportunity to think about their roles in a different way – less transactional, and more creative and problem solving work.

What’s the biggest hurdle you’ve had so far on that journey, and how have you overcome it?

Navigating budget constraints. We've had to be as creative as ever to help individuals through that change journey, but also to give them the skills they need for the future.

So we've been repurposing a lot of our content – and challenging the art of the possible, utilising AI ourselves internally to create better materials and content.

Without our partners investing time to understand some of those challenges and be on that journey with us, it wouldn't have been such a success. So we’re grateful for the support Multiverse has given us.

Do you have a piece of advice that you’d share with other leaders looking to embark on a similar journey?

Don’t underestimate the change journey. For us, it’s a multi-year strategy – and not something that will happen overnight. We’re introducing AI and continuous improvement initiatives to change employees’ perceptions and drive teams to work together differently over time. But, it’s required strong leadership in that process.

We’re investing lots of time with our senior leadership team to help develop their skills. We want our leaders to become real advocates for changing workforce planning and viewing career pathways differently.

To build a truly augmented workforce, you must make sure all members of the organisation – at all career levels – are equipped with the right skills and tech. It's simple things. Make sure they've got the right equipment, they've got the right tools, but then to allow them to trial things and have a safer space to fail.

And finally, collaborate in strong partnerships. That’s the biggest element for me that’s been successful.

When you look at the year ahead, what are the trends shaping your role, and what are you doing to prepare?

I’m super excited about 2025. It will be keeping up with the rapid pace of change now – things are moving and accelerating faster than ever before. We’re using our budget as creatively as possible to upskill people to get ahead of that change.

Our business is hugely ambitious for its transformation with AI, and what we’re doing for our clients and customers. I can’t let our people down in giving them the skills to deliver what we’re expecting.

I’m also thinking about AI-driven learning experiences. We should practise what we preach and focus on social and collaborative learning to help individuals accelerate their growth. So we will be focused on upskilling and reskilling.

We all talk about the future of work, but do we understand what the future of work looks like in enough detail? We’re putting a lot of focus into that.

A practical challenge for me is ensuring that our remote workforce are still feeling part of that change journey, and adapting to our generational workforce and the differences that brings, as well.

One principle we have at Multiverse is that learning should be available for everyone at every age, and every stage. How is Capita considering this across the generational workforce?

Having five generations in the workplace is hugely exciting, but it brings lots of differences and lots of change. Multiverse has challenged our thinking around making sure that we have learning available to all different generations. Some Capita employees have been with us for a long time, and their roles are changing.

I’m sure that in some organisations those skills would be written off. Instead, it’s about looking early enough to ensure we are reskilling and upskilling. Individuals have got so much capability to do different things. We just need to make sure that we're challenging them in the right way, and giving them accessible, digestible content that’s relevant to their role.

I don’t think any inward learning team can do this on their own. Having truly great partnerships where you understand each other, you trust each other, and you can bring in the experts to fill gaps for you works wonders.

National Apprenticeship Week is coming up. How do you perceive the importance of apprenticeships at Capita?

On a personal level, apprenticeships have really supported me. They helped me at the start of my career, and I've now got a Master's funded through the Levy too.

Apprenticeships give fantastic opportunities to school leavers, but they are also an incredible mechanism for upskilling and reskilling. That's where we’ve tried to dispel myths at Capita – we’ve had over 700 learners go through apprenticeship programmes in the last couple of years. It's fantastic to see skills development in management, leadership, data and AI, where we're seeing huge impact and change.

The Levy allows us to partner and think about things in a slightly different way, using it as a mechanism to upskill our workforce. I’d encourage other organisations to think a little bit more outside the box about how you can use some of the apprenticeship standards that are out there to add business value.

So I will always continue to advocate for apprenticeships. It's hugely exciting to see how they develop and change individuals.

And finally, let’s end on a fun one… in an ideal world, what’s the one dream task you’d like AI to do for you?

I’d love it to manage my teenagers’ emotions for me! But joking aside, for me it would be to create a continuous learning culture of growth and curiosity. I’d love it if AI had a magic way to consistently embed that spirit of constant learning and growth into individuals and across the business.

It’s maturing and it's learning at such a rapid rate. Who knows what AI will do in the future?

