AI in course production
Course production, rebuilt around AI agents
When an organization uses AI to build its training, I want the subject experts judging drafts, not writing them. So I built topic-specific agents that draft each course from the organization’s own frameworks and standards. People decide what ships. At United Way Worldwide, that took a course build from 12 weeks to 4.
AI course-production agents. United Way Worldwide, 2026. I built the agents and the review they answer to.
Workflow
How a course moves
- Brief. Each course starts from United Way’s frameworks, learner personas and design standards.
- Agents draft. They write the outline, the modules and the job aids.
- Expert review. A subject expert decides whether each draft moves on.
- Quality check. The learning team checks each course against a rubric and acceptance criteria before it ships.
- Publish. In 2026, 11 courses shipped this way.
Try it
Review an AI draft
You’re the subject expert. An agent drafted this page of a course on sharing data with partners, and it doesn’t ship until you approve it.
Based onThis is the expert review step in the course workflow. Every draft goes to someone like you, who can reject it or send it back.
Agent draft
Module 2. Sharing data with partners
The framework the agent drafted from
- Share reports only with the people they are for.
- Personal data, including names and contact details, is shared only through the approved tool, with a named owner.
- Set shared links to expire.
- Remove names from anything published.
- When unsure, ask the data lead.
Results
12 weeks to 4
Why it works
A checkpoint only counts if the reviewer can say no
Both gates have a veto
Saying no takes the subject knowledge, the source, enough time and the authority to reject. I gave that authority to the subject expert and to the learning team’s quality check. Nothing publishes without both.
I redesigned the workflow, not the task
Faster drafting is worthless if review becomes the bottleneck. So I didn’t stop at the agents. I designed the review around them too, down to the evaluation guidelines the experts work from.