16 Enterprise LMS Trends Shaping 2026: An Analyst’s View

Tired of tracking a flood of annual tech forecasts that don’t stand the test of time? I get it.

When the world is moving at a staggering pace, it’s tempting to tune out and focus on immediate to-do lists. That’s a pragmatic way to get through the day. But none of us can turn off the rolling tide of innovation. Nor can we afford to turn our backs on it.

So, here’s my answer:

Rather than generating a bunch of pie-in-the-sky predictions, I’m mapping enterprise LMS trends to what I see and hear directly from learning systems buyers and sellers.

After all, vendors are on the front lines, listening to what the market tells them. They’re winning and losing every day. Their roadmaps are their lifeblood. And collectively, those roadmaps reflect what future-minded buying organizations value most.

I work at the center of these LMS market dynamics. And during the past year, while helping more than 20 clients find the best learning solution for their needs, I’ve evaluated what’s new and what’s coming from nearly 200 vendors.

Although I keep a sharp eye on broader tech advances, I’m always grounded in the realities that LMS buyers and sellers face. So, with this in mind, I’m focusing on 16 enterprise LMS trends in 3 categories:

• What to Expect From AI in 2026
• Where Learning Systems Vendors are Headed
• How Market Needs Are Shifting

Take a closer look with me…

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Enterprise LMS Trends: What to Expect From AI in 2026

1. Don’t Worry. Our Jobs Are Safe From AI (For Now)

Last year, many of us worried about the impact artificial intelligence would have on our long-term relevance. Those fears may be well-founded. But I’m much less concerned today. Why?

2025 reminded me of something I learned years ago as an instructional technology grad student. Technologies will come and go. Our job is to apply whatever is available to enhance proven learning theories. The world depends on us to test new tools and find their limits.

Now that generative AI has been widely available for 3 years, most of us have learned its limits the hard way. AI is not a set-it-and-forget-it tool. If we rely on it too heavily, it will let us down – sometimes in ways we can’t anticipate. So, we humans need to remain in the loop, thoughtfully guiding and steering AI tools to achieve high-quality, measurable outcomes.

My best advice is to keep learning every day and stay committed to reinvention that adds strategic value. As EPAM Systems VP, Angela Masella, recently said in an online roundtable:

“Everybody hears about new roles that will exist tomorrow. We can be fearful because we don’t know what to expect, or decide this is an opportunity to create the future. I’m inspired, knowing the jobs of 3, 5 or 10 years from now don’t exist. As a learning community, we get to learn and build the future pipeline of talent for those jobs.”

And having moved through more than a few “transformative” tech cycles and “paradigm shifts,” I agree wholeheartedly.

2. LMS Vendors Keep Struggling to Differentiate

After 30 years in the learning system industry, I’m always fascinated to see history repeat itself. Way back in the Jurassic Period of elearning (the 1990s and early 2000s), only a few LMSs roamed the Earth. They had grown into mammoth beasts that attempted to do everything for every use case. And they did it all poorly.

Solutions had reached parity, but potential buyers were scarce. To differentiate, vendors raced to develop new features that organizations and users didn’t want or couldn’t use. Switching to a new LMS got you nothing. Everyone hated their LMS.

Then, the cloud computing era gave birth to SaaS solutions, which inspired hundreds of new vendors to enter the learning systems market. Almost immediately, everything changed.

Today, the LMS landscape feels like those pre-cloud days. Many platforms offer similar functional footprints, license models, costs, services, roadmaps, messaging, websites, and market strategies.

Finding enough sales opportunities to sustain healthy growth is getting tougher and tougher. And vendors are racing to innovate so they can clearly differentiate their offering and attract more potential clients.

The industry is ready for another truly disruptive event. Is AI the answer? Maybe.

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3. AI Obsession Continues to Intensify…

Vendors think AI is the answer. Every existing and new learning tech company I meet is touting some kind of real or imagined AI innovation. At this point, it’s not an overstatement to say many are so terrified of becoming irrelevant that they’re obsessed with AI.

The list of perceived AI “must haves” is mind-bending: content generation, recommendations, learner and admin agents, simulations, localizations, hyper- personalization, ILT/VILT/AILT scheduling, skill analysis and management, flow-of-work learning, microlearning, career modeling, automatic content updates, reporting based on natural language processing, predictive analytics, survey sentiment analysis, ROI analysis. The list goes on.