Capita launched its Data and AI Academy last year, designed to equip employees with new skills to use AI responsibly and drive business outcomes.

Lisa told us about her vision for AI skills at scale, the value of internal storytelling, and her lessons for leaders embarking on multi-year transformation journeys.

First things first. Can you tell us a little about your experience, your role at Capita, and your career journey to your current role?

I’ve been with Capita for 19 years and have a broad remit, looking after all things performance and development, culture, responsible business, and our early careers and apprenticeship offer.

I fell into learning from recruitment, and developed a fond love of lifelong learning as a result. When I left school, I went straight into an apprenticeship with a car manufacturer, and then joined Capita in a recruitment role, where I was lucky enough to study my CIPD part-time to get my HR qualifications.

Recently I’ve done my Master's in Leadership as well, funded through the Apprenticeship Levy, which was a fantastic opportunity to go back and study. So I’m a huge advocate for all things apprenticeships!

How is Capita approaching the opportunity of AI?

AI is fundamental to Capita’s ‘Unlocking Value Together’ strategy. We’re helping to reduce operational costs for our customers and enable them to provide higher-quality work to their employees, by removing repetitive and mundane tasks.

We’ve been partnering with several local authorities on proof of concepts to test out new AI tools. For example, we're helping advisors in our contact centres with a more human-centred and empathetic approach to how we deal with customer enquiries. AI allows us to listen to live conversations and seamlessly stitch together the council services in the background. It equips advisors to answer many enquiries much faster. It’s reduced our average call handling times for clients by 20%, which has a brilliant impact on our customer service and CNPS.

A separate trial for the British Army uses AI to streamline and process medical records, reducing processing times for applicants by 30%.

We're also drawing on the expertise of the highest calibre AI engineers and partnering with technology hyperscalers, including the likes of Microsoft ServiceNow, Salesforce and AWS, to develop efficient, ethical, impactful solutions, which now underpin our operations.

How is AI transforming the skills teams need at Capita?

We’re having to think about skills in a completely different way. As part of our workforce planning strategy and the work of my team, we’re looking at how we augment humans with the AI capability we’re bringing in – it’s a huge shift in mindset.

I’m really thinking about the skills the organisation needs in the future. The reality is that AI is transforming how teams operate, automating more repetitive tasks, and simplifying workflows.

It’s allowing us to focus on different skills, and for us, we’re prioritising data literacy. The AI we’re using is only as good as the data that we’ve got. We’re therefore trying to enable teams to interpret that data as fluently as possible. It doesn’t mean we’re training everybody to be data scientists, by any means, but it’s giving anyone the fundamental skills to ask the right questions, and critically analyse AI-generated insights to make better informed decisions.

We’re also looking at the behavioural skills that go alongside that, creating curiosity and an adaptive learning mindset. For instance, we need higher levels of emotional intelligence than before to help with critical thinking and problem-solving.

One way Capita is taking action has been launching the Data and AI Academy. Can you tell us how that idea came about and the goals of the programme?

The Data and AI Academy has been fundamental to us shifting the dial. The need came from a multitude of different skills we were looking to develop, particularly around technical proficiency.

For our employees, it’s about understanding the benefits of AI, the basics around data science and machine learning, as well as AI literacy. Ethical considerations and the responsible use of AI are also massively important.

We can’t underestimate AI's impact on frontline colleagues, so we’re focussing on adaptability: giving individuals the skills to be curious and continue to learn. We want our employees to make that human judgement and be creative for the parts that AI can’t replicate.

Data management and analysis is another area. We want to ensure everyone understands data governance, security practices, and the data lifecycle.

We’re proud of the programme we’ve built in partnership with Multiverse. We’ve got 86 learners on the AI for Business Value apprenticeship, and that's had a significant impact on our business.

I’m also incredibly proud of the materials we’ve built together for colleagues who sit out of the Levy-funded options. It’s important we’re developing AI literacy right across the business.

What made you decide to work with Multiverse?

The reason we chose Multiverse was their ability to demonstrate thought leadership in the AI space. We felt that out of all of the providers that we have worked with, or we went through a procurement exercise with, Multiverse was able to demonstrate the link to the actual business benefit.

Multiverse took the time to understand the transformation and change journey that Capita is on, and build something that was appropriate and meaningful to our employees.

