Every year Don Taylor’s L&D Global Sentiment Survey polls L&D professionals to gauge which trends and topics they believe will be “hot” in the coming year. It has since become a widely recognised benchmark for global L&D sentiment.

This year, over 3,000 people from 90+ countries took part in the survey. They come from various L&D-related roles, such as in-house L&D teams, consultants/freelancers, technology vendors, and the education sector. Because respondents typically reply via social media or email, they tend to be comfortable with technology and enthusiastic about innovation in learning.

These are great people to understand; they recognise what’s happening in learning and technology, can predict what’s going on and what they think might work. There is, as expected this year, a clear winner in AI but I’m much more interested in what’s happening around the table.

It’s clear to me there is a renewed focus on proving business impact. There has been a rebound this year of the value trio of three interrelated areas:

• Consulting more deeply with the business
• Showing value
• Performance support

I’ve been banging on about Proving Impact for ages and maybe…just maybe…we’re beginning to ‘get’ why.

🪙The rise in votes for “Showing value” and “Consulting more deeply with the business” is a powerful indicator that we must frame our work in terms and language which resonate at the organisational level.

📈Another mainstay in the survey’s top five is “Learning analytics”, reflecting how data-driven decision-making is now foundational in our approach. Where analytics show results, leaders are more willing to invest in upskilling, reskilling, or other L&D initiatives.

🎩The GSS highlights “Performance support” as increasingly important; well-timed, in-the-flow-of-work solutions that address specific, measurable performance gaps need to be measured more effectively and the happy sheet can’t live in this environment.

🤖AI continues to dominate the survey, but alongside that excitement comes the pressure to demonstrate that AI-driven or AI-supported learning solutions translate into real gains. Solid measurement and evaluation will be essential to move these discussions beyond the novelty of AI toward genuine, provable value.

Proper measurement and evaluation isn’t just nice to have any more. These are now a core expectation of modern business aligned and integrated L&D.