Nick Davies at Thinqi has written a thoughtful piece on why L&D feels broken heading into 2026. His central argument: HR and L&D operate as separate functions when they should be one unified capability aligned to organisational outcomes.

He’s right that this fragmentation isn’t new. What’s changed is that AI has made the conversation urgent rather than aspirational.

But I’d push further on the diagnosis. The “golden thread connecting Learning, Talent, and Performance” sounds compelling. But what happens when you actually connect those three domains and discover that most learning activity has minimal measurable impact? That’s not a technology problem. That’s a “we’ve been measuring completion rather than capability” problem.

Integrated systems might give you better visibility across the people function. But visibility into dysfunction doesn’t fix the dysfunction. If L&D has been operating transactionally (responding to requests without diagnostic thinking, delivering courses without evaluating impact, reporting activity metrics) then connecting that data just gives you a more comprehensive view of wasted effort.

The real issue isn’t fragmentation. It’s that L&D has built its operational model around inputs and outputs rather than outcomes and impact. You can have perfectly integrated systems and still be strategically irrelevant if you’re integrating the wrong things.

What would genuine integration require?

Diagnostic thinking before solutions. Stop jumping to “we need a course on X” and start with “what capability gap is actually constraining performance?”

Honest evaluation over vanity metrics. Measure whether learning changed capability and whether that capability shift affected performance. Not completion rates.

Strategic partnering, not order-taking. Integration only creates value if L&D challenges assumptions, provides evidence-based recommendations, and says “no” when training isn’t the answer.

AI doesn’t just spotlight these gaps, it potentially automates away the transactional work whilst leaving the strategic capability building largely untouched. Technology platforms that integrate learning, talent, and performance data are useful infrastructure. But they’re not strategy. The hard work is building the diagnostic capability, measurement discipline, and business partnership skills that many L&D functions currently lack.

It’s definitely worth reading the full Thinqi article. Nick makes a strong case for why integration matters. I’m simply adding that the integration challenge goes deeper than systems and structure.

What do you think? Are we solving for the right problem?