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The success of the new Government’s mission to drive economic growth will hinge on its ability to boost skills across the UK. Here, there is a key role for the government’s new body Skills England and the planned Growth and Skills Levy, which is set to give employers greater flexibility around the training they provide.

At Multiverse, we exist to solve skills gaps - our work with over 1,500 employers and 16,000 learners has given us a clear perspective on how this policy can help employers future-proof their workforces. We explore this in our latest Skills Mission report.

We need a workforce able to take advantage of the opportunities offered by new technologies

New technologies offer huge potential benefits - AI is estimated to contribute £550 billion to the UK economy by 2035. Realising this benefit relies on a skilled workforce able to capitalise on the opportunities offered by new technology. Already, 7.5 million adults lack the essential digital skills needed for the workplace, let alone those that may be needed in the future.

On-the-job training will be key to upskilling and reskilling the workforce, and we know that business leaders appreciate the value of training while working, with more than 70% saying it is the best way for young people to develop the skills needed for the workforce of tomorrow, compared to only 26% who said this of learning through academic study.

We can’t simply rely on new entrants to the workforce however - an official government study on the UK economy’s skills gap found that 178,000 roles require hard data skills, but the estimated number of data scientists graduating from UK universities is unlikely to be more than 10,000 per year, leaving a substantial gap. If businesses want a workforce ready to embrace new technologies, they will need to invest in workplace training for employees at every stage of the career journey.

If implemented successfully, the new Growth and Skills Levy should help to spark a skills revolution

The new government has committed to replacing the Apprenticeship Levy, which is currently reserved exclusively for apprenticeships, with a Growth and Skills Levy. This will allow businesses to spend a portion of their Levy contributions on non-apprenticeship training - the offer of new flexibility has huge potential to widen access to training.

To deliver the change we need, the new Levy must build on the success of previous reforms to apprenticeships, which have improved the quality of training, with average additional earnings per apprenticeship increasing by 44% over the last decade.

Levy funds should be used to support a "Right to Reskill", enabling employers to invest funds in the people who have most to benefit, regardless of geography or employee age or career stage. Recent polling we commissioned Public First to carry out found that nine out of 10 adults supported the idea of a “Right to Reskill”, showing its widespread appeal across all sections of society.

The Growth and Skills Levy should address the parts of the system which could be optimised and avoid unintended consequences. It should be guided by four principles:

• Employer-led: putting employers at the forefront of addressing workforce skill needs. Training funded by the Levy should take what is great about an apprenticeship and focus only on employees undertaking on-the-job learning and the skills required for a specific occupation. It should have a direct link to employment and demonstrate positive economic return.
• For everyone: enabling workers of all ages, wherever they are in the country, to learn new skills throughout their careers and ensuring policy is kept consistent across England, to avoid a ‘postcode lottery’ of access to skills.
• Easily accessible: minimising barriers which limit the uptake of training, including appropriate and proportionate regulation and flexible delivery.
• Excellence-driven: delivering only high-quality in-work training by maintaining strict standards for providers and criteria for training. Ensuring Levy funds are not used to pay for general workplace training, for example, health and safety.

Read more about these principles in the full report

The new Levy should sit alongside reforms to make apprenticeships more accessible

This new opportunity to increase Levy flexibility should not detract from the value of apprenticeships, which offer clear benefits to employers. When asked to rank the best ways to develop the skills needed for their company in the future, half of business leaders placed professional apprenticeships as their first choice.

Instead, the Growth and Skills Levy should sit alongside reform to the apprenticeship system, making it easier for employers to access apprenticeships - for example, making shorter programmes available, enabling delivery through small chunks of training over time and removing the requirement to pass and evidence Level 2 Maths and English to complete an apprenticeship. Public First polling commissioned by Multiverse found that 79% of people were more likely to take an apprenticeship that could be completed in less than 12 months, with 79% more likely to take a course which could be completed in stages.

There is an opportunity to design a Growth and Skills Levy with the potential to boost skills across our workforce and grow the UK’s economy. We'll continue working with our 1,500+ partners to ensure they can get the best use out of their levy funds - to generate real return on investment.

Need help with your Levy strategy?

Want to speak to us about the Levy or other ways to support upskilling in your workplace? Get in touch.

