The Real Role of Instructional Designers After AI

The Real Role of Instructional Designers After AI

May 20, 2026 · 30 min · Episode 288

About this episode

The episode discusses the evolving role of instructional designers in the age of AI and content generation.

When content generation becomes fast and frictionless, do learning specialists need to be involved at all? In this episode, Matt sits down with Tim Slade, Speaker, Author and Founder of The eLearning Designer's Academy who discusses the human vs. the automated in instructional design today. Tim acknowledges that as content generation has become easier and faster, audiences are developing digital media fatigue and how as creators we can aim to overcome this. Tim emphasizes that 'the human’ exists in ensuring that what we are ‘churning out’ is the right thing to solve the problem - should we make this? Why? What changes if we do? He argues that one part of the work still can't be automated, sound judgment. The conversation also gets into how most people tend to use AI for practical reasons, and how the online discourse leads audiences to believe they are somehow ‘behind the curve’ in their AI skills. Tim dubs AI a ‘replication tool’ and discusses the issues that arise from getting carried away with the capabilities available to us. The Instructional Design Handbook by Tim Slade is available for pre-order through May 29th. Pre-orders include a hardcover signed edition with a dust…

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