News

Leading built environment consultant, Rider Levett Bucknall (RLB) UK & Europe has launched a Data & AI Transformation Academy, designed to digitally upskill its team and leverage innovative data solutions, providing an enhanced service offering to clients.

Established to reinforce RLB’s positioning as a leader in data-driven construction consultancy by harnessing the power of data analytics and research, this academy plans to offer a continuous learning programme to RLB employees across the UK and Europe. RLB will look to launch additional cohorts every six months to maximise impact for clients in the face of rapidly changing technology.

RLB has partnered with tech leader, Multiverse, which provides personalised, on-the-job learning. RLB’s academy features programmes like the 13-month ‘AI for Business Value’ programme, and the Data Fellowship, a level 4 apprenticeship programme. Learners will gain hands-on training in AI implementation and business intelligence tools, fostering a future-ready, data fluent culture, with apprentices taking part from teams including cost management, sustainability, built asset consultancy and project management.

Matt Sharp, Chief Digital Officer at RLB said: “This academy lays the foundation for transforming the skills of our team and the service offering to our clients. As our business, projects, clients, and industry undergo significant digital and data transformation, it is crucial that we equip our people with the necessary digital and data skills. With more data at our disposal, RLB needs individuals who can unlock its potential and tell compelling stories through data.”

Susan Nelson, Digital Change and Adoption Manager at RLB said: “By launching this programme, we’re building a data-fluent culture. This will drive digital innovation and agility, preparing our team to shape the future of construction and property management consultancy.”

Gary Eimerman, Chief Learning Officer at Multiverse said: “RLB is cementing its position as a sector pioneer by equipping employees with vital business efficiency tools. Our research shows that the construction industry struggles with a data skills gap. Closing this will have a profound impact, accelerating project timelines and reducing errors; even helping to better measure and improve the sustainability of building projects.”

Tech company Multiverse, which has recently introduced powerful AI capabilities across its offerings, will launch the AI-Powered Productivity apprenticeship, the UK’s first accredited apprenticeship to fully embed Microsoft 365 Copilot. This program is eligible for public funding via the apprenticeship levy. The skilling of the wider workforce in AI tools is a crucial step to ensuring the productivity benefits are widely felt across the economy.

Research by Multiverse has found that more than half of workers (51%) have received fewer than 5 hours’ training on AI. 63% of tech leaders say the biggest blocker to further AI investment is their teams’ inability to fully use existing AI technology.

The apprenticeship will see learners develop the skills to boost their output at work by using Microsoft 365 Copilot, while understanding the ethical and data protection implications of using AI. It will be delivered using Multiverse’s measured, applied, guided, and equitable approach, which incorporates personalised, on-the-job learning to maximise business impact. The programme is suitable for a wide range of roles and levels of experience.

Launched in 2023, Microsoft 365 Copilot embeds generative AI into Microsoft’s suite of productivity apps – Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, OneNote, OneDrive – to unleash creativity, unlock productivity, and uplevel skills.

Microsoft expanded its skilling program Get On – established in 2020 to empower 1.5 million individuals with tech skills by 2025 – with the added aim of equipping 1 million more people with the AI skills ranging from AI fluency to technical and business transformation.

Microsoft UK CEO, Darren Hardman, said: “To fully capitalise on AI's economic potential and drive growth, we must equip people with the necessary knowledge and tools. By investing in AI skilling, we not only enhance our own capabilities but also drive innovation and productivity across the entire economy.

“The AI-powered Productivity apprenticeship from Multiverse is a great example of a programme that places AI and Microsoft 365 Copilot at the heart of building the skills for the future. We are excited to see the impact of this programme on the future workforce.”

The UK’s first edtech unicorn, Multiverse, is a tech company that identifies, closes and prevents skills gaps, through personalised, on-the-job learning, and is one of the world’s largest apprenticeship providers.

AI-Powered Productivity joins a suite of AI apprenticeships launched by Multiverse, including AI for Business Value and Transformative Leadership, targeted at individuals across every age and every stage of a business.

Multiverse has trained people at 1,500 organisations including the NHS, KPMG, and Capita.