The board, composed of luminaries from academia and industry, will provide strategic guidance on Multiverse's use of AI to identify skills gaps, enable career mobility, and deliver high-quality, personalised learning at scale.

The rapid advancement of generative artificial intelligence has radically reshaped the world of work, necessitating an entirely new set of in-demand skills. However, the current education-to- employment system has struggled to keep pace, resulting in a transition that is both economically inefficient and socially inequitable.

"AI is creating profound change in the skills that both companies and societies need to be successful," said Euan Blair, founder and CEO of Multiverse.

"At Multiverse we believe this shift has AI as both the provocation and the solution - new educational tools built on gen AI are opening access to personalised training at scale, and done right we can use the benefits of AI to drive large scale reskilling programs and mitigate the job losses the technology otherwise might bring. Our AI Advisory Board massively expands the range of expertise we can rely on, and will be instrumental in ensuring we stay at the forefront of this transformation."

The board brings together recognized experts in AI, computer science, workforce development, and education. It includes:

• Professor Mehran Sahami, Professor and Chair of the Computer Science department at Stanford University
• Kersti Kaljulaid, former President of Estonia (2016 - 2021)
• Professor Michael Wooldridge, Head of AI and Machine Learning Research at the University of Oxford
• Derrick Hastie, Chief Technology Officer at Legal & General Investment Management
• Anne Devlin, former Global Head of Learning for JPMorgan Chase AWM
• Dame Wendy Hall, Regius Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton
• Doug Gurr, Chair of the Alan Turing Institute and former Country Manager of Amazon UK

“AI is profoundly transforming education, said Kersti Kaljulaid, former President of Estonia and global technology leader.

“Multiverse is leading the way down one of the promising paths. As we explore the application of AI to increasingly complex tasks, it's thrilling to have a front seat on this journey.“

The formation of the AI Advisory Board comes on the heels of the successful launch of Multiverse Atlas in February. Atlas is an AI-powered coach offering personalised, on-demand support to Multiverse apprentices. Early analysis shows Atlas has achieved adoption rates of over 40% and usefulness ratings exceeding 91% across all demographics.

"Our early results with Atlas demonstrate that when designed thoughtfully, AI can meaningfully expand access to world-class education in an equitable way," said Ujjwal Singh, Chief Technology Officer at Multiverse. "With the guidance of our AI Advisory Board, we will double down on our efforts to harness this powerful technology to drive economic opportunity for individuals and workforce transformation for organisations."

The Multiverse AI Advisory Board will meet quarterly, with additional ad hoc sessions as needed. Its initial priorities include developing governance principles for the ethical development and deployment of AI, identifying opportunities for product innovation and enhancement, the content of Multiverse’s AI offering, and showcasing Multiverse's industry leadership and thought partnership on AI's workforce implications.

“We are at a critical inflection point in the world of work” said Annie Devlin, former Global Head of Learning at JP Morgan AWM. “We became obsessed with ‘where’ our people were working but we should be much more curious about ‘how’ people work—which tools they use to augment what they can produce on their own. Imagine having the best manager you have ever had next to you, nudging you and guiding you when you are stuck or bored and need a boost? That’s the potential AI brings to the knowledge worker of tomorrow. And it requires a whole other level of skills training than most employers offer today.”

We launched this tool to be there for apprentices whenever they have questions, with no delays: real-time, personalized, expert support delivered on-demand.

Atlas is our biggest step towards AI-enhanced learning, and the great news is that learners are using Atlas even more than we anticipated, and overwhelmingly finding it a helpful tool to understand course material, overcome challenges, and brainstorm ideas more efficiently. We're also building evidence that these technologies can be particularly useful for meeting the needs of some historically underserved communities, supporting more equitable access to high-quality training and education.

Atlas enabling scale

In a matter of months, 3,600 learners - that’s more than a quarter of our active learners - have asked more than 40,000 questions to Multiverse Atlas. With our bold ambitions to reach 100,000 learners before the end of the decade, it’s hugely important that we have confidence we can deliver personalized learning, at scale, and Atlas is enabling this.

While ensuring adoption was crucial, we wanted to make sure Multiverse Atlas provides genuine value and facilitates better learning outcomes, rather than driving superficial usage.

