What are the top Learning and Development Trends for 2026?

As part of its 2026 Global Learning and Skills Trends Report, e-learning platform Udemy has shared its fastest-growing and most consumed business, AI and technical skills.

Data from 2025 reveals that AI learning continues to be a core priority for organisations, but human skills like communication and leadership are on the rise. 

With organisations continuing to advance AI capabilities, the report highlights the need for learning and development opportunities that give employees the best chance to retain and apply their knowledge in the long term. 

Udemy suggests businesses take a multi-layered approach to skills development, with an initial focus on prioritising AI skills to ensure employees are familiar with AI’s language, logic, ethical implications and impact on work. 

From there, skills should be applied in-role, with teams learning applied use cases to integrate AI into daily processes. To build employee AI fluency, Udemy suggests organisations encourage learning spanning traditional functional borders – creating an integrated learning ecosystem that builds long-term knowledge.  

AI-based learning grew the fastest in 2025

Learning and development centred around AI grew significantly, with a 3400% increase in Microsoft Copilot training and a 13,534% increase in GitHub Copilot training across its platform. 

However, as this demand for AI grows within organisations, Udemy says that business leaders cannot focus solely on ensuring employees understand it as a tool. Instead, companies need to prioritise incorporating AI into everyday workflows and teaching AI fluency. 

If employees understand the capabilities and applications of AI solutions within the business, they will feel confident adapting with it and applying it to new use cases – helping organisations evolve alongside new developments. 

According to Udemy, professional services firm Genpact created an immersive 12-week AI learning programme for all 125,000 of its employees to help them develop comprehensive expertise in generative AI and large language models. 

The programme – a combination of courses and proof-of-concept projects – helped employees increase AI skills proficiency by 75%. 

Hugo Sarrazin, President and CEO of Udemy, says: “AI can automate tasks once considered impossible with traditional workflows. This creates urgency for enterprises to build AI fluency to stay competitive, but that alone isn’t enough. 

“The organisations winning today are those treating AI adoption as both a technical and a human transformation. AI is driving efficiency, but humans are driving effectiveness with skills like leadership, adaptability and judgment that machines can’t replace.”

Why immersion beats instruction

New skills are best retained when they are practised and refined in real-world projects, says Udemy. Those who applied skills and received immediate feedback learned three times more efficiently than those who learned purely by lecture. 

In its report, Udemy outlines the lifecycle of successful skills development, with three key stages. 

• Stage one: Skills acquisition, or simply learning a new skill.
• Stage two: Skills mastery, meaning to practice the skill in an immersive environment, such as a real-world scenario or in the flow of work.
• Stage three: Skills relevancy, keeping the skill fresh and up-to-date as the technology and processes evolve. 

By keeping skills relevant as the tools and processes evolve, employees can better adapt to new technologies for long-term career development. 

Human skills and scaling AI

Upskilling and development in relevant AI learning remains a key priority for all businesses, with Udemy reporting 11 million course enrollments in generative AI. However, new transformations like this can only truly succeed with a strong leadership team. 

Udemy reveals that foundational leadership, project management and communication skills are among its top ten most consumed business skills last year.. 

As businesses scale up AI capabilities, leaders need to be prepared to manage the shift. 

Strong leadership can better guide employees on how to critically evaluate AI outputs and apply new tools successfully. An organisation prepared to manage transformative disruptions like AI will be in a stronger position long term, keeping its workforce adaptable for current and future transformations, according to Udemy.

The report recommends developing skills such as critical thinking and judgement, building up the ability to operate amid uncertainty and encouraging innovation and creativity across businesses.