The best AI platforms for soft skills training
An employee’s technical skills are important, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that their soft skills (or lack of) also play a highly influential role in their overall success or failure within the organization. After all, employees with the right soft skills make better colleagues, perform better, and find it easier to grow and develop at the company.
And soft skills are becoming even more important in an age when automation is more common than ever. While having plenty of soft skills within a company used to be a bonus, today it’s a key asset that really can provide a competitive advantage.
The problem? Training soft skills has historically been a challenge. Most businesses didn’t even attempt to provide soft skills because of how ineffective the training methods were and how difficult it was to measure.
But that’s beginning to change. More businesses than ever are investing in soft skills training for their team because, well, the technology required to provide that training now exists. There’s been a whole raft of AI soft skill training platforms launched recently that are helping businesses and individuals close the soft skills gap. We’ve put together a list of the ones that have impressed us the most below.
1. Helix by 5app: The best-in-class soft skills development tool
Helix by 5app has already proven to be a game-changer for soft skills development training. Not only is it highly effective, but it’s also extremely easy to use. All the employee needs to do is invite Helix to one of the virtual meetings that take place on Google Meet, Zoom, or Microsoft Teams, at which point it’ll silently listen before analyzing the speaker’s soft skills against the Helix Core-9 Skills, which are:
- Accountability
- Active listening
- Change management
- Coaching
- Coachability
- Communication
- Growth mindset
- Results focused
- Strategic vision
Once the meeting is over, the employee will receive a report outlining their strengths and growth areas. They’ll be linked to resources that can help improve their weak points, and there’s also a dashboard that tracks the development of soft skills over time.
What’s particularly impressive about Helix by 5app is that it removes the shortcomings of human-led assessments entirely. Instead, there’s a consistent framework that scores the user against the same metrics every single time. We were also impressed by the platform’s strong data security measures. You can choose which meetings Helix joins (and kick it out at any point during the meeting if necessary), and all the scores/transcripts/data are owned by the organization.
Even though it’s only recently launched, it’s clear that Helix by 5app is going to be the platform to beat for some time. Easy to use and effective, it appears to have solved many of the problems that organizations have historically faced when undertaking soft skills training.
2. Disco: A good all-around AI training tool
Disco has made a name for itself as one of the best general-purpose AI training tools on the market. While mostly used for technical training, the platform can also be used to enhance soft skills. It works by combining social learning — learning in groups — with AI technology. The platform allows users to train their soft skills muscles by having real conversations with others, and once they’re done, they’ll be given feedback from the platform’s AI software. It also includes a feature that allows users to practice before a meeting, offering feedback on areas of improvement.
3. VirtualSpeech: Immersive AI training
VirtualSpeech is designed to help users improve their communication skills through a variety of training modules. Utilizing the power of virtual reality, users are put into realistic scenarios for a role-play exercise. Upon completion, they’re given instant feedback that outlines the user’s strengths and weaknesses.
VirtualSpeech can be used to improve many areas of communication. It’s mostly used by users to improve their public speaking skills and sales techniques, though there are also training sessions focused on improving interpersonal communication.
4. Cenario.ai: An advanced AI collaboration platform
As with VirtualSpeech, Cenario.ai is designed to recreate real-world scenarios, allowing users to practice being in those types of environments. What’s impressive about this platform is that it allows users to create custom AI personas, allowing them to practice for hyper-specific scenarios. For example, a user might create a ‘tough client’ persona, allowing them to improve their capacity to handle those situations in a safe space. It’s an effective way to develop soft skills such as communication and conflict resolution. The Cenario team has also gone to great lengths to ensure that all interactions are kept private, with secure storage that’s only accessible by the organization.
5. Gong: Excellent for sales teams
Gong is an AI-driven soft skills training platform designed for use by sales teams. It analyses how sales representatives perform during live phone calls with customers and provides a score and action areas upon completion. It also comes jam-packed with other features that can both directly and indirectly improve the user’s soft skills, such as tracking the talk-to-listen ratio of the phone call, analyzing buyer engagement (including predicting how likely it is that they’ll buy), and analyzing successful phone calls to provide insights on how best sales representatives can open up a cold call. It’s a powerful — and quite expensive — AI tool that can, when utilized correctly, be a galvanizing force that turbocharges communication skills and sales performance.
6. MeetGeek: A powerful AI tool for meeting insights
MeetGeek is primarily a meeting tool designed to transcribe and summarize meetings, but it also includes a few features that can help users develop their soft skills. For example, once a meeting is over, it’ll send a report outlining two things that you did well during the meeting, and two things that you didn’t do so well. That alone can provide the user with actionable insights that can improve their soft skills. It also offers data relating to the tone of the meeting, as well as information on the balance of speaking voices (for instance, whether meeting input was shared among all participants or if one person dominated).