Sound too good to be true? In some cases, yes. But if you think this AI obsession is mostly smoke and mirrors, think again.

I’m seeing strong examples of AI tools that keep pushing the envelope. How so? For a taste of what’s happening at the leading edge, look at the latest from 20 vendors that continue to expand their AI repertoire:

EXAMPLES OF NEW AI FUNCTIONALITY

• Absorb – AI-powered tools that manage administrative tasks much more quickly, intelligently, and efficiently.
• Administrate – An AI-driven ILT scheduler creates plans that coordinate courses, locations, instructors, equipment, travel, and other logistics at scale.
• Authentic Labs – Offers an AI-based video player that converts any media into an effective learning experience.
• Bongo – An AI grading agent that analyzes and scores sales presentations for sales team certification at scale.
• ClearCompany – Helps recruiters find and prioritize best-fit job candidates with AI that scores and ranks applicants by role relevance, skills, and experience.
• Continu – AI-based learner agent taps into existing knowledge and courses to deliver precise, personalized, secure answers.
• Cornerstone – Fueled by the world’s largest labor data set of +140 million learners, AI tailors learning recommendations, growth paths, and insights for employees and HR leaders.
• CYPHER Learning – An in-the-flow-of-work AI learning agent that adapts to an individual’s role, history, and skill-level.
• D2L – Automatically develops AI-generated captions for any video in any language.
• DigitalChalk – AI-driven analytics provide real-time performance insights to refine content, inform decisions, and improve learner success.
• Docebo – Realistic role-specific AI simulations and analytics that help teams practice, improve, and grow.
• Intellum – AI-powered course authoring that leverages existing source materials and instructional design.
• Learnie – AI-enabled deep search into content, including dozens of AI-localized videos, quizzes, and courses.
• LearnUpon – Its generative AI course authoring tool produces an evidence-based first draft course in minutes, based on existing materials and learner preferences.
• LemonadeLXP – A compliance AI agent automatically flags affected courses and updates content when rules, policies, or procedures change.
• Litmos – Provides an AI admin assistant that streamlines automation and manages repetitive LMS tasks like course assignment, team placement, and content navigation.
• MetaLark.AI – AI agent that analyzes LMS content libraries to generate metadata, map skills, and identify outdated content.
• Pifini – Offers an AI assistant that listens to live sales conversations, providing real-time prompts, guidance, and resources from learning and organizational content.
• Schoox – Helps organizations prioritize training investments with a tailored AI model that maps specific skills to every role.
• Totara – Improves learning engagement and outcomes with AI-driven content recommendations based on individual interests and learning preferences.

This only scratches the surface. But see what I mean? AI-obsessed!

4. …But Sana is an Outlier

Speaking of sky-high AI obsessions, hopes, and expectations, let’s talk about the Sana-Workday deal. There’s nothing like a $1.2 billion acquisition to catch the attention of more than 1000 other learning systems vendors. Still, no matter how much agentic learning you develop, it’s rare for companies with ocean-deep pockets like Workday to overpay drastically for technology.

Congratulations to Sana Labs, for a brilliant chess move. And next?

5. LMS Buyers Continue to be AI-Cautious (Wisely)

Among the many learning system buyers I worked with in 2025, none are putting AI first. Of course, they’re AI-curious, but most are also AI-cautious. And I don’t blame them.

With so much at stake in enterprise environments, AI caution naturally rules. I see hesitation in small regional teams, as well as large, global organizations. However, as tech trend-spotter William Gibson famously said,

“The future is already here. It’s just not yet evenly distributed.”

In other words, learning leaders and business decision makers are in widely different places with AI. Some have established clear strategies, formal governance, and actionable rules. Meanwhile, others still deny AI is real or directly relevant to their objectives.

So, how can learning teams mind the gap? One of the most-requested AI features I see is an admin control panel to enable/disable a learning platform’s various AI capabilities. This kind of feature is important as organizations move through AI adoption with varying speeds and levels of confidence.

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6. AI Disruption Slows License Model Shifts

For most of the LMS market’s history, pricing lagged usage reality. Named user licenses were simple to sell but rigid and poorly suited for external audiences. Eventually, vendors introduced license models based on annual active users (AAU) to improve flexibility. And then another shift to monthly active users (MAU) finally brought buyers and sellers to a workable middle ground.

For the first time, LMS buyers and vendors largely agreed on what “fair” looks like when paying for platform usage. MAU aligns cost with actual consumption, supports seasonal and episodic learning, and fits how modern learning programs operate.

