Cornerstone OnDemand Reimagines
the Workplace Learning Experience

Market-leader debuts solution with AI-powered personalization, playlist creation, curation and collaboration features, as well as a new content subscription offering, to help employees develop the skills they need to stay ahead

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — June 6, 2017 — Cornerstone OnDemand (NASDAQ:CSOD), a global leader in cloud-based learning and human capital management software, today announced plans to reimagine workplace learning with the launch of a learning experience platform and a new subscription content offering tied to the Cornerstone Learning suite.

Taking a more holistic approach to corporate learning, Cornerstone will enhance its industry-leading learning platform, Cornerstone Learning, by adding personalized, employee-centric digital learning capabilities. This will include a new “Netflix-style” user interface with curated content recommendations, as well as playlist, collaboration and sharing capabilities similar to Spotify. The company will also launch a progressive content subscription service featuring video-enabled, mobile-ready courses that will be continually refreshed from leading providers, including TED, Grovo, PowerForward and CyberU.

Cornerstone’s innovations are in response to the societal, economic and technological shifts that are sparking a disruption in jobs and the skills needed to perform them:

• Research from McKinsey indicates that 45 percent of job activities for both low-skill, low-wage roles and high-paid occupations can be automated with current technologies.

• The half-life of workplace skills has fallen to as little as five years.

• Robots are expected to make 25 million jobs obsolete over the next 10 years according to a Forrester Report.

• Organizations are finding it difficult to boost employee education and skills training fast enough to keep pace with change.

Cornerstone’s new comprehensive approach addresses the needs of both organizations and learners – putting employees in control of their career development and allowing for learning to occur in more natural ways as part of a daily work flow. And it enables organizations to weave continuous learning into all areas of their employee experience and gain valuable insight into the ROI of initiatives because it is built on Cornerstone’s broader human capital management platform, unlike most offerings on the market today. The digital learning enhancements to Cornerstone Learning, as well as the new content subscription service, are expected to be available fall 2017.

A Personalized Digital Learning Experience

Expanding on Cornerstone Learning suite’s deep functionality, such as compliance and certifications, instructor-led training, blended learning, collaborative learning, and “push and pull” development, Cornerstone’s new digital learning capabilities create a personalized learning experience for individuals. New features will include:

• "Netflix-style" User Experience. Cornerstone Learning will simplify discovery with a new, personalized interface, including tiled visual browsing of courses and predictive search, all designed to make it easier and more intuitive for people to explore content and learn something new at their own pace and at their own time of need.

• Curated Content and Learning Paths. The new digital learning experience supports various types of content curation. In addition to manual curation of courses by learning administrators, the system will automatically identify and recommend courses based on a user’s interests, preferences and aspirations, powered by Cornerstone’s proprietary machine learning algorithm. The system also will automatically identify the best learning paths by role or career trajectory to help employees pursue their ambitions.

• Learning Playlists. Similar to the Spotify model, employees are able to create and share their own learning playlists with professional and proprietary courses, as well as informal learning content from outside the system, such as relevant articles or YouTube videos.

• Expert and Peer Collaboration. Adding to Cornerstone’s existing collaborative learning capabilities, new functionality will include cloud sharing, enabling co-browsing and allowing people to visually collaborate and broadcast live training in real-time. Users will also be able to easily schedule live training sessions, identify subject matter experts and connect with peers who share similar learning interests.

• Credit for Informal Learning. Using X-API (the experience API), Cornerstone will make it possible for individuals to get credit for all of their learning experiences, whether formal or informal. Additionally, organizations will be able to gain better insight into and capture their employees’ informal learning activities via Cornerstone.

Modern Content for Self-Directed Learning

In addition to the learning experience platform, the company is launching a subscription content offering, Cornerstone Content Anytime, to simplify the acquisition and curation of modern training content for Cornerstone’s clients. Initially, Cornerstone’s new content service will feature approximately 3,000 courses across a depth and breadth of topics geared toward helping employees close skill gaps and develop personally and professionally via self-directed learning opportunities. This includes courses focused on both “hard skills” – those of particular relevance to a role – and “soft skills” – personal attributes such as effective communication, critical thinking, collaboration and problem-solving needed to be successful in today’s work environment. Course categories will include office productivity, health and wellness, software development, business, sales and marketing, design and web development, among others.

Courses will be continually added and refreshed to stay current, with cross-portal content recommendations across Cornerstone’s massive user base, ensuring the best content rises to the top. Future plans for the service include the addition of industry-specific content, as well as expert-curated content.

The new service will support all types of modern learning, from micro-learning (shorter, easily consumable courses) and macro-learning (deeper mastery of a subject or skill), to spaced-learning (courses broken into sections, with timed intervals for questioning in between).

Cornerstone has formed strategic relationships with premier learning content providers, who will be the first to contribute content when the service launches in the fall. Participating companies will include:

• CyberU, which delivers online learning tailored for the digital era by assembling contemporary curated content from over 75 expert instructors and publishers, designed to appeal to today’s workers.

• Grovo, the leader in micro-learning and an innovator in workplace learning technology, which provides bite-sized video lessons on the topics 21st-century employees need to thrive.

• PowerForward, which provides interactive video lessons to help develop individuals and build championship teams, founded by Mike Krzyzewski (Coach K), coach of Duke Men’s Basketball and USA Basketball, and featuring world-class leaders across all walks of life.

• TED, a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or fewer) delivered by today’s leading thinkers and doers.

Comments on the News

“No one corporate learning solution exists today that supports the extensive learning requirements of organizations around the world and the personalized learning experience individuals crave. Our latest product innovations, coupled with our new content subscription service, will change that,” said Adam Miller, founder and CEO of Cornerstone OnDemand. “We want to become the central hub for all learning content in the world, and our scale, machine learning technology and deep learning expertise uniquely position us to bring this vision to life.”

“The corporate learning landscape is undergoing a transformation as companies realize the importance of delivering a compelling digital learning experience,” said Josh Bersin, principal and founder, Bersin by Deloitte, Deloitte Consulting LLP.1 “New offerings that enable organizations to consistently bring fresh, personalized content to their employees in a way that’s familiar and efficient can dramatically help speed skill development and encourage a stronger culture of continuous learning.”

Additional Details

• Watch live as Cornerstone founder and CEO Adam Miller talks about reimagining the workplace learning experience in his Convergence 2017 opening keynote on Tuesday, June 6 at 11:30 a.m. ET / 8:30 a.m. PT here: http://www.cornerstoneconvergence.com/ >

• Tune in to Cornerstone’s Facebook Live event, “The Learning Technology of Tomorrow,” to watch a panel of experts discuss how modern learning will engage today’s workforce. The live event will be on Tuesday, June 6 at 3:30 p.m. ET / 12:30 p.m. PT here: https://www.facebook.com/csodcommunity/