The flexibility that Multiverse has given us on content and delivery styles for different audiences, from lower levels to leadership, has been fantastic, and we've seen a huge impact from that.

The biggest thing is true partnership. It's listening, it's understanding each other and building something that's successful together.

What’s the biggest success you’ve seen from the AI Academy? And what are you proudest of so far?

I’m proud we’ve got people talking about AI and the impact it can have while dispelling some of the myths.

It’s been lovely to do some internal storytelling around people's success on the programme. We often do things like fireside chats where individuals share their proof of concepts. One apprentice recently shared the impact of manual processing changes they’d made within back-office operations. Hearing somebody bring it to life and talk with such fluency around their AI solutions was fantastic.

I’m also hugely proud of our Microsoft 365 Copilot rollout, which is happening across the business. Using the AI for Business Value programme, we’re integrating our internal learning alongside how we’re developing Copilot's impact on our business.

How are employees responding to AI-driven changes in workforce development and skills programmes?

The business has undergone a huge transformation, and naturally, there has been a lot of scepticism about AI replacing human interaction. What this programme has done is demonstrate the advantages that you can have with AI. Our employees are now much more curious – the programme has made them keen to be involved and learn more.

Where there was maybe a fear of job displacement or reluctance to change previously, we’re finding that people are embracing AI.

Learners on the apprenticeship sharing their stories and successes has been fantastic – it’s bringing more people to the table and making them want to be part of the journey. We’re now seeing the knock-on effects where we’ve got people breaking down the door to be part of the next cohorts – it's exactly the success we wanted to get.

Let’s talk strategy. How does workforce transformation in AI support Capita’s broader strategic goals?

A big part of my role at the moment is leading our cultural transformation globally, and emphasising AI's ethical and responsible use across the business. It’s part of our Better Company pillar, which ladders up to our Unlocking Value Together strategy.

We have to align our cultural transformation with AI, so we can drive operational efficiencies, improve governance, and create better skills development to support our tech-enabled culture and future.

We're also refreshing our values at the moment, which I’m leading. It’s been fantastic hearing people so energised in focus groups about the opportunity that AI and data presents, and the opportunity to think about their roles in a different way – less transactional, and more creative and problem solving work.

What’s the biggest hurdle you’ve had so far on that journey, and how have you overcome it?

Navigating budget constraints. We've had to be as creative as ever to help individuals through that change journey, but also to give them the skills they need for the future.

So we've been repurposing a lot of our content – and challenging the art of the possible, utilising AI ourselves internally to create better materials and content.

Without our partners investing time to understand some of those challenges and be on that journey with us, it wouldn't have been such a success. So we’re grateful for the support Multiverse has given us.

Do you have a piece of advice that you’d share with other leaders looking to embark on a similar journey?

Don’t underestimate the change journey. For us, it’s a multi-year strategy – and not something that will happen overnight. We’re introducing AI and continuous improvement initiatives to change employees’ perceptions and drive teams to work together differently over time. But, it’s required strong leadership in that process.

We’re investing lots of time with our senior leadership team to help develop their skills. We want our leaders to become real advocates for changing workforce planning and viewing career pathways differently.

To build a truly augmented workforce, you must make sure all members of the organisation – at all career levels – are equipped with the right skills and tech. It's simple things. Make sure they've got the right equipment, they've got the right tools, but then to allow them to trial things and have a safer space to fail.

And finally, collaborate in strong partnerships. That’s the biggest element for me that’s been successful.

When you look at the year ahead, what are the trends shaping your role, and what are you doing to prepare?

I’m super excited about 2025. It will be keeping up with the rapid pace of change now – things are moving and accelerating faster than ever before. We’re using our budget as creatively as possible to upskill people to get ahead of that change.

Our business is hugely ambitious for its transformation with AI, and what we’re doing for our clients and customers. I can’t let our people down in giving them the skills to deliver what we’re expecting.

I’m also thinking about AI-driven learning experiences. We should practise what we preach and focus on social and collaborative learning to help individuals accelerate their growth. So we will be focused on upskilling and reskilling.

We all talk about the future of work, but do we understand what the future of work looks like in enough detail? We’re putting a lot of focus into that.

