Customer Education Predictions for 2026: AI Delivery, Curriculum Strategy, and the LMS Market Shift
I’m always trying to make sense of where customer education is headed: what’s shifting, what’s working, and what’s quietly becoming obsolete. After supporting mid-size and enterprise organizations at Echtus, and seeing trends emerge across thousands of practitioners in CustomerEducation.org (come join us!), the patterns are hard to ignore.
Here are the three customer education trends I believe will define 2026, and what they mean for your programs.
1. The buzz around AI-generated content will shift toward AI-powered delivery
Last year brought an explosion of AI-generated content tools. Teams raced to create more lessons, more transcripts, more videos using AI, assuming volume would inherently drive value.
But here’s the truth many teams are discovering:
Quantity is irrelevant if the delivery isn’t effective.
AI has become exceptional at automating production. But the organizations seeing real impact aren’t using AI to pump out content; they’re using it to deliver learning better. Expect to see investment realigned toward technologies that:
Adapt content to the learner’s context
Recommend the right next step based on behavior
Provide real-time coaching or nudges
Automate assessments and feedback loops
Surface insights on where learners get stuck
In 2026, AI won’t be the content creator, but instead the delivery engine. The teams who use it this way will scale faster, with far better outcomes.
2. Strong curriculum design will finally get the attention (and budget) it deserves
We’re in the middle of a mindset shift: leaders are realizing that customer education doesn’t drive impact simply because content exists.
Impact only happens when the curriculum is built to change the right behaviors.
This requires clarity on:
Who you’re designing for
What they need to do differently
What business metrics those behaviors influence
This is why it's crucial to define outcomes, map competencies, and ensure every asset has a purpose.
I’m seeing more leaders step back and ask:
“What problem are we solving?”
“What behavior do we expect to change?”
“How will we measure it?”
That shift from content production to curriculum strategy is the inflection point that separates programs that look impressive on paper from those that consistently move the business forward.
3. Expect a shake-up among the top LMS platforms
Hot take: the LMS landscape is overdue for disruption.
The one-size-fits-all platforms that dominated the last decade are struggling to keep pace with what modern customer education requires:
Personalization
Behavioral data
Integration with customer workflows
External audience scalability
Clear connection to revenue and retention metrics
As companies mature, they’re outgrowing legacy LMS models that were built for internal compliance training rather than customer-centric, product-driven learning.
Meanwhile, boutique platforms with laser-focused capabilities are on the rise:
Purpose-built external academies
Certification-focused systems
Role-based enablement platforms
Product adoption ecosystems
Tools designed for partner learning and revenue expansion
These specialized platforms don’t try to be everything to everyone; they’re engineered for the outcomes businesses actually care about.
So… will I be right?
Only time will tell. But these predictions aren’t just random guesses, they’re grounded in what I’m seeing every day.
At Echtus, we work with companies across industries, maturity levels, and regions. When you’re reviewing programs every week, diagnosing bottlenecks, and helping teams align education to revenue and retention outcomes, patterns become hard to miss.
This next chapter of customer education is going to be a big one, and the teams who prepare now will be in a much stronger position heading into 2026. If you’re rethinking your education strategy and want clarity on where to focus for measurable impact, schedule a meeting with me. Let’s make sure your program is built for the outcomes that matter.