One of the measures we use to track this is a ‘response helpfulness score’ where we ask all users to say whether they find the responses provided by Atlas useful. The data showed consistently high helpfulness scores, slightly above 91%.

About half of the learners that message Atlas once will become frequent users: they are coming back again and again after seeing the value this on-demand coaching can offer.

Driving real business impact

While hard data is always going to be our guiding star, it’s qualitative feedback that really brings the impact of tools like Atlas to life.

Some highlighted the speed and accessibility as a big advantage. For example, one apprentice said they used Atlas to catch up after a hospital appointment which meant they had missed some sessions. Another said it helped keep them focused, as they could quickly locate answers without navigating through lots of different documents or waiting for a coach to reply.

Others emphasized the benefits of a flexible learning style. One person said they already liked to teach themselves by researching online, so this approach suited them very well. Atlas also allows learners to specify and personalize the type of responses they prefer. A number of users said they found this helpful as it felt harder to do with human coaches.

Ryan, a production controller at an aerospace company and an apprentice on our Data Literacy program, uses Atlas every day to solve functions and macros as he’s working with data. He said: “Whenever I’m stuck on something I can just pop it into Atlas and it works - it seems to be really good at interpreting what I need.

“I used to spend hours on YouTube following it step-by-step and I’d keep rewinding it back to the right bit so I can follow along. It was a really slow process and didn’t always work even then.”

These examples clearly demonstrate how Atlas is fulfilling our vision of blended, guided support that is delivering real impact for our learners and their employers.

Supporting apprentices at every age and every stage of their career

More than 50% of our learners are over the age of 30 on upskilling and reskilling programmes, and we know the benefit apprenticeships can have for those of any age. Any tool that we build cannot simply be there for so-called ‘digital native’ generations, it needs to be accessible and useful to everyone.

Contrary to assumptions that AI is grasped more intuitively by younger digital natives, Atlas has seen the highest adoption among apprentices over 40 years old. More than four in ten (46%) of learners in this age group have used it so far, compared to 31% of users aged 24 and under.

We think this is happening for two reasons. Our main hypothesis is that our younger apprentices are regularly using other AI tools (such as ChatGPT) already, as lots of research has found higher adoption among Gen Z and Millenials. For many of our apprentices over 40, Atlas may therefore be helping to familiarize them with gen-AI tools.

During user research interviews several older apprentices also said they liked the anonymity it provides and allowed them to ask questions they might have been embarrassed to ask otherwise. This is a good example of where Atlas can help remove perceived stigma around knowledge gaps.

The equity imperative

Research and media coverage scrutinizing the risks of AI bias, continually shows how these systems can accidentally reproduce and amplify societal prejudices and inequalities from the real world, while accessibility is often an after-thought. From the outset, we were determined Atlas would be different.

Atlas was designed with a big focus on accessibility - including by following AA level Web Content Accessibility Guidelines - to make it easy to use for those with a variety of disabilities. This included features like keyboard navigation and screen reader compatibility. Strong guardrails were also built into Atlas to reduce biases and ensure professional and contextually appropriate responses.

Atlas has seen slightly higher adoption rates among those with additional learning needs. 46% of learners with critical additional learning needs have adopted Atlas so far, compared to 37% with no additional needs. This clearly demonstrates the value of investing in accessibility.

We're also seeing equitable usage across ethnicities, with similar adoption levels for Asian (37%), Multi-racial (36%), and White (41%) apprentices. However, Black apprentice usage is lower at 32%. We believe this can be attributed to the higher Atlas take-up among our older apprenticeship cohorts, which are less ethnically diverse than younger groups. However, we’ll be investigating further to make sure there’s nothing else that could be contributing to the difference.

Gender adoption has been pretty much equal too, with 38% of male apprentices and 40% of female apprentices using Atlas to date. This is significant as a study carried about by the University of Chicago found that “women are about 20 percentage points less likely to use ChatGPT than men in the same occupation”.

A continuously improving, context-aware companion

While we’re encouraged by these initial results, we're just beginning our exploration of Atlas's potential as an AI-powered learning companion.

