The Irish Rugby Football Union Onboards Subject Matter Experts 75% Faster with AI Assistant

The Challenge

The IRFU sought an intuitive AI solution to empower SMEs and streamline course material

With a learning and development team of just two people, the IRFU has long relied on its network of subject matter experts (SMEs) across the organization to support its course creation. These experts, including members of the HR, Coach Development, Medical, and Spirit departments, offer a depth of crucial knowledge for its learners.

This is why the IRFU initially got started with Articulate: to help their SMEs easily create content to support their learning audience. With Storyline and Rise, this course creation process has become significantly more efficient. IRFU saw another opportunity to support SMEs and expand its course offerings with the arrival of new AI tools on the market.

“We wanted to focus on our SMEs and give them the best tools and experience when creating courses,” says Agustina Bruno Videla, E-Learning and Digital Coordinator. “The easier we can make it for them to create courses, the broader our course catalog will be.” 

They believed AI could empower their SMEs in two key ways:

1. Save time by quickly distilling vast amounts of information.
2. Reduce the skills gap for course creation.

“Prior to AI Assistant, we used Chat GPT a lot to support our work,” says Videla. “It was useful, but it would complete each task independently, and then we’d have to review a bulk of information.”

The IRFU knew they needed an integrated AI tool—one that would allow them to spend less time reviewing content and onboarding course creators.

The Answer

With AI Assistant, the IRFU maintained quality, and shortened onboarding and course development timelines

Upon the release of AI Assistant, the IRFU began a two-week testing period for the tool with their SMEs. “We had remarkable results,” said Videla. In just a few days, the organization had produced more courses than they thought possible.

“AI Assistant helps our SMEs with course creation and design, which they sometimes struggle with because there’s so much information to organize,” says Videla. “Now, they can use AI to easily adjust the flow of courses, add images, or turn a block of text into an interaction.” This ability to streamline is crucial for the organization’s most common use cases for AI Assistant: converting multiple PDFs into courses and improving existing courses with interactive elements. 

One element the SMEs find particularly helpful is AI Assistant’s quiz creation feature. SMEs often struggle to create the quiz questions required for the LMS. With AI Assistant, SMEs can instantly generate any number of quiz questions in multiple styles based on their course content.

Videla also appreciates AI Assistant’s image generation feature. Previously, the IRFU was generating custom images with ChatGPT—but with AI Assistant, they no longer have to toggle between multiple tools to add images to courses. “The right images used in the right places are so important for improving a course’s flow and making it more dynamic,” says Videla. “With AI Assistant, we can even choose from several image styles—it’s a gamechanger.” 

The time savings for the IRFU has been significant, both for onboarding course creators and launching course content. For example, Videla recently created a draft of a course in 15 minutes with AI Assistant. Although she wasn’t as familiar with the course’s content, she was able to upload PDFs of source material into the tool, generate lesson content, and review each element before showing it to the SME. 

“The SME told me it was perfect,” says Videla. “Without using AI Assistant, that course would have taken me at least three days to create.”

Unlocking Human Potential

By enabling SMEs with AI Assistant, the IRFU dramatically expanded its course library to fuel a culture of learning

Since switching AI providers, the IRFU has streamlined its course creation process with SMEs and reduced onboarding time for course creators. “AI Assistant is more collaborative than other AI tools I’ve used,” says Videla. “Each step of the way you’re able to review, modify, include, or not include something. It’s like you’re holding hands with the AI during the entire process.”

Ultimately, this enables the organization to produce significantly more courses. And because the IRFU uses a blended approach to training, these expanded online offerings better prepare learners for face-to-face courses to maximize the value of that time. 

It also helps prioritize their goal to create personalized learning pathways so individual users can build their own tailored learning experiences. By speeding up their course creation process while maintaining high-quality content, that vision comes ever closer to reality.

“AI is a game-changer, especially for small teams like ours,” says Videla. “It’s nothing to be afraid of. It allows us to focus on what really matters, like refining our curriculum, discussing new strategies, and improving our services.”

With AI Assistant, the IRFU empowers SMEs to onboard and create courses faster while maintaining high quality—all to expand the organization’s course catalog and support its mission of rugby education.