Area9

Despite much effort across corporate learning, the last three decades have seen little improvement in making talent development more efficient and effective. The growth of video-based education and e-learning has done nothing to help students learn better or faster. “The only real improvement is that people now have access to more content,” states Nick J. Howe, chief learning officer of Area9 Lyceum. “That isn’t bad, but it is the wrong area to focus on. We should be helping people learn, and that’s where the application of learning science to talent development comes in – especially in an AI-enabled world.”

By merging learning science and computer intelligence, Area9 has developed cutting-edge technology that embeds research-based concepts into software that can improve learning. Building on more than twenty years of expertise in learning technology, Area9 has created a cost-effective, scalable, and personalized learning experience platform, Area9 Rhapsode^™. Area9’s fourth-generation learning platform, Rhapsode^™ can generate better outcomes for learners by helping them achieve a higher level of proficiency, learn faster, and become self-aware of their learning capabilities. Area9 Rhapsode^™ aims to introduce many new capabilities over the next 12 months to make the platform even easier to use and more cost-effective by leveraging learning science, AI, and robotics.

To date, Area9’s technology has been used by more than 15 million students in different sectors such as higher education, retail, aviation, and medicine—helping them obtain knowledge and apply it.

Based on a personalized adaptive methodology, Area9 Rhapsode^™ addresses four dimensions of learning: knowledge, skills, character, and meta-learning. “It doesn’t matter whether the learner is a retail assistant, a pilot or a doctor, he/she needs to succeed in this increasingly AI-enabled world.

The techniques built into Rhapsode are designed to create better learning outcomes within each of the four dimensions of human learning and performance,” says Howe.

We have built the next-generation platform to create better learning outcomes by building skills, character, and meta-learning

Designed to operate as either a standalone platform (incorporating adaptive LMS, authoring, and delivery functionality) or to integrate seamlessly into an existing learning ecosystem, Area9 Rhapsode^™ can assist learners in academic or corporate settings. Using the latest learning science and software algorithms, the platform helps learners achieve proficiency and mastery in a scalable and cost-effective manner. Area9 Rhapsode’s AI-enabled functionality dramatically reduces the cost of content curation, driving down costs and resource needs for content developers, while also improving quality.

Area9’s Rhapsode^™ benefits both learner and institutions: Each learner pursues subject mastery with a highly personalized approach, while institutions and companies build and manage content quickly—and can track outcomes. “We look at all the elements in the learning ecosystem of our clients to determine the areas where adaptive and personalized learning can provide value and proceed accordingly,” mentions Howe.

One aim of Area9 is to create technology that can co-exist with the traditional teaching methods and be an enabler for the human teachers. In one of its projects, the company helped a major airline in rolling out impactful leadership development classes. Despite a previous seven-figure investment in third-party classroom training for the program, learners had struggled to retain what they had been taught. Area9 found a solution: pioneering the concept of adaptively “refreshing” learning to re-enforce the key concepts of the class, creating a blended classroom and online program.

“Higher education, publishers, and corporate clients will all benefit from a powerful personalized experience for the learners, driven by cutting edge technology based on learning science,” concludes Howe.