OnDemand: Data & AI Literacy at scale

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Why we built our OnDemand platform and why it works

By Greg Freeman, CEO, Data Literacy Academy

Let’s start with a confession: I never thought we’d do this.

Self-paced, on-demand e-learning wasn’t something I believed in. Not really. I’ve sat through enough lifeless compliance modules and forgettable click-through training to know the feeling: numb boredom. I’ve clicked my way through mandatory GDPR courses. I even did some e-learning recently for my American football coaching badge, and let’s just say, it didn’t change my mind.

So, when we started thinking about building an on-demand data literacy platform, I had one condition: it had to be better.

Not just better than the e-learning I’d experienced, but better than what large enterprise businesses were already offering. Better than what’s available in your average LMS. And better than the flood of generic, skills-based content you find on platforms like LinkedIn Learning.

And this might sound a bit self-congratulatory, but to our team’s credit: we made it better.

A platform built for business people, not data people

Our platform wasn't built for your data scientists. They’re not our primary audience, although we do offer a pathway that helps them understand the business side better.

We focus on educating business professionals, people who don’t think of themselves as “data people,” but who still make decisions every day that rely on data and AI. They make up around 80-90% of our company. Our goal is to help them become better contributors to their organisations’ data ecosystems, without overwhelming them with technical jargon or irrelevant skills.

And that shaped everything we built.

Why self-paced learning fails and what we’re doing differently

I can imagine that you've seen this before too and most likely agree: most self-paced learning doesn’t land.

It’s often passive, poorly designed, and treated like a tick-box exercise. And if people don’t see how it connects to their actual job, it becomes another forgettable item on their to-do list.

We built this platform to change that.

Structured learning paths: Not a chaotic list of “101 Python courses” but targeted, meaningful journeys.
Personalised pathways: Learners complete an objective baseline assessment, because most people don’t actually know how good (or not) they are at data. Spoiler: 71% of people get it wrong when they self-assess.
Business-aligned outcomes: We link learning to real business challenges, like improving data quality or increasing tech adoption, so it doesn’t feel abstract or detached from people’s day-to-day work.

It’s measurable

You get real, continuous insight, not just logins or completions.

We track learner progress, behavioural changes, new decisions being made, and actions being taken. You can show leadership not just what people are learning, but how it’s changing the way they work.

And it gets better.

Every completed learning path generates an average of 20 use cases, pain points, or insights straight from the front lines. In just a few months, across four clients, we’ve already aggregated 20,000 data-driven reflections. That’s gold dust for any data office trying to close the gap between strategy and reality.

It includes Coach, a learner AI companion

One of the most exciting features? Coach, our AI-powered data educator.

Coach is always on, always available. Stuck on a concept? Pause the module and ask Coach. Need help applying something to your actual job? Coach has contextual answers. Not sure how to get more out of Excel or Power BI? Coach can guide you like a data pro would.

Coach was trained on all of our learning materials and is built to help people apply what they’re learning to their real work, in real time.

Scaling learning without losing the human touch

Many of our clients have a very large workforce, some with over 100,000 employees. And while live learning comes with clear benefits, you can’t live-teach 100,000 people in a timely manner.

On-demand gives us the reach.

We’ve designed it to work for everyone, from call centre staff and warehouse workers to busy senior leaders.

It also meets people where they are:

Data beginners get foundational paths.
Enthusiasts get advanced content and deeper dives.
Leaders get context and confidence to steer data conversations.
Data professionals get soft skills, storytelling, partnering with the business, commercial acumen.

Nobody is treated the same, and that’s exactly the point.

We don't just deploy and hope for the best

As with our live learning pathways, our OnDemand platform comes with a full change management and internal comms programme.

We’ll help you build energy around it, through storytelling, digital content, events, and activations. We’ll make people want to log in. And in the process, we’ll raise awareness, support, and belief in your data team.

Because we know that's another key point of failure. You can't assume that people will log in if they don't understand why.

What success looks like

One of our early clients focused their rollout on data quality and integrity.

Here’s what’s happened so far:

89% of learners are continuing or improving their data habits.
83% will now use a measurement technique to assess data quality in their own role.
96% have taken specific steps to improve data security.
91% are actively questioning the accuracy and completeness of the data they work with.