But now, AI is disrupting that fragile equilibrium. Some vendors are experimenting with AI credits and consumption-based pricing borrowed from adjacent industries. In theory, this makes sense. But in practice, it clashes with how learning teams operate.

Most learning organizations plan and defend annual budgets. They can’t absorb unpredictable cost swings driven by AI usage patterns they don’t fully control. The risk profile is simply too high.

As a result, most LMS vendors are quietly folding AI costs into base license pricing – at least for now. This approach keeps buying simple and budgets stable, but it isn’t sustainable over the long-term. The LMS market hasn’t solved AI pricing yet. It’s just delaying the reckoning.

Enterprise LMS Trends: Where Learning Systems Vendors Are Headed

1. Acquired LMS Specialists Continue to Vanish

The problem is (and always has been) this: To succeed, learning systems vendors must learn the learning business. They must know it intimately. It can’t be a side gig.

I’ve always believed that big, all-purpose learning platform companies like Absorb, Cornerstone, D2L, Docebo, LearnUpon, and Litmos would purchase expert specialists in customer education, partner education, or professional education. It seemed like the smartest way to accelerate entry into niche external learning use cases.

But the market hasn’t moved in that direction. The big boys have decided to move organically toward external audience functionality. In contrast, many complementary category software leaders are acquiring learning solutions to round out their core product suites:

EXAMPLES OF CATEGORY LEADER ACQUISITIONS

• ASI (AMS) and WBT Systems
• ClearCompany (talent management) and Brainier
• Gainsight (customer success) and Skilljar
• The Learning Network (custom content) and LogicBay
• Workday (ERP) and Sana Labs
• Cadmium (event management) and EthosCE, or more recently CommPartners Elevate LMS
• Momentive (AMS/community systems) and Crowd Wisdom, or more recently BlueSky eLearn.

How effective will this approach be? Time will tell. Historically, when companies in complementary markets acquire learning system solutions, the combined businesses underperform. Their learning R&D slows, their learning expertise fades, they raise prices, dilute their support, generalize sales expertise, lose their competitive edge, and cease to impress clients.

I know, because their clients eventually seek my help to find their next learning system.

Ironically, these acquisitions are intended to shake up the market’s idea of what’s possible. Vendors want to make learning more applicable to the broader business and integrate it in a more measurable way.

That’s a great idea in theory. But learning the learning business is tougher than it looks.

Nevertheless, I expect to see more of this action in the near term. So, keep an eye out for similar moves to acquire specialists like Authentic, Eurekos, Intellum, Learnie, LearningCart, pifini, or Thought Industries.

2. The LMS Pendulum Swings Back to Full Extended Enterprise Solutions

Think of an extended enterprise LMS as a platform that supports employees, while simultaneously supporting the needs of audiences across a company’s broader value chain: channel partners, contractors, individual and organizational customers, potential customers, and even students.

When a company doesn’t think holistically about the learning needs of its extended enterprise ecosystem, it tends to collect a bunch of LMSs that serve individual audiences. This siloed approach leads to licensing costs that are typically 2-3 times higher than needed, plus extra content costs, a lack of strategic visibility, and many other inefficiencies.

A curious by-product emerges when industry leaders acquire complementary LMSs. It actually strengthens the argument for buyers to invest in a single extended enterprise learning system to serve all audiences.

When the number of specialists declines, buyers hear less about the advantages of niche solutions and more about the benefits of all-in-one platforms. As the spiral continues, fewer specialists remain on the field. Eventually, only all-in-one players remain (until at some point, the pendulum starts to swing back again).

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3. Professional Education Specialists Take Center Stage

I’m steeped in this segment, helping organizations find the best learning platform to support high-stakes test preparation, certification, and continuing education. For associations, non-profits, and NGOs, selling educational content is a critical component of their revenue mix. And among companies that sell instructional content as a business, selling more content more efficiently is always a priority.

In all cases, the stakes are too high to buy a learning system without careful consideration. Even with AI, developing quality content is expensive and time-sensitive. It’s imperative for providers to drive market access and sell in ways that maximize ROI.

This LMS segment is dominated by specialists like aNewSpring, Authentic Labs, BenchPrep, D2L, Eurekos, Forj, Learnie, LearningCart, Oasis LMS, and Totara. All of these vendors devote the lion’s share of R&D to functionality that helps continuing education providers expand their reach, grow revenues, and operate profitably.