Our long-term vision is for Atlas to become an advanced, deeply personalized, and context-aware AI coach. Working alongside human coaches it should be capable of supporting apprentices at every step of their journey towards competency, mastery, and career success. We've already making progress and identified where we’ll focus next:

• Continue to closely track user experience data and gather in-depth feedback from apprentices and coaches. Their perspectives matter most in shaping Atlas's future development.
• Make it easier for apprentices to personalize and fine-tune Atlas to their own preferred learning styles through tailored settings and configurations.
• Enhance Atlas with advanced capabilities to provide hyper-contextual support mapped to each learner’s precise journey and progress through their apprenticeship program.
• Integrate Atlas more closely within the workflows of our human coaches teams with auto-suggested tailored content and guidance to facilitate more seamless hybrid human-AI instruction.

We're excited to build a future where everyone can access the personalized learning support they need to enable support upskilling and career growth - regardless of age, ethnicity, gender, wealth, or learning style.

Through AI powered tools like Atlas, we’re also able to do this at even greater scale, helping lots more companies to deliver continuous learning and close their skills gaps as they prepare for the AI-enabled future.

And just as we ask our apprentices to commit to their learning journeys, we'll continue our unwavering commitment to place equity at the heart of our approach to AI in education. We do this because it’s the right thing to do, but also because it’s needed if we want to close the large skill gaps that exist right across society.

This program underscores the council's commitment to continuous learning and development, preparing its workforce for an increasingly digital future. The initiative is part of the council’s 2024-2026 Technology & Digital Strategy to lead the way in harnessing data and technology to drive its services.

The apprenticeships are delivered by tech company Multiverse and include training in Data and Insights for Business Decisions and Business Transformation.

Dionne Lowndes, Chief Digital & Technology Officer at Southwark Council, said: “As part of our Digital Journey, we are focussed on giving our workforce the skills they need to deliver the ambitions of our newly launched Technology and Digital strategy. Enabling our workforce is key to giving the council the opportunity to use emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence, automation and using Data as a key enabler.

Working with Multiverse has allowed us to make this an organisational wide opportunity. We have over 100 Digital Champions in our network who work across the organisation to support others with training and support on new systems. This has given the opportunity for them to become specialists and potentially move into a career within the technology Industry.”

Launched in March, the first cohort of more than 40 have already enrolled on professional apprenticeships, with 80 more set to start over the next 2 months, and continued launches throughout the rest of the year.

The training will be delivered by tech company Multiverse, which has created more than 15,000 apprenticeships in the UK and US. Multiverse apprentices receive access to on-demand coaching, personalised learning, and an active community where they can learn from peers and grow their network.

Alex Varel, CRO at Multiverse, said: “ A councils’ ability to deliver the best services for residents is contingent on having high quality skills in their teams. Southwark Council has recognised this - and through their investment in people they will be able to better serve the people of Southwark in a more data-driven way.”

The demand for highly skilled software engineers is skyrocketing. There are over 113,000 software engineering professionals in the UK, who need to keep their knowledge up-to-date with the latest emerging technologies, including Artificial Intelligence (AI), cloud computing, and cybersecurity.

Companies are crying out for these advanced skillsets, that can help them reap the benefits of new technologies – and there’s an opportunity for individuals who can learn them to access these jobs.

Our original software engineering apprenticeship has helped those at the start of their career to learn the foundational skills to start coding and access well-paid careers at companies like Vodafone and Sky.

Now, we’re bridging the gap between entry-level coding and advanced skills – and creating a route to the best jobs with our latest degree-level programme.

Advanced Software Engineering at Multiverse

Delivered over 2 years, the Advanced Software Engineering programme heightens the knowledge of software engineering and broadens skill sets. Apprentices learn how to drive complex advanced projects in the field of software engineering including cyber security, machine learning and working with the cloud.

The programme includes live coaching, asynchronous learning, and on-the-job learning. Upon completion, apprentices will gain a Multiverse Degree: a Bachelor of Science Degree (Honors) in Digital and Technology Solutions (Software Engineer).

The first cohort will launch later this year.

Unlocking high-quality careers and business transformation

For individuals, this programme is the key to unlock the best-paid, most prestigious software engineering jobs at companies across industries and across the country. UK workers with advanced digital skills (such as cloud architecture, software development and machine learning) earn 30% more than those with no digital skills.

