AI-supported communication training
Effective conversation training thanks to AI
Festo was founded in 1925 in Esslingen am Neckar and provides pneumatic and electrical automation technology and technical education solutions to around 300,000 customers. As a driving force in automation, this family-owned company has also become the world’s leading provider of technical education and training.
Festo employs around 20,500 people worldwide, with companies in around 60 countries and over 250 locations. More than seven per cent of its revenue is invested in research and development every year.
Scaling communication training effectively
In large companies like Festo, it's structurally challenging to offer practical learning methods to improve communication skills for leaders and employees across the organisation. Traditionally, such methods are often delivered through seminars involving role-playing. However, these methods reach their limits when scaling up or focusing on highly individual topics and practice scenarios, such as when leaders need to prepare for specific conversations like difficult employee discussions. Moreover, the success of these methods often depends on the empathy and acting skills of the sparring partner.
"We wanted a way or tool for leaders to simulate challenging conversations anytime and anywhere," says Corinna Jaron-Theiler, Organisational Development Specialist at Festo. "Ideally, the person should also receive feedback on their behaviour."
In addition to scalability, internationalisation was an important factor. It was almost impossible to offer standardised, practice-oriented training for leaders worldwide.
For Manuel Schmidt, Learning Innovation at Festo, it was particularly important to provide a safe space for communication training. "Comparable to a dojo in karate or sparring in boxing, allowing you to practise and improve," he explains.
A safe space to improve communication skills
Festo saw the growing potential of artificial intelligence as an opportunity to meet this challenge. Manuel Schmidt simulated different personas and scenarios using a custom GPT solution. The first results, while promising as a proof of concept, didn't quite meet Festo's needs for a more professional and intuitive solution for learners.
Building on over 20 years of collaboration, the company turned to imc to co-develop a tool. Festo's internal AI expertise is high, but its developers were heavily occupied. As a result, the People Development and Learning team sought a partner with comprehensive learning expertise.
Alongside the Organisational Development and People Development & Learning departments, IT, data protection, and the works council got involved from the beginning to ensure data security.
"We quickly and agilely sat down together, sketched out our idea, and shared the prompt we'd previously used," recalls Manuel Schmidt. "By the next meeting, imc had already created a click dummy for us to test internally."
Testing AI in practice
As part of an AI-focused month covering various topics, Festo presented and tried out a test version in a workshop with around 25 participants. "The feedback was so positive that we knew it was worth continuing with the project," says Corinna Jaron-Theiler.
The collaboration resulted in DialogueGPT, an AI-based tool for simulating conversations that allows leaders to train for different scenarios they might encounter: performance reviews, critical feedback discussions, salary negotiations, and development talks, for example. Users can select pre-defined characters or create new personas based on personality traits. After the conversation, which currently takes place via chat, users receive feedback.
"One of the challenges in training conversations with AI is finding the right balance," explains Corinna Jaron-Theiler. "We need authentic responses from the characters that don’t give in too easily in tough situations but also don’t just stonewall. It needs to be possible to find a constructive solution. And we’ve done that well."
Rethinking learning – scalable and international
The feedback from the first test was very positive. The workshop group of leaders particularly liked the easy-to-use interface that didn’t require them to create their own prompts, as well as the ability to customise characters and scenarios.
The first step is to give the pilot group of leaders access to DialogueGPT, with a roll-out to all employees already in the works. It's also important for them to improve their communication skills. Besides the current conversation scenarios, Schmidt and Jaron-Theiler see a lot of potential in other training areas, such as sales training and service hotline training.
The planned voice input and output feature will play an important role. "That will create a whole new level of immersion and be a game-changer for the learning experience," emphasises Manuel Schmidt.
Corinna Jaron-Theiler is particularly excited about the internationalisation possibilities: "With the simple language switch, we can offer the tool to leaders worldwide."
AI teaches long-term communication skills
By using DialogueGPT, Festo hopes to improve communication skills across the entire company in the long term. There are also interesting perspectives for learning culture overall, as Manuel Schmidt explains: "It enables us to rethink learning. We could replace traditional assessments like multiple-choice questions with dynamic formats. At the end of a social skills learning path, for example, employees could be required to pass a communication scenario with a certain score. It’s much more active than just clicking through a test."
Corinna Jaron-Theiler emphasises that DialogueGPT makes AI more accessible and easier to use for users. Even without prior knowledge, they can dive in and try it out. This not only improves communication skills but also increases AI competency.
Manuel Schmidt is full of praise for the collaboration with imc: "I loved how open imc was to our idea and how simple and straightforward the cooperation was. There should be more partnerships like this: imc was able to develop a solution for a concrete customer need that other companies will also benefit from later. And we were directly involved in the innovative development and could use it as early as possible."
On the other hand, the practical feedback was also very helpful for imc during the process. Julian Kappich, Head of Content Products and Innovation at imc, explains: "Through close collaboration, we were able to ensure the tool fully met Festo’s requirements. Organisationally, whether it's IT security, feedback from the works council, or integration into the existing L&D landscape, as well as content-wise and functionally." imc also received early feedback from users about which functions and scenarios were particularly helpful, what was used less, and whether the usability worked.
For both sides, the project was a complete success. "This solution really allows us to offer high-quality conversation simulations to everyone in the company," summarises Manuel Schmidt.
