2024 was just an amazing year for us. We transformed learning at J&J in two major ways, enhancing employee learning experiences and making career navigation more transparent.

Our first step was a deep dive into our job catalog, mapping every role to the necessary skills. This unlocked upskilling opportunities for all 150,000 employees. Through our AI-driven ecosystem, employees could explore their strengths, career interests, and potential paths within J&J.

The system then mapped available roles to their skills, highlighting gaps and personalized upskilling pathways. For instance, an aspiring leader might identify the need for coaching experience. They could then access targeted learning modules, engage in mentorship, or take on coaching assignments.

A year in, the impact is clear. Employee engagement scores in learning and career development have surpassed 80, considered world-class.

Previously, development programs were limited to select groups, and scaling them globally was a challenge. Today, every single J&J employee can access our learning ecosystem, something I never had when I first joined the company. 

It’s going to literally transform much of what we do, not just within the Learn function, but across the entire enterprise. Right now, we’re in deep discovery, exploring possibilities, engaging in massive experimentation, and preparing for some incredible launches.

For my own function, this is an absolute game-changer. Our first priority was upskilling our workforce. As a healthcare company, we needed to establish our own GenAI platform within the walls of J&J.

We provided incredible opportunities for all employees to upskill not only in the fundamental principles and compliance aspects of GenAI but also in prompt engineering so that everyone could actively participate. Now, employees are practicing, experimenting, and eager to showcase their successes. But for the Learn team, this transformation goes even deeper.

My design teams are integrating various AI tools into our practice. These tools support us in generating customized learning materials, assisting with writing, brainstorming, outlining, and proofreading. They help refine grammar and clarity, accelerating the initial stages of developing a learning brief. AI also enhances assessments, creating practice quizzes, flashcards, and simulated scenarios to test comprehension, identify knowledge gaps, and act as a virtual tutor.

Our GenAI platform has fostered a safe environment for simulation, experimentation, and inquiry — allowing employees to explore in a low-risk setting within J&J’s secure ecosystem.

Honestly, I don’t know where this stops because every day, we’re discovering new applications. It’s making a tangible impact, not just in accelerating access to learning for our employees but ultimately in improving outcomes for the patients we serve.

My previous role was as the head of medical education for J&J. We were early experimenters in this space, and I will never forget when we asked ourselves: How do we help surgeons learn faster and gain insights from the world’s leading experts? That led us to integrate machine learning into performance improvement in medical education.

Imagine a brand-new surgeon at a critical moment in a procedure, receiving real-time feedback based on the collective knowledge of expert surgeons to refine their technique. That became a reality about three years ago, it was game-changing. We brought together the best of the best to accelerate the upskilling of the next generation.

That experience is what led me to this role. Because if we could achieve that for our surgeons and the patients they serve, we had to be able to apply the same approach internally. What I described earlier is very much that journey, one leading to complete transparency and personalized learning and development at scale for all employees.

You can see how that journey has evolved. And now, with AI, we are experimenting further. Imagine every learning experience, whether watching a video, listening to a lecture, or engaging in a classroom setting, where an AI-powered tutor provides real-time feedback on how you answer questions, how you perform, and how you coach.

There’s a lot of experimentation in this space right now and it’s not yet where it needs to be because the databases still lack the full breadth of knowledge. Once we get there, I can envision a world of continuous learning and improvement. It brings me back to the early work I did with the surgeon population.

AI isn’t replacing jobs, it’s augmenting them. But I understand the concerns, which is why upskilling is key.

Take my own experience. I was an early adopter of Microsoft Co-Pilot, and after nearly a year, the benefits are undeniable. AI now summarizes key emails, generates action items from meetings, and streamlines my workflow. Tasks that once took hours now take minutes, saving me 30% of my time.

This has led to two major benefits — improved work-life balance and more time for strategic thinking. The same is happening across J&J. We’ve built a skills inventory to ensure our workforce can evolve with technology, moving seamlessly into emerging roles as business needs change.

At the end of the day, our work is centered around innovation, science, and bringing products to market. The work will always need that human element, but people have to be a little bit more agile. That flexible workforce is amazing because people feel like they’re adding so much value to the mission of the company.

We are all navigating the digital transformation of our lives, and creating environments that support learning and growth is one of the most valuable gifts we can offer. The skills that served you yesterday may not be the ones you need tomorrow, so it’s essential to become that curious learner in everything you do.