A practical challenge for me is ensuring that our remote workforce are still feeling part of that change journey, and adapting to our generational workforce and the differences that brings, as well.

One principle we have at Multiverse is that learning should be available for everyone at every age, and every stage. How is Capita considering this across the generational workforce?

Having five generations in the workplace is hugely exciting, but it brings lots of differences and lots of change. Multiverse has challenged our thinking around making sure that we have learning available to all different generations. Some Capita employees have been with us for a long time, and their roles are changing.

I’m sure that in some organisations those skills would be written off. Instead, it’s about looking early enough to ensure we are reskilling and upskilling. Individuals have got so much capability to do different things. We just need to make sure that we're challenging them in the right way, and giving them accessible, digestible content that’s relevant to their role.

I don’t think any inward learning team can do this on their own. Having truly great partnerships where you understand each other, you trust each other, and you can bring in the experts to fill gaps for you works wonders.

National Apprenticeship Week is coming up. How do you perceive the importance of apprenticeships at Capita?

On a personal level, apprenticeships have really supported me. They helped me at the start of my career, and I've now got a Master's funded through the Levy too.

Apprenticeships give fantastic opportunities to school leavers, but they are also an incredible mechanism for upskilling and reskilling. That's where we’ve tried to dispel myths at Capita – we’ve had over 700 learners go through apprenticeship programmes in the last couple of years. It's fantastic to see skills development in management, leadership, data and AI, where we're seeing huge impact and change.

The Levy allows us to partner and think about things in a slightly different way, using it as a mechanism to upskill our workforce. I’d encourage other organisations to think a little bit more outside the box about how you can use some of the apprenticeship standards that are out there to add business value.

So I will always continue to advocate for apprenticeships. It's hugely exciting to see how they develop and change individuals.

And finally, let’s end on a fun one… in an ideal world, what’s the one dream task you’d like AI to do for you?

I’d love it to manage my teenagers’ emotions for me! But joking aside, for me it would be to create a continuous learning culture of growth and curiosity. I’d love it if AI had a magic way to consistently embed that spirit of constant learning and growth into individuals and across the business.

It’s maturing and it's learning at such a rapid rate. Who knows what AI will do in the future?

The companies which embrace these changes and proactively equip their teams with the necessary skills will be the ones who thrive. It’s selecting the right routes to make it happen that is hard.

Northwell Health has partnered with Multiverse to upskill across its information technology workforce to ensure they are familiar with and ready to use the latest, most powerful tools. The training has expanded employees’ skill sets and boosted their productivity, translating to real world impact: money savings and improved operational efficiency.

Through this development partnership, Northwell Health is providing its employees the opportunity to learn new skills and grow their careers through highly personalized training.

The training is being delivered by Multiverse, a tech company delivering high-quality training through applied learning, to 155 Northwell Health learners. Each learner's unique pathway is designed to help them develop their ability to make use of data and AI in a real world setting.

It focuses particularly on realizing the value from the latest data and AI tools, from Microsoft 365 Copilot, to Tableau and PowerBI.

By teaching its employees these critical new skills, Northwell Health is building an AI-native workforce capable of reimagining workflows and business processes. As they explore new AI and data skills, learners believe that they will become more efficient. Already some are reporting they will spend 6 hours less a week on tasks that had previously required manual inputs, and inefficient working practices.

One Northwell Health learner said: “I had no idea what AI could do or how it worked, but now that I understand it better I can see it being valuable in the future for other things I do day-to-day.”

This program has already helped Northwell learners reconfigure their understanding of AI tools and how they can incorporate them in their work. By upskilling their workforce, Northwell Health has supported its employees’ career growth and enabled them to deliver on critical business goals, improving operational efficiency and the company’s bottom line.

Brian Aquart, Northwell Health’s Vice President of Workforce & Community Education said: “We are so excited by the opportunities that this partnership brings for our employees to harness the power of AI to grow their careers and help the company reach its business objectives.”

“Many companies are working towards developing AI native workforces, but Multiverse’s approach to identifying, closing, and preventing skills gaps at scale while delivering against unique business goals has enabled us to continuously analyze and address our skilling needs.”