Here’s one of our favourite quotes, from a customer contact centre agent:

“Now I better understand the importance of data quality, I’ll work harder to ensure duplicate people are consolidated into one contact. I don’t want us to lose a client over a communication mishap.”

That’s what we mean when we say behaviour change at scale.

Want to see it?

No matter where you're at in your exploration journey, we know that one conversation can provide all the clarity you need.

Book a demo now, and let's get you this clarity fast.

‍Greg Freeman – CEO, Data Literacy Academy

Okay, let's get into this. For anybody who doesn't know me or Data Literacy Academy, my name is Greg Freeman. I'm the CEO and founder of Data Literacy Academy.

What we’ll cover today: some of the challenges people face when rolling out data and AI literacy programmes, why our approach solves for those challenges, how we measure the value of a platform like this, especially the version we’ve built, and some rollout insights on how to make it work and land properly. Because we all know, candidly, that self-paced digital learning doesn’t always work. It doesn’t always land right in the organisation. So, what do we need to do to empower learners to engage and be successful?

I’ll start by saying I wasn’t sure we, as a company, would ever deliver self-service, on-demand, e-learning content. I always thought it was more important to get people highly engaged through live learning, live classrooms and in-person classrooms. And to be honest, I hadn’t had great experiences with e-learning in my career. It brought back memories of clicking through GDPR training thinking, “This really sucks.” Or when I did my American football coaching badges last year, some of the e-learning there really sucked too. I wondered, “Do we really want to deliver this to the market?”

It surprises me a bit that we’ve got to this point. But if we were going to do this, it had to be better than what’s already available in large organisations. Whether it’s LinkedIn Learning, LMS content, or an out-the-box “data for beginners” course, it had to be better. That was the only way we were going to do it.

I’m proud that we got here. And I say this as someone who was skeptical, if you’re feeling skeptical about e-learning, I get it. I was too. But I’m really proud of how the team took that challenge and turned it into something highly engaging and appropriate for the audience we work with.

Our audience is business professionals. We don’t typically teach data professionals about data. You won’t find any programmes focused on machine learning or deep AI. This isn’t about making your data scientists better at data science. It’s about helping business professionals, people who consider themselves business-first, come on the data and AI journey. Or, if they’re already on that journey, giving them skills that help them contribute better to the data ecosystem and make their work easier.

So, what’s going wrong right now?

In large enterprises, we roll out big tech programmes, spend a lot of money with consultancies and vendors, promise a load of ROI, and then only 30% of people adopt it. That’s 70% of ROI gone. That’s a problem. And one we believe needs to be solved through data and AI literacy, and change management, which I’ll come to in a moment.

We also see really low uptake of self-paced learning. That’s not what we’re seeing with our clients who’ve rolled this out, which is a great sign. But if you just treat this like the next self-paced learning platform and hope for the best, the results won’t follow. You need to see it as a tool, part of your broader data and AI literacy programme, and part of your data and AI change programme.

Another issue: we’re often good at targeting certain groups, certain business areas. But the silent majority, the people who don’t raise their hand and say, “Talk to me about data”, they get left behind. That creates a growing gap between the haves and the have-nots. This platform gives them access to education that speaks to them, helps them come on the journey, and closes that gap.

And finally, this can’t be a tick-box exercise. If it is, people will treat it like the last compliance training. They won’t enjoy it, and they won’t want to do it. That can’t be the reason we do this. It has to be driven by real change in the business and by showing people it’s useful to them.

So, why OnDemand?

If you’ve got a data or AI literacy programme and you're struggling to scale it or have broader impact, this platform gives you that scale. Some of our clients are among the biggest employers in the UK and globally. You can’t live-educate 100,000 or 250,000 people. It’s not feasible. To reach those numbers and that breadth of engagement, you need scalability. This platform provides that.

It’s made up of tons of modules that can be accessed anytime, anywhere. Content is broken into bite-sized chunks, giving people flexibility to work at their own pace around their day jobs. But it’s still structured learning paths built around personalised journeys.

