Workera introduces AI mentor Sage for personalized skill assessment
CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES — Workera CEO Kian Katanforoosh, mentored by renowned AI expert Andrew Ng, is set to redefine mentorship with Sage, an AI-powered agent.
Sage aims to provide personalized skill assessments and learning recommendations through conversational AI. Designed to meet employees where they are, Sage evaluates proficiency across various fields like machine learning, writing, and math, then suggests courses from platforms like Coursera and Workday.
“I trust Andrew because of his expertise, but how many Andrews are there in the world?” said Katanforoosh. “Automating mentorship was critical.”
This innovative platform, set to launch in November 2024, aims to bridge the gap in professional development for remote workers and democratize access to personalized mentorship.
Balancing AI and human mentorship
While Sage excels at skill assessment and recommending learning paths, Katanforoosh acknowledges its limitations. The AI mentor cannot replicate the emotional support, encouragement, and networking opportunities that human mentors provide.
“A good mentor needs to assess properly, because unless the mentor can assess accurately, it cannot help you… That’s one that can be automated,” said Katanforoosh.
“In fact, I’m pretty confident measurement systems we have today are better than most people; I would trust the Workera system much more than I trust myself at measuring someone’s machine learning skills.”
By automating certain aspects of mentorship, Sage aims to free up human managers to focus on providing the crucial interpersonal support that AI cannot yet replicate.
Tackling bias and challenges
Workera’s AI models, powered primarily by OpenAI’s GPT-4 technology, are designed to mitigate bias in assessments. Katanforoosh, who teaches a bias mitigation course at Stanford, is confident that AI can offer more equitable assessments than human mentors, who are often swayed by superficial traits.
“AI is already much less biased, and will become even less biased than humans in the coming years,” Katanforoosh noted.
While Sage doesn’t replace human mentorship entirely, Katanforoosh believes it can free up managers to focus on the emotional and personal aspects of mentorship that AI cannot automate.
As remote work reshapes how employees receive mentorship, tools like Sage could provide a crucial bridge in a time when in-person guidance is becoming rarer.
AI revolutionizes executive training with virtual case studies
AI is also emerging as a transformative tool in executive corporate training, particularly in refining the well-established business school case study method.
Abilitie, a corporate training company, has introduced a series of AI-powered “case studies” designed to teach crucial business skills through interactive scenarios.
The company’s innovative approach allows managers to practice handling complex workplace situations by conversing with AI-generated characters. One such character is Peter Choi, a virtual employee whose performance issues and conference requests present a challenging management scenario.
After eight months and $2 million in development, Abilitie now offers 24 AI-driven case studies that cover topics from people management to financial decision-making.