For companies, upskilling software engineering teams will be key to harnessing the technical innovations that will drive forward their ambitions. Companies and business leaders know that they need to keep investing in technology and improving their products, services, and internal operations in order to remain competitive. But in many cases, too few of the existing employees have the necessary skills required to take advantage of the opportunities presented by AI and other emerging technologies.

But hiring is expensive, and slow. Recruiting a software engineer takes 42 days, and upskilling existing employees is estimated to save businesses as much as £36,000 per employee compared to hiring from outside. Our new programme takes existing talent within an organisation and upskills them to fill in-demand mid-senior level roles.

Our Advanced Software Engineering programme will unlock potential. It will enable individuals to reach high-quality, high-paid jobs in software engineering, while enabling companies to reach their digital transformation objectives by upskilling their teams. And it creates another debt-free route to world-class education and careers.

Transform teams with Multiverse

Want to learn more about how to future-proof your workforce? Explore our upskilling solutions for software engineering teams or get in touch.

Searchlight is a talent intelligence platform that uses AI to help companies close their skills gaps.

It was founded in 2018 by Anna and Kerry Wang. As twin sisters who not only look similar in person but also on paper with experiences at Stanford, Google, and McKinsey, they were motivated to create a world where people are understood for their unique skills and matched to the right companies. The Stanford graduates started their journey with Y Combinator, and have since been recognized by Forbes 30 under 30 and raised funding from venture capital funds Founders Fund and Accel.

AI technology

What first drew us to Searchlight was the proprietary AI technology they’d developed to assess both the skills that individuals have, and the skills that companies need.

We know, from working with more than 1,000 organizations globally, that leaders want to maximise the benefits that technology can bring to their teams. We’ve been working to help them bridge the gap between the digital transformation they want to see, and the essential skills required to unlock it.

The technology that Searchlight brings will enable us to turbo-charge our ability to bring digital transformation to even more companies, of all sizes: giving people the right skills to be successful in their careers, and deliver value to their organizations.

They’ll also bring an exceptionally talented team, who we can’t wait to start working with!

A shared mission

Co-Founder and CEO of Searchlight, Kerry Wang, said: “We founded Searchlight to help companies build winning teams equitably and help individuals land meaningful work. From the moment I met the Multiverse team, it was clear that we share complementary goals and have been solving similar problems. By joining forces we can apply Searchlight’s tech and expertise at scale with some of the world’s largest companies, effectively becoming the workforce development platform of the future.”

Co-Founder and CTO of Searchlight, Anna Wang, said: “Over the past six years, Searchlight has built custom data pipelines and proprietary, ethical AI models that understand talent holistically and predict the skills necessary for business success. Merging Searchlight’s existing AI and skills expertise with Multiverse’s rich data offers an unparalleled opportunity: together we will become the leader in leveraging AI for skills development.”

Founder and CEO of Multiverse, Euan Blair, said: “After meeting Anna and Kerry and digging into the Searchlight product, I was really excited at how they were using AI to spot patterns and identify skilling solutions both within and outside of the workforce. Most companies are on a journey of tech transformation and they want to do it in a way that is both equitable and effective. What often holds them back is the gap between the transformation they want to see, and the skills that will unlock it.

“Searchlight’s AI, platform, and exceptional talent will allow us to better diagnose the skills needed within companies and deliver impactful solutions. Combining our scale and world-class learning with Searchlight’s technology and team will ensure even more companies and individuals benefit.”

We’re already a way into the Multiverse story, and today we turn the page to an exciting new chapter. But, before you make an assumption based on the blog title, this isn’t the chapter that’s all pictures and no words.

Today we’re unveiling an update to our brand. We’re not changing our name, we’re still Multiverse - just with a refreshed visual identity and a renewed vigour to provide equitable access to economic opportunity, for everyone.

We could spend hours walking you through what’s changed, but if a picture paints a thousand words then we’re confident this video will do the talking.

Design lovers, this section is for you.

Our in-house creative team started this project to create a distinct and robust, yet easy-to-use design system that could flex across the entire Multiverse ecosystem. By collaborating with our learning and product teams (and supported by some talented design friends) the output will help us better communicate with our apprentices, our business partners and all our stakeholders.

Our new design system has been built around some of our signature brand elements and you’ll see this is simply an evolution, not a revolution.