Multiverse CEO, Euan Blair, said: “We know that Gen AI will unlock a surge of productivity in UK businesses, but it requires a combination of the right tools and the right skills to be successful.

“That’s why businesses that want to win in the AI age must make a deliberate effort to upskill and reskill workers with what they need to harness this opportunity. We’re taking market-leading tools like Microsoft Copilot and empowering workers to drive real outcomes using them.

“Not only will it enable businesses to get the best out of AI, but it’ll also set individuals up with the skills to drive their careers for years to come.”

Businesses and organisations can enrol their employees onto the programme, where they will cover modules on AI technologies, prompt engineering, data privacy, and tool utilisation. Participants will learn to measure the impact of AI on their roles, advocate for its use in the workplace, and follow ethical practices.

Employers will be able to fund the programme fully from their Apprenticeship Levy, an additional payroll tax, which is ringfenced for apprenticeship training. The Levy is currently set at 0.5% of an employer’s annual pay bill and applicable to employers with an annual pay bill of over £3 million.

Baroness Lane Fox is a serial entrepreneur and tech leader with three decades of experience - guiding multiple companies to public markets. She now serves as President of the British Chambers of Commerce, Chancellor at The Open University, and co-chair of a new government panel tasked with driving improved adoption of technology in the public sector. In addition, she currently serves on the board at Chanel and previously served on Twitter’s board (now X) for almost 7 years until 2022.

The company has also appointed Jillian Gillespie as Chief Financial Officer. Jillian joins from MongoDB, the developer data platform with a market capitalization of $20 billion, where she was Senior Vice President of Finance and Operations. She led the company through major milestones and international expansion over ten years, from its Series F funding round in 2013 through to IPO in 2017, followed by success as a public company.

Multiverse is a tech company that identifies, closes and prevents skills gaps, through on-the-job learning, apprenticeships programmes, and a personalised AI platform. The appointments come off the back of two consecutive record breaking quarters for the company. In October, the company launched an ‘AI-Powered Productivity’ apprenticeship, the first apprenticeship in the country to fully embed training on Microsoft 365 Copilot. AI training programs now make up 22% of Multiverse’s revenue.

Multiverse's research shows 64% of businesses lack confidence in deploying AI and associated technologies – a skills gap that has become more acute with rapid technological advancement. They also support Multiverse's continued expansion in the United States, where 87% of business leaders believe they have skill gaps. The company already partners with more than 1,500 companies across the US and UK.

Euan Blair, founder and CEO of Multiverse: "Multiverse has the capacity to be a generational British tech success story - ensuring people globally can embrace tech with confidence by embedding learning in tech, data, and AI into their daily work. In Martha and Jillian, we're adding two exceptional leaders who understand both the scale of the global skills crisis and how to build and scale transformative solutions. As we expand our footprint with new products and partnerships, their experience in scaling high-growth tech companies will help us seize this moment and reshape how organisations develop talent in the AI era."

Baroness Martha Lane Fox: “The promised gains from technology will never be delivered unless people have the skills to take advantage of them. This is becoming urgent in the boardrooms of every organisation, and Multiverse is perfectly positioned with its model of continuous, applied learning. Across the UK we won’t unlock growth without giving employers access to the skills they need to thrive. The debate about skills reform sorely needs the voice of employers, and I’ll be working to deliver it, alongside companies themselves and learners’’.

Jillian Gillespie, Chief Financial Officer of Multiverse: "I am thrilled to join Multiverse at such a pivotal moment in its journey. What really attracted me is the opportunity to collaborate with such a talented, genuine, and ambitious team in a fast-growing, dynamic, and rewarding business. I firmly believe that applied, on-the-job learning represents the future of workforce development and I look forward to applying my experience to an exciting new challenge.”

Today, the first cohort of learners graduate from tech company Multiverse’s degree apprenticeships. This marks the first time an independent apprenticeship provider has awarded its own undergraduate degrees.