4. Coursera Acquires Udemy (Yawn)

At face value, Coursera acquiring Udemy looks like a classic curated-versus-open content debate. Credentialed university partners versus anyone-can-teach practitioners. Enterprise credibility versus grassroots reach.

Plenty of smart people see it from that angle. But I don’t find that framing particularly compelling.

People don’t wake up wanting to take courses. They want to achieve their goals. Sometimes that means completing a certified, high-stakes test prep. Other times it’s about watching a scrappy, 5-minute video on how to prune a cherry tree. Short or long, formal or informal, good content is always rewarded.

The issue here is that neither model – fully curated nor fully open – has delivered well on its promise. So, this deal looks less like a philosophical shift and more like an admission that existing structures don’t align with how people want to learn.

What is changing is how learning is created, discovered, and experienced by informal and formal learners. Tools for finding, authoring, marketing, and selling content at scale are now widely available. AI-powered agents personalize learning paths, summarize content, and guide individuals through educational experiences. But they work far better inside consolidated ecosystems than across fragmented catalogs and competing platforms.

As learning becomes less course-centric and more adaptive, scale and integration matter more than ideology. Consolidation is the natural outcome.

Can’t beat ’em? Join ’em.

5. European Learning Systems Make Bold Moves

Historically, European companies adopted enterprise learning technologies more slowly than their North American counterparts. No more. The European learning systems market is on fire. Over the last 2-3 years, I’ve seen strong momentum from LMS buyers across all core use cases.

One reason adoption was slower in the past is because European companies tend to operate at a country level. This creates technology silos. And until recently, learning systems weren’t strong enough to support learning diversity across countries – at least not in 25 languages concurrently.

North American LMS vendors tend to think localizing the user interface is a sufficient globalization effort. But what about UI, text expansion/summarization, reporting, catalogs, user preferences, notifications, regulations, security, GDPR, administration, admin support, sales support, and implementation? And more importantly, what about localization and management of written content, videos, pdfs, titles, descriptions, images, and other elements?

When we didn’t step up, LMS solutions outside North America built what they needed. Now, they’re leading the way. In particular, Eurekos, Melting Spot, Sana, SAP, Schoox, Scheer IMC, Training Orchestra, Totara and Valamis come to mind as global learning contenders.

But recently, major North American vendors are making great strides. For instance, Absorb, CYPHER Learning, D2L, Docebo, LearnUpon, and Litmos are catching up by leveraging AI to automate complex localization challenges and business processes. These advanced capabilities are driving a pent-up wave of LMS demand, modernization, and system consolidation.

When comparing domestic learning systems with international players, I’m reminded of the famous quote about dancing legends, Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire:

“Sure, he was great. But remember, Ginger Rogers did everything he did…backwards and in high heels.”

Impressive stuff, all around.

Enterprise LMS Trends 2026: How Market Needs Are Shifting

1. Customer Education Revolves Around Revenue Enablement

Customer education has matured into a full bell curve. On the left are a few remaining companies that still aren’t onboard. On the right are a growing number of organizations that generate measurable income from customer enablement. But most are somewhere in the middle.

What has changed? Perception. Revenue enablement from customer education is no longer an aspiration. It is achievable. And increasingly, it is expected. At last, the entire bell curve is shifting to the right! Why?

Originally, customer education focused on accelerating the onboarding process. Then, it expanded to include support for ongoing customer success, upselling/cross-selling, and advocacy. Along the way, organizations measured success primarily through cost and efficiency metrics: shorter onboarding cycles, fewer support calls, quicker resolution times, faster customer time-to-value, and increased satisfaction. All of these metrics matter. But none make a team indispensable when budgets tighten.

That’s why more customer education teams are taking a more difficult next step by linking their efforts to revenue. Sales performance metrics command attention across the organization. And by demonstrating added value, customer education gains stronger support.

This is why more teams are tying their success directly or indirectly to metrics like pipeline growth, conversion rates, sales cycle velocity, deal size, product expansion, usage depth, and renewal rates.

Think of this sprint to revenue as a flywheel. And you can expect customer education teams as well as learning systems vendors to continue focusing on momentum in 2026 and beyond.

2. Differentiators Include Advanced eCommerce and Organization Management

Increasingly, vendors set themselves apart with features that help organizational customers manage other organizations, as well as individual learners.

