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After two weeks experimenting with Circle’s AI tools, we’ve become convinced that the biggest opportunity isn’t creating course content—it’s removing the friction involved in building and managing learning communities.
Last week I published an article arguing that we may have been thinking about Learning Management Systems (LMSs) the wrong way. Rather than focusing almost exclusively on delivering content, I suggested that the next generation of learning platforms will place far greater emphasis on collaboration, discussion and community.
Since then, I’ve continued experimenting with Circle, building a demonstration community from scratch, creating courses, hosting events and inviting members to participate. Along the way I began exploring Circle AI—not because I expected it to write better learning content than I could, but because I was curious to see where artificial intelligence actually adds value within a modern learning platform.
What I discovered surprised me.
Not because the AI produced remarkable prose—most modern AI tools can do that. What impressed me was how naturally it fitted into the day-to-day task of managing a learning community.
There seems to be a tendency to view AI in extremes.
Some people believe it will soon replace instructional designers altogether. Others dismiss it as little more than a gimmick that produces generic text.
Having spent the past few weeks building a real learning community with Circle, I’ve come to a rather different conclusion.
AI isn’t here to replace learning designers. It’s here to support the work that only we can do.
Used well, AI removes repetitive, low-value tasks, giving us more time to focus on creativity, judgement and building meaningful learning experiences.
The question isn’t whether we should use AI. It’s whether we’re using it in the right places.
Good learning design has never simply been about writing content. It begins by understanding learners, defining objectives, designing meaningful activities, creating opportunities for feedback and building an environment where people actually want to learn.
Those are fundamentally human decisions.
Where AI can help is by reducing the countless small administrative tasks that surround every learning programme.
That’s where I believe the real opportunity lies. AI doesn’t replace the thinking; it supports the doing. It allows learning designers to spend less time on routine administration and more time designing meaningful learning experiences and engaging with their learners.
Anyone who has managed an online learning community knows that creating the course is often only the beginning. The real work comes afterwards.
None of these tasks is particularly difficult. Yet together they can consume hours every week. These are precisely the kinds of activities where AI begins to make a genuine difference.
Most of us are already familiar with tools such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini.
Typically, the workflow looks something like this:
It works, but it feels disconnected.
Circle AI feels different because it exists within the platform itself.
Rather than treating AI as a separate application, it becomes another tool available while you’re already creating posts, planning events or managing discussions. That may sound like a small distinction, but after using it for a couple of weeks I found it significantly changed my workflow.
Instead of constantly switching between applications, I stayed focused on the community I was building.
Interestingly, I found myself using Circle AI rather differently from how I had expected.
I wasn’t asking it to design learning objectives.I wasn’t asking it to create complete courses.
Instead, I used it as a collaborative assistant.
It helped me:
Every piece was reviewed.Every piece was edited.The final decisions remained mine.
In many ways it reminded me of working alongside a capable editorial assistant—one who never became tired of producing another draft.
One of the most encouraging aspects of this experiment has been discovering that AI becomes more useful as the learning experience becomes more collaborative.
Traditional LMS platforms have largely been built around content delivery.
Modern community platforms are different. They’re built around conversations.
In that environment, AI becomes less about generating content and more about helping the community function smoothly. That feels like a much more valuable role.
After spending several weeks exploring Circle, I’ve become increasingly convinced that the future of learning platforms isn’t simply about adding AI features.
It’s about integrating AI into the natural flow of learning and collaboration.
The objective shouldn’t be to automate learning.
It should be to remove the administrative friction that prevents learning professionals from spending time where they add the greatest value—working with people.
As instructional designers, trainers and learning consultants, our expertise has never been typing words into an editor.
Our value lies in understanding learners, solving performance problems, designing meaningful experiences and building communities where people support one another.
If AI can take care of some of the routine administration involved in that process, I think that’s something to welcome rather than fear.
This is still an evolving area, and I have no doubt that every major LMS vendor will introduce increasingly sophisticated AI capabilities over the next few years.
The interesting question is no longer whether an LMS includes AI.
It’s how thoughtfully that AI has been integrated into the learning experience.
From our experiments, Circle has given us a glimpse of what that future might look like.
Not a platform where AI replaces people.
But one where it quietly removes friction, supports community managers and allows learning professionals to spend more time doing what only humans can do—helping other people learn.
This is the second article in our exploration of the next generation of Learning Management Systems. Rather than reviewing products in isolation, we’re documenting our experiences as I experiment with platforms that are challenging many of our assumptions about online learning.
Choosing a platform becomes significantly easier when the delivery model, commercial structure, and operational capacity are clearly defined.
If you are currently comparing platforms and would benefit from a structured, independent evaluation before committing time or budget, you can learn more about our LMS Consultancy Services here:
Heartbeat Circle
Thinkific LearnWorlds LearnDash Kajabi
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