Forming part of Multiverse’s commitment to promoting equitable access to economic opportunity, the graduating cohort from the Advanced Data Fellowship Level 6 programme will be the first of 850 learners on Multiverse’s degree apprenticeship programmes to receive a Multiverse-awarded degree. The National Student Survey from this programme scored higher than all other providers offering the same standard, with an overall satisfaction rating of 89.5%.

With businesses citing data skills gaps as a key barrier to AI success, and half of employees unable to use data to make analysis more efficient or automate processes, degree apprenticeships offer a way for employers to upskill their workforce while solving real business challenges in the face of rapid technological change.

During the programme over half secured promotions, while the whole cohort have benefited from earning a salary and developing valuable real-world experience while they learned. By comparison, 1.8 million people in the UK are currently saddled with more than £50,000 in student debt. Half of Multiverse’s degree apprentices have not previously pursued higher education, and 30% meet one or more markers of socio-economic disadvantage. This demonstrates how apprenticeships can provide a lever for social mobility alongside their outcomes for business value.

Not only have these apprentices boosted their career prospects, they have also driven value for their employers: apprenticeships generate around £28 for every £1 invested. Tangible projects that this cohort of apprentices have completed include building an invoice reading app using the ChatGPT API and developing a dashboard for the new revenue system that reduced the percentage of hotels with a failed stage gate by 16%.

Liam Cottrell, an apprentice at Mars UK, said: “I was Mars’ first digital apprentice and I’ve been amazed at how much I’ve learnt throughout the process. Never thought I’d be able to build my own data pipeline to help with a work project, which I did as part of the data engineering module.”

Euan Blair, founder and CEO of Multiverse, said: “I couldn’t be prouder of the apprentices graduating today. CEOs tell me time and time again that they learnt their most important skills on the job, so giving learners the opportunity to apply practical skills to real-world projects is key. We set out to deliver degree-level apprenticeships at Multiverse not because of any attachment to the concept of a degree, but because we believed these programmes could deliver real world value that accelerates careers, and delivers value to employers. These apprentices have proved that.”

Multiverse has partnered with more than 1,500 companies across the US and UK including Meta, Citigroup, KPMG, Capita, and Just Eat, with 16,000 apprentices now in its community. Multiverse apprentices have tracked more than £2 billion in return on investment.

Essex County Council (ECC) has launched training for 40 of its staff through a new Data Academy, as part of its ambitious plans to become a data-led organisation.

The goal is to strengthen the organisation’s data capabilities, while boosting productivity and data literacy across teams.

Teaching is being delivered by Multiverse, a tech company delivering high-quality training through applied learning. Multiverse has trained more than 16,000 apprentices in data and digital skills since 2016. According to Multiverse’s Skills Intelligence Report, local government and councils are notably impacted by a lack of data skills, with 26% of employees’ time working with data spent unproductively.

Programmes include ‘Data Insights for Business Decisions’, which equips commissioners working within ECC with the technical skills and knowledge to navigate the data landscape confidently.

The 13-month ‘Data Fellowship’, a Level 4 apprenticeship, will upskill data professionals, while the degree-level ‘Advanced Data Fellowship’ will give graduates the tools to build data analytics capabilities within the organisation and use data to support decision-making.

Staff enrolled in the Academy also have the opportunity to complete a 13-month ‘Business Transformation Fellowship’, which covers key competencies that are most relevant to doing business in the digital age, including defining business objectives, exploring opportunities for digital innovation and adopting agile ways of working.

The Data Academy is funded by the Apprenticeship Levy, a UK tax on employers that is used to fund apprenticeship training.

Nicola Mallett, Head of Profession Analytics and Data Science at Essex County Council said: “Essex County Council provides a diverse learning programme designed to help our colleagues confidently engage with data, fostering evidence-based decision-making at every level. By participating in the Data Academy through the Apprenticeship Levy, we are further investing in our workforce, ensuring they understand the purpose and potential of data. This initiative encourages responsible data use, strengthens robust data processes, and promotes collaboration with our partners. Ultimately, it enables us to leverage data insights to enhance social good and improve outcomes for communities across Essex.”