Elina Petrillo, VP HR Technology, said: “Creating a culture of continuous learning is essential in today’s fast-evolving workplace. By empowering our team to assess their skills and proactively learn new ones, we are fostering growth and driving efficiency. With rising healthcare costs, it’s more important than ever to enable employees to complete tasks faster and strengthen workforce data and software engineering capabilities. Newly acquired skills don’t just improve individual performance—they allow employees to contribute in new, meaningful ways. For just one team at Northwell, upskilling has led to increased productivity and engagement.”

Euan Blair, CEO of Multiverse said: “Northwell Health is a proven leader when it comes to innovation in healthcare. By upskilling its information technology workforce, Northwell is working towards building an AI native workforce capable of transforming and improving its business while ensuring their employees have the skills they need to leverage emerging technologies and to progress in their careers.”

Artificial Intelligence is transforming the world of learning. The burning need for companies and societies to increase productivity and generate new growth through additional AI capabilities, and the skills to deploy them, is the discussion heard from boardrooms to watercoolers across all industries.

At Multiverse, we believe that AI isn’t just the cause of new skills requirements, it’s also the solution.

AI makes personalized, always-on coaching available at scale. It can assist in tailoring learning materials so that individuals get the education they need to achieve their individual goals. It can reduce burdens on educators by supporting on non-core tasks, so they spend more time supporting learners.

So we have put AI at the heart of what Multiverse does for employers and learners. Whether that’s our AI-driven skills diagnosis that translates business goals into personalised learning pathways for individuals, or Atlas, our always-on coach, that works with our expert human coaches to accelerate equitable outcomes for our learners.

Now it’s time to share the principles for the Multiverse approach to AI. We’re choosing now for two reasons:

• The future of Multiverse involves more AI, not less. Given the success of our initial investments in AI, we’re confident that the next phase of Multiverse will involve additional integrations of AI solutions into what we do. Clear principles help guide our teams as they experiment, build and deploy.
• Transparency for our users. AI adoption will be more successful if its users understand the fundamental motivations behind it.

The Multiverse AI Principles

The following principles outline how we’re thinking about the way we build with AI, now and in the future.

AI first

Our AI features are increasingly core to our product offering. We will continue to build with AI as a fundamental driver of how we deliver an outstanding learning experience, woven into the fundamentals. It is not simply a supplement to the experience or just an enabler of things we’d otherwise want to build.

Contextualised

Our AI solutions are contextualised to our customers and our users. Personalization sits at the heart of being able to educate at scale, and this is a key benefit of leveraging AI.

Fair and non-discriminatory

Our mission has equitable access at its heart, and AI at Multiverse will be no different. When we deploy AI solutions for learning environments we seek to do so with fairness and in a non-discriminatory manner. We firmly believe that it is necessary for AI to neither create nor reinforce bias.

Consequential

At Multiverse we believe the principle value of learning is in the real world application of skills, and the tangible consequences of that application. The same is true of our approach to AI. We will only incorporate AI systems in our products when we have a deep conviction that they will drive real world value. Our AI should be a tool, not a toy.

Transparent

We want our AI systems to be explainable, to foster confidence in their outcomes for both Multiverse and our learners. When we deploy AI, we will ensure it is underpinned by a robust understanding of the logical steps and rationale behind its decisions, including its capabilities and limitations.

Human in the loop

Multiverse AI will always be built and run with the careful guidance of Multiverse people - for feedback, direction and fairness. We want AI to complement and enhance the expertise of our coaches, tech talent and customer support teams, not replace it. This commitment ensures that AI complements human judgment rather than replacing it, allowing us to harness the best of both worlds.

How Multiverse uses these guidelines

Our principles are core to how we are building AI systems at Multiverse, but they are not intended to be static; they will evolve as our understanding of AI and its impact on learning grows. We are dedicated to continuously evaluating our AI implementations and training methods to ensure they remain aligned with company values and ethical responsibilities, as well as our compliance and legal obligations.

These principles have been inspired by input from both our AI Advisory Board, and the Multiverse Customer Advisory Board. As a result, we may update our principles in line with updated inputs.

The end goal: empowering learning and growth

Ultimately, our AI principles are about more than compliance; they are about fostering a culture of learning and growth for our team, for the benefit of our customers and learners. We see AI as a powerful ally in personal and professional development. By embedding these principles into every aspect of our AI strategy, we aim to create a learning ecosystem that not only prepares individuals for the future, but also contributes to society.