Whilst our logo remains the same, we’ve dialled up the use of our signature (Ultraviolet) introduced a more accessible colour palette, streamlined our typography and doubled down on what makes us unique.

We’ve also introduced a playful illustration style to reflect the diversity and creativity of the team that makes Multiverse so unique. We live and breathe our values and don’t see the need to take ourselves too seriously.

What you see today is a look through the keyhole of how our brand and digital ecosystem will evolve over the coming years. We want you to come on this journey with us as we build a learning platform that’s led by people, powered by data and supercharged by tech.

Today, we’re setting a new course for our brand, for Multiverse and for work in general. If you’re inspired by what you’ve just read and what we’re building, take a look at some of our open roles.

AI can unlock business success, jobs, and economic growth that will benefit all of us.

But right now, it’s easy to feel like we spend more time talking about AI than we do using it. Half of UK businesses have still not started to implement any meaningful AI activity.

It’s right to be optimistic about the future that AI can bring, but those words need to be backed up by action. Businesses, teams and individuals need to start rethinking business as usual, bringing in AI tools to supplement their work, automating the tasks that are holding things back.

That requires skills.

Introducing AI for Business Value

Our new AI apprenticeship programme empowers employees to implement action in their organisations. Apprentices will become proficient in AI and learn how to find the areas where it can unlock growth, efficiency and revenue. They’ll work on projects to bring AI into different functions of their business,

The 13-month apprenticeship is called AI for Business Value and combines the business skills needed to be an effective operator with the AI skills needed to drive efficiency and productivity gains.

Apprentices will also learn skills like evaluating AI tools, how to measure the impact of implementing AI and bridge the gap between the business and technical sides of the organisation. Through our AI Jumpstart module, they’ll become power-users of generative AI tools by learning skills like AI ethics and prompt engineering.

Individuals will learn through Multiverse's tried and tested, Ofsted-outstanding delivery model. They'll receive personalised, one-to-one support and join a community of others sharing the same learning experience.

The business leaders at the forefront of AI know there’s urgency here: keeping pace means implementing training. In fact, the biggest AI advocates are 53% more likely to invest in AI training and feel better positioned to meet skills needs by 2030.

Help your teams generate value from AI

By training employees to actively identify new opportunities, while staying aware of potential risks, you can generate real business value and keep your organisation ahead of the curve.

Find out more about building AI teams in our latest ebook, or read more about our AI for Business Value programme on our website.

Now, we’re opening up a sample of the Multiverse learning experience to everyone: so you can improve your skills on one of our modules.

You can develop an in-demand skill in about an hour on the Multiverse learning platform.

Not only will you gain a new skill that will help you be more effective at work, but you’ll also get a taste of a Multiverse apprenticeship - and find out if it might be right for you.

We’re launching with a set of skills that apprentices tell us have unlocked new opportunities and efficiencies for them at work:

• Prompt Engineering: unlock your use of Generative AI tools and LLMs with prompt engineering, a set of powerful strategies that will help you get the most accurate and useful responses from Generative AI tools. Not to mention, Prompt Engineer vacancies are currently commanding salaries above $300,000
• AI Ethics: with many businesses concerned about the use of AI, employees who can navigate some of the legal and ethical dilemmas are in high demand. Through this module, you’ll learn about some of the considerations that should be made when using AI tools: like copyright, data protection and fair use
• VLOOKUPs: if you want to expand your spreadsheet skills, using VLOOKUPs is a fundamental skill that enables you to connect data points, enabling easier data retrieval and analysis

We’ll add more taster modules in the future based on your feedback.

We know from our thousands of learners that better skills unlock better opportunities at work.

We believe that the best learning happens through immediate application and practice. Our unique applied learning approach brings together real projects, an ecosystem of support and interactive learning that guides our apprentices to apply their skills both as they learn and as they work. You’ll get a taste of that while learning a quick skill on our platform: with quizzes, videos, challenges and personalized learning pathways.

While these modules are self-guided, Multiverse apprentices enrolled via their companies receive personalized, one-to-one support in order to guide both their learning and working experiences while on program.

Opening up these taster modules to everyone is just one of the ways that we’re opening up world-class training to everyone. For our apprentices, we’re using AI to facilitate on-demand coaching, launching new programmes in Artificial Intelligence for business, and more as part of a multi-million dollar investment in our tech.