When someone joins the platform, the first thing they do is an objective baseline assessment. That’s important. Most people don’t know how good they are, or aren’t, with data and AI. We all know someone who can use a bit of Excel and thinks that means they “get” data. That’s not enough. We use objective assessment to avoid the Dunning-Kruger effect.

If you’re not familiar, Dunning-Kruger is the idea that the less you know, the more you think you know. If you rely on subjective assessments “How good are you with data?” people will be wrong 71% of the time. That means 71% would be on the wrong learning path. So we build personalised learning paths based on two things: 1) their actual capability and 2) the business objectives they need to focus on.

And most importantly, it’s all measurable.

We track the learner’s baseline, their module completions, and how their behaviours change. Are they making better decisions? Taking new actions? Applying the learning in their day job? All of this gets measured as they progress.

From there, learners get assigned personas: data beginner, data enthusiast, or business leader. Their learning path is built accordingly. On the business side, you choose which learning priorities matter. If adoption is the challenge, there’s a path for that. If data quality is the issue, there’s a path for that too. They’ll get served that content at the appropriate level.

We’ve got paths for deploying self-service analytics, AI for business, data integrity...plenty of options. The business sets the focus, and the learner brings their capability level.

So why have both live learning and OnDemand?

Live has always been our bread and butter. In-person and online classrooms. But OnDemand lets us reach different groups. Especially frontline or manual workers who can’t leave their day job for a workshop. With OnDemand they can learn on the train or during a break. It’s a far more flexible way to reach the people traditional learning misses.

When they log in, they’ll find content focused on data confidence and real-world relevance. Not just a bunch of technical skills, but helping them see their own role through a data lens.

One of our newest and most exciting features is Coach, our AI educator. Coach supports learners throughout the platform. If they don’t understand something, they can pause and ask. If they’re struggling, Coach helps them through it. And if they’ve started applying data and AI at work, Coach can help with that too. Whether it’s Power BI, Excel, or just thinking through a business problem in data terms, Coach can guide them.

We’ve trained Coach to give high-quality answers for both the academic learning paths and real business challenges. So if you’re a data team who’s tired of getting pinged with the same questions, Coach can take that load off your plate.

The platform also lets you customise the rollout. If you want everyone to start with Data and AI Fundamentals, that’s a solid foundation. If specific teams need help with data quality or governance, you can layer that in. If you’re nurturing data champions or gearing up for AI readiness, we’ve got paths for that too. It’s built for differentiation, not a one-size-fits-all experience.

We also have a data specialist path, not to teach technical skills, but to help data professionals build commercial acumen, storytelling, and business partnership skills. So if your challenge is aligning data teams with the business, this helps bring them on that journey too.

All of this is included in an enterprise license. We don’t want to restrict access, we want as many people in the business as possible to go on their own learning journey.

And we pair it with a change management and communications programme. Not just to drive adoption, but to raise awareness and belief in your data office. When people get more aware of data, they see the importance of data literacy, and they start to see the value your team is delivering. We write blogs, design digital assets, run kickoffs and hackathons, whatever’s needed to drive momentum.

There’s also built-in reinforcement. Badges, gamification, usage stats, all customisable to your environment.

Since launching, we’ve rolled out new functionality that gives you front-line insight you’d never usually hear: business problems, data frustrations, blocked opportunities, governance gaps. Every completed learning path generates around 20 data points from each learner. Over the last 6–8 weeks, across four clients, we’ve already gathered over 20,000 of these. That’s massive. It helps you identify what to solve and close the loop between data strategy and business value.

Here’s one quick case study.

A client in a regulated industry focused on data quality and integrity. Their goal was to help the business speak the same language, break down silos, and collaborate more effectively. We rolled out the data integrity path.

89% of learners continued or improved their data habits
83% now use measurement techniques to assess data quality
96% took actions to improve data security
91% are proactively checking the accuracy and completeness of the data they use

One learner in the contact centre said, “Now I understand the importance of data quality, I’ll work harder to consolidate duplicate contacts. I don’t want to lose a client because of messy communications.”

That’s behaviour change driven by e-learning.

We’re proud of how this is landing. If you want to see it for yourself, visit www.dl-academy.com/demand, request a consultation, and we’ll walk you through the platform and our change approach.

Thanks again. Looking forward to working with more of you soon.

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