At Multiverse, our commitment to the principled use of AI is coupled with our core mission: to create equitable access to economic opportunity, for everyone. As we move forward, our partners are with us on the journey.

And if 2024 was about experimentation with generative AI (Gen AI), 2025 is about proving value for the bottom line as leaders seek to understand the ROI of AI.

You’ll be hard-pressed to find any 2025 trends or predictions without a mention of AI – so we've dedicated this whole article to three AI trends shaped by the skills agenda.

Trend 1: Upskilling to address an AI talent shortage

The roles of AI engineer, data governance manager and AI researcher all feature in the top 10 fastest-growing jobs in the UK, according to LinkedIn’s 2025 ‘Jobs on the Rise’ research.

A tightening labour market for in-demand AI and data skills will force leaders to consider their options.

The same study found that 45% of UK HR professionals feel their company doesn’t have a clear view of the skills it will need in the coming years. Responding quickly to new skills gaps will be a crucial challenge for people teams.

Yet, the answer may already sit within their four walls, with an opportunity to upskill and create new career paths for existing employees.

The appetite from staff is there: our ROI of AI research found that 83% of workers think AI skills will help them to drive more value for their employer in the next 12 months.

With AI on the agenda, leaders can capitalise on this appetite to learn new skills, while making cost efficiencies through employee upskilling.

AI upskilling is the best place to start – explore how to unleash productivity and make AI your competitive advantage.

Trend 2: Agentic AI experimentation on the rise

Agentic AI has been dubbed as the ‘new frontier in generative AI’ by PwC and called out by Gartner as one of its Strategic Technology Trends for 2025.

In essence, this is where GenAI is used to create ‘intelligent agents’ which can make automated (or semi-automated) decisions on their own. Uses are emerging in trend analysis, resource allocation and real-time problem-solving.

With workers spending an average of 14.3 hours a week on data tasks – according to our Skills Intelligence report – there’s a clear case for AI agents to help boost productivity by tackling data-intensive jobs when guided by a human.

While this is the new frontier, it will be early adopters who have the right skills, data governance, and policies in place to push forward with experimental use cases in 2025.

We will see ‘customer service AI agents’ becoming more commonplace, but full-scale adoption of agentic AI is still a while away.

In 2025, expect proof of concepts to be a priority – and for those early adopters to move quickly.

Trend 3: Policy and regulation aims to keep pace with AI

In the UK, the Government launched its AI Opportunities Action Plan to push forward AI adoption and deploy AI across the public sector.

In January, it backed a report of 50 recommendations on how the country can best use AI, written by tech entrepreneur Matt Clifford.

Closing the national skills gap is highlighted as crucial for the UK to become an "AI superpower."

Meanwhile, the incoming EU AI Act will apply to any AI system used inside the EU. The legislation seeks to protect individuals and encourage investment, as well as put a welcome emphasis on AI literacy and skills development.

Businesses globally have found it a challenge to keep pace with the rate of technological advancement, due to a lack of workforce skills. In the UK and Europe at least — both these initiatives will provide additional structure for leaders with their long-term approach to AI.

L&G has launched a new Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Business Value programme for 50 colleagues in partnership with education technology company Multiverse. The initiative is part of L&G’s drive to adapt to the global changes that accelerating AI technology has brought forward in recent years. [1]

AI adoption is estimated to significantly boost labour productivity growth in financial and professional services over the coming years; the City of London Corporation estimates a boost of 12% by 2025 and of 50% by 2030. [2]

Being that the investment management sector has the potential to embed AI in nearly every one of its functions[3], the Financial Conduct Authority and other regulatory bodies have put a focus on the safe development and deployment of AI[4]. Through the AI for Business Value programme, L&G will equip its employees with the tools needed to responsibly adopt AI in the workplace, as well as taking advantage of potential productivity gains.

Derrick Hastie, Chief Technology Officer, Asset Management, L&G: “We are very excited to provide an opportunity for our colleagues to earn a professional qualification in AI through a business lens. Most importantly, the apprenticeship will help our participants to recognise growth opportunities and leverage AI technologies; creating strategies that can be implemented across L&G’s capabilities.