Sign up now on our platform

Artificial Intelligence is creating new ways to add value to our learners and customers, and better routes through which to do it.

First, we’re equipping people with the skills they need to thrive in an AI age. We’ve already trained thousands of individuals in advanced AI skills via our data programmes, and last summer we rolled out AI training to every one of our apprentices.

And secondly, we see AI as a solution to some of the biggest challenges that education has faced to date. World-class training has been held back by scarcity: but the strength of AI is its ability to turn scarcity into abundance.

It’s why we’re investing heavily in our technology, to develop the tools that will unlock outstanding training to hundreds of thousands of learners.

This month, we’re launching one such tool: on-demand coaching, powered by AI.

The story so far

Expert, human coaches have always supported our apprentices, and will continue to do so. But we wanted to create something that could build on that support. To be there for apprentices whenever they have questions, with no delays. We know that, for example, our apprentices have a lot of questions as they approach crunch moments, projects and assessments - and those questions don’t always come during working hours.

So, during one of our regular hackathons, our tech team built a first iteration of an always-on, AI-powered assistant coach. It was immediately clear that this could benefit apprentices as a first port of call: to help them understand course material, overcome challenges, or brainstorm ideas.

Cem Gurkan, Product Manager, said: “As the world of work becomes more flexible and we push for more inclusive workplaces: not every assignment is done from 9-5 any more. The rapid acceleration in AI technology can make it possible for us to be there for apprentices whenever they need us.”

Enter: Multiverse Atlas.

Introducing Multiverse Atlas

Multiverse Atlas is built on a commercially available Large Language Model (LLM), and has been carefully prompted to support our apprentices.

It’s designed to encourage a socratic method of coaching, aiding apprentices to delve into topics themselves and find solutions, rather than simply giving answers like an off-the-shelf chatbot might. Atlas can give career advice, answer questions on topics related to our programmes, and quiz apprentices on topics - helping them to study.

Clare Dodd, VP Global Delivery, said: “Our coaches are industry experts that go through a rigorous coaching academy that covers our coaching philosophy: how we teach apprentices to ensure they are empowered to do their best work, retaining and applying their skills and knowledge. Atlas enables coaches to do what they do best, whilst also providing assistance in the moment an apprentice needs it most.

“For Atlas to do that successfully, the learning team worked closely with the tech team to test and iterate Atlas’ style of responding to apprentices - guiding them to find answers, and referring them to their human coach when they need additional support.”

The prompt that powers Atlas went through more than 100 iterations over a three month building process, and it continues to evolve with the close input from our coaches.

Atlas tailors its responses to the apprentice it is speaking to: it knows who they are, the industry they work in, the sort of job they do and the apprenticeship programme they are studying. At the core of what we do is the belief that people learn better when content is personalised to them, and AI enables that at scale.

In our beta tests, more than 10,000 questions have been asked and apprentices found 90% of Atlas’ responses to be helpful. For when Atlas doesn’t have the answer, apprentices can speak directly to their coach from the same on-demand chat application. Coaches can also see Atlas’ responses and can clarify or correct. On-demand coaching ultimately enables apprentices to connect directly with support, no matter where they are.

Atlas in action

The future of AI at Multiverse

This is just the beginning. Multiverse Atlas, and our on-demand coaching, will keep evolving.

As you read this, Atlas is being trained on all of our courses: so it will soon know our programmes like Software Engineering or the Data Fellowship back to front, to guide apprentices through their work. We’re continuing to personalise Atlas to each learner, so it can provide advanced contextual support based on where they are in their programme. We want to build the ultimate assistant coach that journeys with apprentices and provides them helpful, tailored assistance as they learn.

Peppa Wise, VP GTM, said: “When we’ve asked business leaders, they’ve told us that they don’t have the skills they need to reap the productivity gains AI could bring. Through our module - AI Jumpstart - we're offering training to all of our apprentices in these technologies, to start to close that skills gap. And AI tools themselves will enable us to make that training even better, and reach even more people: so more businesses can see the benefits that AI will bring.”

And Atlas is just one part of how we’re thinking about AI. Looking to the future, we’ll launch more ways to ensure our apprentices are power-users of AI tools, and experts in machine learning: while building the tools that will enable world-class, personalised, applied learning at scale.