Its almost become cliche for employers to express concern about Gen Zs lack of training in the social skills necessary for life in the office.Employers want new recruits with a certain level of professionalismthe ability to casually converse with office higher-ups, or negotiate with their own managersthat they just havent had the ability to practice, especially after coming of age during pandemic restrictions and widespread remote work, says Tigran Sloyan, CEO of worker assessment and learning platform CodeSignal.When youve just come out of college, youve never really worked anywhere, so its very hard, he says.To help fill that gap, CodeSignal on Wednesday launched an AI-powered addition to its platform that will let users practice skills involving business conversation on their own and confer with an AI assistant and coach called Cosmo. CodeSignal already let users practice technical skills like writing code in a simulated development environment, but the new addition will let them similarly practice skills like negotiations, giving feedback, and holding sales calls.Universities have also participated in beta testing, letting students applying for jobs practice talking with simulated recruiters. Employers can customize practice scenarios based on employee needs, like letting budding salespeople pitch their companies own specialized products, and AI conversational partners can become tougher to handle as workers level up their skills, Sloyan says.It will get more and more and more difficult as you progress through your skills, he says.CodeSignal is one of a number of companies that have rolled out AI systems to let employees develop skills that previously could only be practiced by roleplaying with other humans, find other educational opportunities, and demonstrate their aptitude for particular roles. Theyre not just for entry-level employees. People taking on new positions, like those entering management, can also benefit, as can anyone looking to brush up on particular skills theyre already using, AI developers say. After all, some studies have suggested the majority of managers received no formal training for their jobs after moving up from other roles.Weve all been managed by bad managers, says Sloyan. And its for a good reasonbecause they never get the training.AI technology, which can help assess worker experience and adapt lessons to individual needs, is also helping drive a shift to hiring and training employees based on very particular social and technical skills they need for their roles, whether thats making sure managers know how to have difficult conversations with underperforming employees or coders know how to efficiently work with databases.I think the beauty of it is its ability to create learning content at scale and speed, says Ravin Jesuthasan, global transformation leader at consulting firm Mercer.Skills-based hiring is often seen as a way to get access to a broader talent pool than traditional indicators of aptitude like a college degree, and skill-focused training can let employees keep up to date even as their positions evolve due to technological and societal changes like the rise of AI and hybrid work. AI can help measure what skills employees already have, then create or locate highly targeted course material to fill in any gaps.Instead of you sitting in a class with everyone else going through two months of training, youre maybe spending three days or something because youve got a lot of those technical skills, Jesuthasan says.In the past, while employers might have offered access to training materials like videos, written materials, and podcast-style audio, workers could feel overwhelmed by the possibilities and unsure how to fit learning in between work tasks, says Kian Katanforoosh, CEO and founder of skills assessment company Workera. In September, the company unveiled an AI mentor called Sage that can give employees quick and (ideally) fun skill assessments using a variety of interfaces. Those include a virtual coding workpad, a voice interface, and an on-screen whiteboard for presenting ways to connect ideas and concepts. The results can help route staff to particular projects or to personalized training options. Those can include some instruction from Sage itself, though Workera generally connects users to coursework from across a variety of learning platforms, matched to individual needs, Katanforoosh says.Some providers have really good metadata which allow us to have the transcripts of every course and understand videos at a transcript level, and be able to say this is a good video or not for the user, he says.And when AI itself provides interactive training, it has the advantage of being available on demand around the clock to tirelessly generate practice material for different skills and scenarios.A company called Alelo works with employers and training firms to create AI-powered educational material, where workers can practice skills interacting with digital avatars, then receive feedback generated by another specialized AI model. Healthcare training is a common use case, with nurses and others in the field practicing patient interactions, says Lewis Johnson, the companys president and CEO.Scenarios, which can include short sessions where health providers demonstrate their ability to express empathy for a patient in pain or longer interactions that simulate an entire patient interaction, are meant to be repeated. Typically, users are intended to practice a particular training at least five times, then repeat them as needed later on to keep skills fresh, Johnson says.[Screenshot: Alelo]Part of the goal here is to encourage learners to practice as much as they need in order to gain proficiency, he says. Each run may be somewhat different, so this really encourages people to keep practicing until theyre comfortable and able to fully meet the training objectives.Employers or training organizations get access to dashboards that let them see at a glance how employees are advancing through the training. In general, AI instructional tech can help save time for employers by automating training, assessment, and development of learning plans for staff.In October, learning platform Udemy announced a new AI assistant to guide learners to relevant material, and a Skills Mapping system that can help identify employee skills needing an upgrade within an organization. The AI then provides a custom learning path of instructional material to get workers trained.Skills Mapping has significantly reduced the median time needed to create a public learning path, slashing it by more than 80%, writes Eren Bali, Udemys cofounder and CTO, in an email. Notably, over one-third of paths created by organizations since the launch have been AI-powered paths, indicating Skills Mappings impact on efficiency and performance.Still, AI training likely wont eliminate traditional mentoring and instruction any time soon. Training company Mursion, known for its avatar-based training experiences powered by human actors, recently introduced a fully AI-powered alternative. It lets workers practice skills at any time, without Mursion needing to ensure its own staff are available, which is especially important for clients training employees in environments like restaurants or warehouses where downtime may be unpredictable, says CEO Mark Atkinson.Its just impossible to build a staffing model that knows that we need to be ready at that moment, he says.[Photo: Mursion]The companys simulations can help train service workers in techniques like conflict de-escalation and dealing with challenging customers, Atkinson says, and Mursion also helps employees in management, healthcare fields, and sales practice techniques relevant to their work. Avatar-based simulation in general can help employees practice types of uncomfortable scenarios that could feel too awkward or embarrassing for traditional in-person role play, he says, and generative AI has proven adept at consistently simulating particular behaviors for employees to practice responding to.Its also beginning to play a role in Mursions human-directed simulations, automatically and consistently scoring participant performance. That, in turn, lets Mursions human simulation leaders focus on playing their roles rather than evaluating responses. Theyll keep playing those roles for the foreseeable future, Atkinson says, since they can offer a level of narrative variety and adaptability that AI cant currently easily match.Im not saying it wont ever happen, but the way I see it is the AI is pushing us to be better at the human [side], while delivering an incredibly valuable, on-demand experience for those who want that, he says.But as the workplace continues to evolve, and new generations of workers continue to graduate and seek employment, then move into management or other new roles, AI seems likely to also be on hand to guide and, sometimes, even conduct their training. After all, while Gen Z is currently being called out for a lack of workplace savvy, it wasnt too long ago that employers said similar things about millennials starting their first full-time jobs.These are skills that we somehow expect that the younger generation would just come out of school knowing but they dont, because theyve never really had the chance to practice, Sloyan says.