"Having completed an apprenticeship early on in my career, I am a huge advocate of continuous professional development. Through this programme, we want to support our colleagues’ professional aspirations whilst building a wide net of tech skills that will be key for change resilience.”

Throughout the 13-month course, funded by the apprenticeship levy, participants from across the business will learn to better leverage L&G’s technology tools to develop a robust AI strategy; developing tangible benefits that will drive business value through cost savings, improved operational efficiency, and automated manual processes.

The training will be delivered by Multiverse, a tech company that specialises in high-quality training through applied learning. Multiverse has trained more than 20,000 apprentices at over 1,500 organisations in data, AI, and digital skills since 2016.

Gary Eimerman, Chief Learning Officer, Multiverse: “L&G is an organisation built on principles of responsible investment for long term growth, an ethos reflected in its staff development strategy. By equipping its teams to make responsible data-led decisions, L&G can enhance operations and ensure security and protection in the fast evolving digital workplace.”

As part of the Investment Association’s Technology Working Group, L&G has already played a key role in assessing the ways in which UK asset managers are already leveraging AI to drive efficiency, automating routine tasks to boost productivity, and improving the quality of products and services offered.

[1] A timeline of technology transformation: How has the pace changed? | World Economic Forum

[2] Can AI actually increase human productivity? | World Economic Forum, The future of AI & the workforce

[3] Technology Working Group AI Report Oct 2024.pdf

[4] AI Update, A pro-innovation approach to AI regulation - GOV.UK

Richard Cotton, Co-Founder at Maikai, said: “In this digitally driven world,
our clients are looking to develop their teams with the latest AI, tech and data skills. It is anticipated that 40% of workers will need to reskill in the next three
years due to AI, and we are excited to be partnering with Multiverse to extend
our capabilities in this area. Their measured and applied human-centred
learning models are transforming how professional apprenticeships work,
helping our clients to build resilient and future-facing organisations.”

Carly Becker, VP, Strategic Alliances at Multiverse, said: “Nowhere has the explosion of data, analysis tools, and predictive insights been more profoundly seen than in the world of professional sport. The pursuit of competitive edge, and performance excellence, is now driven by data. But the ability of organisations to harness this superpower is too often hindered by the skill set of their teams. In partnership with Maikai, we’re excited to play our role ensuring individuals of every age and career stage feel the benefit of technological skills in their careers and in their organisations.”

Helen brings a wealth of experience in the tech industry, most recently leading the engineering team behind Spotify's open-source Backstage product. Her expertise will be instrumental in driving innovation and scaling our engineering organisation as we continue to deliver cutting-edge learning experiences.

A passion for building and empowering:

Helen brings over 15 years of experience in the tech industry, most recently leading the engineering team behind Spotify's open-source Backstage product. Backstage streamlines workflows for developers, and its success is a testament to Helen's leadership in building user-centric and efficient developer tools.

Prior to that, Helen played a key role in launching Podcasts at Spotify, a major expansion of the platform's content offerings at the time. Her dedication to innovation and user experience is evident throughout her career.

"Growing up in a family of educators," says Helen, "I understand the transformative power of education. In today's world, upskilling is essential, and I'm excited to create a learning experience that equips the next generation of talent with the skills they need to thrive."

Beyond her technical expertise, Helen is passionate about fostering strong communities. She is a strong believer in building an engineering culture that not only drives performance but also empowers engineers to learn, grow, and contribute meaningfully to Multiverse's mission.

This new addition underscores our commitment to building a world-class organisation, filled with top talent. Want to join it? We're hiring.

We’re on a mission to provide equitable access to economic opportunity for everyone. Here, we want to set out how Atlas is helping us to do that, because when combined with our industry-leading human coaches, it allows us to offer 1:1 tutoring - which is proven to dramatically improve learning outcomes - at scale. Together our coaches combine with Atlas to deliver highly personalized, effective, guidance 24/7, whenever our learners need it

We also want to explore what we’re doing to improve - because no good tech organization only celebrates its wins. We’re constantly iterating and learning ourselves. We'll touch on what’s new and what's next for Atlas at the end.

We often say that AI is useless unless people can use it. And at Multiverse, we also want to understand how people are using it. So let’s dive in.

Equitable access

First, let’s look at users - and what it could tell us about AI adoption.