Most LMSs can group learners, but organizational customers are different. Bulk purchases can happen within the LMS, or outside the platform as part of a larger contract. Either way, when the LMS learns about the purchase, it automatically sets up an organizational area and populates it with the right content by role. The best solutions also provide delegated administration and various ways to populate learners, dashboards, reports, and much more.

Among customer/partner learning programs, associations, and commercial training providers, this feature set is in high demand, yet it is hard to find. Expect that to change as more vendors move upstream with these capabilities.

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3. Learning Operations Keeps Chugging Along

Although learning operations may not be top of mind for many of us, I love this “workhorse” segment of the learning systems landscape. It’s not glamorous, but it is so necessary.

Numerous vendors are quietly succeeding in this corner of the market, including accessplanit, Administrate, Arlo, aXcelerate, Cognota, Gyrus, SimpliTrain, Training Orchestra, and more. All have discovered that traditional LMSs offer only lightweight support for managing ILT/VILT programs. Yet, countless training companies and Fortune 2000 organizations rely heavily on live and hybrid training.

Often, they must schedule, staff, and execute hundreds or even thousands of courses every month, quarter or year. Sometimes, these are one-off events. In other cases, programs run continuously, like clockwork.

For example, say you need to deliver a leadership development program for 36 months. You schedule it at 3:00 p.m. ET, alternating between in-person and virtual delivery, while accounting for holidays, instructor availability, materials shipment, and out-of-office time.

This level of operational complexity is where LMS platforms routinely fall short. But a good learning operations application automates the entire process without conflicts, whether you schedule a session once or 20 times in a year.

Vendors in this segment fill a costly ILT gap by providing advanced planning, scheduling, logistics, communications, and measurement capabilities. This unlocks meaningful ROI from processes that otherwise remain buried in spreadsheets, manual coordination, and unnecessary administrative overhead.

4. Extended Enterprise Wins Long-Overdue L&D Interest (Maybe?)

After years in this world, I’m used to seeing the mainstream L&D and HR mostly ignore extended enterprise learning. But at this point, the continued lack of interest seems foolish.

Many corporate learning professionals are responsible for serving external audiences, but they’re underserved by the broader learning community. It’s time for a more expansive perspective.

For instance, why don’t ATD or HR Tech conferences include association learning or customer/partner education tracks? DevLearn finally broke through in 2025 with a pre-conference customer education summit, but that was the result of heroic, grass-roots efforts by CEdMA leaders.

Extended enterprise learning deserves much more than a sidebar. This sector brings unique use cases, vendors, solutions, strategies, and best practices. Why not create space for people to gather and share related knowledge at industry conferences?

I hope this changes soon. But after being rejected as a speaker too many times over the years, I won’t hold my breath.

5. Skills Take Another Turn at Bat

Early in my learning tech career, skills were very much in vogue. I worked for a high-end learning content and consulting company that built custom skills and competency models for Fortune 1000 sales teams. Those comprehensive models combined sales, leadership, product knowledge, and solution selling skills tied to measurable goals and outcomes.

The underlying skill concepts were progressive and complex, requiring top-to-bottom organizational alignment. They were also difficult, time-consuming, expensive, and impractical to develop.

But now, learning teams are better equipped to give it another try. Why?

Organizations can assemble skill models from public frameworks, generate them with AI, or combine both approaches. AI agents can search, index, tag, and map skills across third-party and proprietary content libraries. Generative AI can rapidly author learning objectives, assessments, and content aligned to those skills. Skills can be mapped automatically to jobs, roles, and locations.

This foundation is necessary to move from static course catalogs to flexible, measurable career development. But AI and other technologies still can’t achieve political and cultural top-to-bottom alignment. They can’t make executives care or ensure that they continue caring. Until this becomes a reality, skills are still just a futuristic vision for most organizations.

A Final Word on Enterprise LMS Trends

Well, there you have it, folks – the 16 enterprise LMS trends I’m watching most closely this year! It’s a lot to take in, so here’s one last piece of advice:

New enterprise LMS trends will always be on the radar. So, don’t focus on everything at once. That’s overwhelming. Instead, choose several trends that most closely fit your situation and objectives. Dig deeper. Let them inform next steps in your strategy. Remember to build-in milestones. And then check your progress periodically, as the environment changes.

The learning systems world won’t stand still. But if you stay focused and flexible, by this time next year, you’ll be making measurable headway. And that’s a future we all want.

Thanks for reading. And have a successful year!

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