The conversation around skills has reached a tipping point.

For years, organizations have spoken about reskilling, upskilling, and lifelong learning. But today, the speed of change is outpacing even our best efforts.

According to Gartner, skill changes are happening faster now than at the height of the pandemic. In fact, in a 2024 survey of 3,375 employees, only half said they feel equipped to respond to unexpected changes in their work.

That’s a sobering statistic. And it forces us to ask: Are our current approaches to learning and skilling enough?

On-the-job learning has always been considered the gold standard. But here too, the cracks are showing. Gartner’s survey revealed that nearly 60% of employees are not getting the coaching they need to strengthen core job skills.

The reasons aren’t surprising:

• New work models that reduce in-person mentorship
• Turnover that disrupts continuity
• The pressure to “do more with less”
• And the rapid emergence of new technologies

All of these factors create a growing disconnect between those who already have critical skills and those who need to learn them.

At the same time, global forces—from technological disruption to geopolitical shifts—are reshaping industries overnight. Workers themselves aren’t looking to leave (83% plan to stay with their employers, according to The Adecco Group). Yet many feel unsupported in their upskilling journeys, leading to a decline in trust.

The conclusion is clear: traditional development methods that focus on courses, workshops or occasional coaching are no longer enough to keep pace with the speed of business.

We have now entered what I like to call the Intelligent Age, an era where humans and AI work together to drive innovation, growth, and resilience.

In this background, skilling is not just about knowledge transfer anymore. It is about building role readiness so that people are not only trained but also truly prepared to perform in their roles.

One of the biggest gaps in corporate skilling today is the “practice layer.”

We provide employees with content, certifications, and even workshops. But when they face a real-world situation, they are often left to navigate on their own. Practice, unfortunately, is where learning breaks down.

Think of it this way: no athlete mastered their sport by watching playbooks alone. No leader became better at difficult conversations by just reading policy PDFs. In short, human skills require human practice.

And this is why Agentic AI has become such a key force because it is helping us close the gap between knowing and doing.

At Enthral, our recently launched set of AI Agents are specifically focused on building role-readiness by auto-generating tailored coaching journeys and role-play scenarios for your teams. All you need to do is set the role. The agents then create personalized, immersive simulations where learners can:

• Watch how tasks are performed (“Show me”)
• Practice in a safe environment (“Try me”)
• Get tested with AI proctoring (“Test me”)

It’s hands-on, repeatable, and measurable learning, just the way it should be.

The result is not just skill acquisition, but true role readiness. From sales and customer service to first-time managers, employees can practice high-stakes interactions with AI-driven role plays, receive real-time feedback, and build confidence that translates directly into performance.

It’s like every employee having access to a tireless, context-aware coach who could simulate real-world situations on demand. Someone (or something) they could practice with, without fear of judgment, without waiting for a manager’s bandwidth, and without the limitations of one-size-fits-all training.

The thing with platforms like Enthral is that it is not just about the intelligence factor when it comes to enabling role readiness. It is also the accessibility.

When every employee can practice anytime, anywhere, several things shift:

• Learning moves from passive to active because employees are no longer just absorbing information; they are applying it.
• Feedback becomes data-driven and immediate because instead of waiting for quarterly reviews or one-off workshops, progress can be tracked in real time.
• Coaching scales beyond bandwidth because managers and trainers are no longer bottlenecks; AI augments their role and allows human coaches to focus on higher-level interventions.
• Trust is rebuilt because employees see their organizations investing in their readiness, not just in compliance training, but in their actual career growth.

This is how development sticks. Not because a learner watched a video, but because they lived a scenario, felt the resistance, created the response, and got better the next time.

The Adecco finding—that 83% of employees want to stay but feel unsupported in upskilling—is a powerful reminder.

People are not disengaged because they lack loyalty. They are disengaged because they lack growth.

When organizations invest in role readiness with tools like AI-powered coaching, they send a signal: we are committed to your future. That builds capability while also strengthening trust and collaboration.

This is what we are enabling with Enthral. When your teams experience role-specific practice with our Agentic AI agents, they don’t just learn. They gain confidence that their employer is actively preparing them for the challenges ahead. That trust becomes the foundation for performance and retention.

And trust, as we know, is one of the major drivers of performance.

The future of skilling isn’t about adding more courses or longer modules. It is about creating an environment where practice is embedded into the flow of work.

For example, think about these scenarios: A manager receives a low team engagement score. Instantly, their platform nudges them with a short AI role play on active listening. A salesperson struggling with pricing objections can launch a tailored simulation right from their CRM. A new hire can practice role-specific scenarios before their first day on the job.

This is what an “always-on” readiness environment looks like. And this is where Agentic AI is taking us.

We are living through one of the deepest shifts in the history of work. Skills are changing faster than ever, employees are hungry for growth, and organizations are under pressure to deliver results with speed.

In such a world, skilling cannot remain an event. It must become an experience that is continuous, immersive, and measurable.

Agentic AI does not replace human learning, it amplifies it. It bridges the gap between knowledge and practice, between training and performance, between aspiration and readiness. And that is the real opportunity for organizations today: to move beyond just skilling their teams to truly making them role-ready for the Intelligent Age.