We’ve seen tremendous growth in usage, with a roughly four-fold increase in the number of daily users in the past six months. Likewise, the number of messages per day has skyrocketed - we’re now seeing 5x the volume compared with six months ago. We also hit a new peak ‘helpfulness’ rating of 97% in January - which has remained consistently above 95% since August 2024.

But who are those users? We previously reported greater uptake among the over 40s and those with additional learning needs. That still holds true, with 46% of over 40s using it vs. 42% of the 25-39s and 34% of those 24 and under. This stands counter to the trend illustrated in some of the latest UK government AI usage data, which suggests that 18-34 year olds are most likely to use AI tools like LLM-based chatbots.

Meanwhile we have proportionally equal of male and female usage from the past six months, with 42% of each group using Atlas. Again, this bucks the trend of AI usage skewing more male, according to that same government data.

As for the racial demographic of our users, it’s broadly similar across ethnicities, with 40% Asian, 35% Black, 42% Multi-Racial, and 44% White learners using the tool. These proportions have grown steadily among each group, though adoption among Black learners remains slightly lower than average.

Economic opportunity

We also want to explain a little bit about outcomes, and in particular how people are using the tool. We’ve found that some of the top ways that Atlas is being used include:

• As a learning partner: helping learners to unpick how they’ve arrived at incorrect answers within their own work.
• As a curriculum guide: augmenting program material with advice for how to apply it to their particular role, or explaining specific concepts in a new way.
• As an impact evaluator: helping to uncover the impact of a user’s learning, by teasing out insights on what they’ve achieved, and helping calculate outcomes

While we always intended for Atlas to act as a technical and learning guide, we hadn’t anticipated the popularity of using Atlas to understand impact.

This hints at how Atlas could be used to improve individuals’ economic outcomes. What better way to talk to your manager about a promotion or a pay rise, than armed with data and insights on the impact you’ve been able to drive for your team? Could AI be your next career coach?

This also has perhaps even greater implications. It hints at how organizations can start to use AI tools to understand the impact of their wider workforce. We’re really just at the beginning of realizing the full potential for this tool.

Public vs private sector uptake

Of course, not all customers or learners are the same.

Working closely with more than 1,500 partners from every sector means we understand the unique differences in how different organizations learn and apply their skills. As you can imagine, the needs of a financial services company are vastly different from the needs of an NHS trust. The same holds true for what they require from Atlas - naturally, applying skills in a healthcare or local government setting differs from a commercial organization.

To investigate this, we compared behaviours between the public and private sectors. And found something remarkable.

There is an unfair cliché that in the public sector, technology is treated with suspicion or underutilized - that public sector organizations invest into technology without having the requisite skills to make it work.

According to our data, though, that assumption isn’t borne out. Comparing a sample of our biggest private sector customers with over 80 NHS and 50 local council partners, we found that proportionally more people are using Atlas in the public sector (66% vs 57%). This suggests that in the right environment, public sector workers are just as curious about and capable of using AI tools as their private sector counterparts. We just need to enable them in the right way.

What’s more, we know that public sector organizations are under pressure to deliver more with greater efficiency. AI has a huge potential to help with that, and Atlas is just the beginning.

What’s new and next for Atlas?

Finally, what can we do better?

We’re continually iterating to make Atlas more user-friendly and useful to the learners on our programs. Recent areas of exploration for us have included:

• Atlas as a learning co-pilot – we’ve made changes to Atlas to make it more contextually-aware, responsive and discoverable within the Multiverse platform. So Atlas now recognises the content learners are looking at whilst they are learning on the Multiverse platform. This means it can offer more relevant guidance, as well as displaying dynamic prompts based on what learners might want to know more about.
• AI-human handover - we know there are some circumstances where only chatting to a human will help. Atlas can now help smooth that handover by summarising a learner’s interaction when it hands the conversation over to a human coach. This makes it easier for the coaches to provide timely and thoughtful responses rather than spending a lot of time catching up on the chat.

Looking ahead, we want to embed Atlas more fully into the learner experience throughout their program, and find new ways to make it an even more helpful and intuitive learning partner.

And as always, we won’t take ourselves too seriously. You may have spotted SantaAtlas – you can bet there’ll be more surprises up our sleeve when it comes to Atlas’s sense of personal style. Any suggestions? Let us know…