Case study: How a community-based learning initiative helped Fortune 1000 embrace AI

Back in early 2023-2024, just as the world was waking up to ChatGPT, I was working at WeSchool, an education consultancy and learning platform vendor. The founder and CEO came to us with an idea to launch an experiment called Teaching Humans with the goal of sparking conversations with learning and development (L&D)  professionals at large organizations and shape together this new L&D+AI space. It became an unexpected growth engine—drawing in over 800 professionals from the L&D space through a unique mix of AI-powered challenges, workshops, and community-sharing. It didn’t just create buzz; it created real business outcomes: discovery calls, partnerships, and conversations with companies we wouldn't have reached otherwise.

Why AI and onboarding needed each other now

In 2023, L&D, instructional design, and enablement teams were under pressure. Budgets were flat, but expectations were rising. Teams were trying to do more—faster—with fewer resources. Sound familiar?

The emergence of AI tools like ChatGPT, Midjourney, and others brought a new promise: automate the boring stuff and give creators superpowers. But here’s the problem—most L&D teams didn’t know where to start or how to make sense of all the hype.

That’s where we saw opportunity. We launched Teaching Humans to help professionals explore this new frontier together. Instead of giving them another whitepaper or webinar, we created a net-new format: 4 AI-powered challenges designed to tackle real L&D tasks with the human-AI combo.

What happened surpassed our expectations—and more importantly, gave us deep insights into what effective digital education looks like when AI is involved.

How we turned a campaign into a learning movement

The concept: Learning made for humans, with AI by their side

Teaching Humans was born around one core question: What does instructional design look like when AI becomes your co-pilot?

Rather than launching a course or static resource hub, we designed a 4-week experience with weekly challenges:

• Challenge 1: Use AI to rapidly generate a course syllabus for a real company use case
• Challenge 2: Create inclusive learning materials by aligning AI prompts with UDL (Universal Design for Learning) principles
• Challenge 3: Build a learning chatbot to support real-time learner questions using tools like Chatbase and GPTLab
• Challenge 4: Use AI tools to analyze course engagement data and recommend optimizations

Each challenge was coupled with a masterclass, real-time Slack support, and weekly Zoom sessions featuring experts like Ross Stevenson, founder of Steal These Thoughts and AI-in-L&D strategist.

What worked (and what teams can learn from it)

01. Value-first activation, not gated lead gen

Most SaaS lead magnets are predictable: PDFs, checklists, and webinars you’ll never really watch. What Teaching Humans proved was that interactive, high-utility learning experiences convert better than static content.

02. AI lowers the barrier to ship—especially in onboarding

Participants told us repeatedly: before Teaching Humans, they'd spent weeks or months building training and onboarding content for new hires or customers. Now, they were drafting outlines, training bots, and analyzing performance data within hours.

This mirrors what’s happening across modern tools. Companies now expect teams to build internal documentation that 'lives', not 'sits'. AI changes both the speed and fidelity of course building and onboarding.

03. Community creates trust—and insight

The most powerful part of Teaching Humans wasn’t the content. It was the participants. Our conversations with L&D leaders, learning designers, consultants, and enablement specialists created a high-signal feedback loop: What are they interested in? What are their blockers? How are they actually using tools like Synthesia or Jasper?

We turned that insight into content, product feedback, and even go-to-market ideas. Slack, Miro, and Figma all lean on vibrant communities to spark usage and ideas. WeSchool did the same—at scale, with no ads—and our sales pipeline thanked us for it.

04. The human factor never goes away

Despite the hype, AI didn’t threaten anyone’s job in our experiment. It enhanced it. Participants learned how to bring more context, emotion, and inclusion into their experiences by using AI strategically—not lazily.

And that’s the thing founders and product teams should get: AI is not your onboarding. You still need to design the moment, the outcome, the message. And that's were Qurioos can help.

The outcomes (in numbers)

• 800+ L&D professionals joined organically
• Over 50 demos/conversations booked during or shortly after the campaign

More importantly, we opened doors we couldn’t have with cold outreach. When people feel seen, helped, and invited to co-build something new—they convert, stay, and advocate.

That’s product-led learning. That’s community-first marketing. That’s AI-powered onboarding done right.

Takeaways for SaaS teams building academies, courses and other education

• Create learning challenges—not just documentation. Help users explore what’s possible first.
• Build with your audience. Use feedback loops constantly. Slack channels, Loom replies, live Q&As—they all work.
• Teach with AI, not just about it. Let users do, not just read.
• Focus on mindset shifts, not features. The aha moment matters more than the how-to.
• Anchor everything in a core challenge your users face. For us, it was: "How do I adapt now that AI is reshaping L&D?"

If you’re building onboarding journeys or customer education flows, you can apply the same mindset.

FAQs

How did you promote the teaching humans campaign?

We used a mix of targeted LinkedIn campaigns, personal messages from our team, community partner shoutouts, and a landing page optimized for conversion—no gated content, just clarity of value.

How long did the program run?

4 weeks. Participants could join and complete challenges on their own schedule.

Why not just release a course or masterclass?

Courses are valuable, but interaction and challenge-based design drives higher engagement, adaptability, and viral sharing. It also creates better spaces for conversion opportunities later—not just views.

Can tools like Qurioos support this kind of learning experience?

Absolutely. Qurioos is built for education and onboarding at scale. If you want to build fast-learning journeys with less manual work, or scale customer-facing experiences that convert, start with Qurioos.

Ready to bring your education to life?

Big ideas start small. Whether you’re launching a product, a feature, or an entirely new use case, Qurioos helps you ship experiences your users actually want to complete.

See how Qurioos helps you build smarter →