Gary Eimerman, Chief Learning Officer at Multiverse said: “Essex County Council will be on the front foot in data-led decision making and process modernisation thanks to the skills they will gain on these apprenticeships. All the while, by developing the skills of its people the Council will enhance their careers and access to the best opportunities.”

Multiverse works with more than 1,500 organisations to close critical skill gaps in the workforce in AI, data and tech, combining work and learning to unlock economic opportunity for everyone.

Thurrock Council has launched training for 30 of its staff through a new Data Academy, as part of its plans to modernise processes and provide better services for residents, while helping deliver savings.

The academy will include staff from key departments of the council, such as Corporate Services, Place, Adults, Public Health, and HR. This initiative aims to foster a culture of data confidence, while supporting critical organisational activities and advancing the broader programme to modernise technologies and transform the delivery of council services.

Skills attained by the cohort will also mean the accuracy of decision making at all levels will be better-informed than ever before, reducing room for error and supporting the ambitious cost-saving drive. Increased accuracy will also mean the upskilled staff can track and surpass goals set during the Council’s era of technological transformation.

Training is being delivered by Multiverse, a tech company delivering high-quality training through applied learning, funded by the apprenticeship levy. Multiverse has trained more than 16,000 apprentices in data and digital skills since 2016.

The Data Academy programmes include ‘Data Insights for Business Decisions’ which will equip the cohort with the technical skills and knowledge to confidently navigate the data landscape and make organisational decisions informed by data.

The 13-month ‘Data Fellowship’, a level-4 apprenticeship, will upskill data-literate colleagues into high-performing analysts and data science professionals, while those completing a 13-month ‘Business Transformation Fellowship’ will learn the skills most relevant to organisational operation in the digital age, including defining objectives, exploring opportunities for digital innovation and adopting agile ways of working.

Dan Fenwick, Executive Director Corporate Services at Thurrock Council said: “By giving specialist learning opportunities for 30 of our colleagues, we’re taking a step forward to maximise the use and value of data improving our ability to make evidence based decisions benefiting Thurrock’s residents.”

Multiverse is a new tech-first institution that combines work and learning to unlock economic opportunity for everyone. It works with more than 1,500 organisations including 50+ UK councils to close critical skill gaps in the workforce in AI, data and tech, through a new kind of apprenticeship.

Gary Eimerman, Chief Learning Officer at Multiverse said: “The data Councils have access to can be crucial to the delivery of essential services that directly impact people's lives. Putting it to use can be transformative. With the launch of this new Data Academy, Thurrock Council is taking a proactive approach to strengthening its future as an organisation, by encouraging a progressive, data-led culture through the training of its dedicated team.”

The programme will include the themes of AI in action, data democratisation and engaging with the customer, and is designed to equip participants from various business functions with advanced, industry-relevant data capabilities. The Data Academy will support Hearst UK’s ongoing journey to understand and super-serve its valued audiences and clients.

The programme will include:

• The Data Fellowship: A 14-month course delivering best-in-class training in data analysis. Apprentices will master data analysis techniques as well as data science, Python and an introduction to machine learning
• AI for Business Value: A 13-month programme, which provides participants with the skills to identify business value gains that can be achieved through using AI, and execute ethical AI projects through best practices in stakeholder engagement and change management

Katie Vanneck-Smith, CEO of Hearst UK, said: “Talent development is core to our business, and this partnership with Multiverse demonstrates our ongoing investment in our people as we continue to build an even stronger data culture here at Hearst UK.”

Multiverse combines work and learning to unlock economic opportunity for everyone. It works with more than 1,500 organisations to close critical skill gaps in the workforce in AI, data and tech, through a new kind of apprenticeship.

Gary Eimerman, Chief Learning Officer of Multiverse, said: "The effective use of AI and big data have the potential to radically transform organisations. Through this learning initiative, Hearst UK is not only investing in operational efficiency but also enriching the career trajectories of its team members.”

Hearst UK, whose iconic brands include Good Housekeeping, ELLE, Harper’s Bazaar, Country Living, Men’s Health, Women’s Health and Esquire, will run the initiative twice a year.

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.