Can AI Understand Culture?

Designing inclusive learning in the age of artificial intelligence

May 21 marks World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development—an opportunity to celebrate cultural diversity, promote intercultural dialogue, and develop cross-cultural awareness and skills. It’s also a timely reminder to consider what collaboration across cultures looks like in an era of rapid technological change.

As artificial intelligence reshapes how we learn, work, and communicate, it also raises a critical question: Can AI truly understand culture? AI can both support and challenge culturally inclusive learning. It is essential for L&D teams to thoughtfully blend human insight with automation to create training that truly resonates across cultures.

What’s at stake?

Cultural context shapes how people learn. Some cultures favor learning based on ideal models; others prioritize trial and error through hands-on activities. There are both individual and team-based learning styles. One-way lectures from subject matter experts are common in much of the world, while intensive interactions between instructors and students are favored elsewhere. Harsh criticism is anticipated and even valued by learners in some cultural settings, while employees elsewhere thrive on praise and recognition, or a carefully modulated balance of positive and negative feedback.

What feels clear and motivating to one group might seem confusing or inappropriate to another. Learners bring their unique cultural norms, communication styles, and expectations into every training experience, and when these are ignored or misinterpreted, the impact of learning suffers.

The rapid advancement of AI tools has brought exciting potential: faster content creation, personalized learning paths, and scalable training delivery. But with speed and scale comes a risk, especially when AI models are trained on data that lacks cultural diversity or context. Left unchecked, these tools can reinforce assumptions, flatten nuance, or unintentionally exclude entire groups of learners.

The cultural limitations of AI

While AI excels at processing vast amounts of information, it often lacks awareness of the deeper meanings behind how people communicate across cultures. It may misread tone, miss idiomatic subtleties, or reproduce dominant cultural perspectives without question.

For example, an AI-generated training scenario on “giving feedback” might default to a direct communication style common in the U.S., which could be perceived as overly blunt or even disrespectful in cultures that value indirectness or hierarchy. Similarly, avatar names, dress, or humor used in course content might unintentionally reinforce cultural stereotypes if not carefully reviewed by someone with intercultural understanding.

These aren’t just technical glitches—they’re moments where learners can feel unseen, misrepresented, or excluded.

The human element in learning

While AI offers speed and scalability, it doesn’t replace the cultural awareness and empathy that people bring to the learning process. Human designers can better understand nuance, recognize when content might feel off to a particular audience, and make thoughtful adjustments based on lived experience.

They know how to navigate local expectations, subtle communication norms, and the emotional tone that makes learning feel relevant and respectful. They know when to ask, pause, or consult with someone who understands local norms. In global organizations, this kind of insight is what transforms content from generic to genuinely impactful.

Designing inclusive learning in an AI-Assisted world

Automation should work in partnership with human cultural insight to create truly inclusive learning. This begins with purposeful design choices that prioritize empathy, curiosity, and respect for diverse perspectives. Key principles to guide this approach include:

Use AI for speed, not final decisions

AI can accelerate content creation by generating outlines, drafts, and ideas, but those outputs should always be reviewed and refined through a culturally informed lens. Treat AI as a co-creator, not the final editor. Human oversight is essential to ensure tone, context, and representation align with the audience’s expectations and values.

Diversify your inputs

The quality of AI-assisted content depends on the quality—and diversity—of the inputs. Use prompts that reflect a variety of cultural perspectives and collaborate with regional teams, cultural advisors, or in-market experts during development and review. This helps surface hidden biases and ensures content is locally relevant and respectful.

Be aware of default norms

Many AI models are trained on large datasets that tend to prioritize Western, English-speaking, and often U.S.-centric viewpoints. Without intervention, this can lead to content that unintentionally reinforces dominant cultural narratives. Actively seek alternative voices, examples, and references to broaden the scope and inclusivity of learning materials.

Build feedback loops

Culturally inclusive learning evolves through continuous listening and refinement. Create structured opportunities for learners to share feedback on how content feels: Is the tone respectful? Are the examples relatable? Is anything confusing or out of place? Prioritize input from underrepresented groups or international audiences to make meaningful improvements over time.

Pause for nuance

Not every piece of training content benefits from automation. Topics that involve emotion, values, identity, or history often require human storytelling, ethical sensitivity, and cultural interpretation. Pause and consider your approach when shaping content and delivery—some of the most impactful learning comes from thoughtful, human-centered design.

Evolving tools and responsible AI use at Articulate

Considerations around culture, context, and human-centered design are foundational to how Articulate integrates AI into our tools. Our goal: Accelerate course development without compromising human thoughtfulness, creativity, and inclusivity. Here’s how we’re making it happen.

Which Articulate tools currently use AI?

Two Articulate tools currently leverage AI: AI Assistant and Articulate Localization. Here’s a quick summary of each.

• AI Assistant is integrated into Articulate’s course creation tools, Rise and Storyline, helping users create better courses up to 9 times faster. Course authors can prompt AI Assistant to generate content, including outlines, lesson text, quiz questions, images, and natural-sounding narration. AI Assistant can also help refine tone, edit text, or convert static copy into interactive learning formats.
• Articulate Localization streamlines and simplifies the translation process to easily adapt learning content for global audiences. With AI translation, course authors can generate multi-language versions of a course in just a few clicks. Real-time, in-context review and editing features then help course validators ensure linguistic and cultural accuracy.

How does Articulate design for human-centered AI application in e-learning?

Articulate-built AI features intentionally amplify and enhance—not replace—the work of course authors and language reviewers. For example:

Articulate AI features accelerate manual tasks so creators can focus on high-value learner experiences

Articulate’s AI-supported tools reduce time spent on manual tasks, such as summarizing content, copying and pasting text into interactive blocks, or manually duplicating courses for multiple language versions. Automating these labor-intensive parts of the process frees creators to focus on what matters most: creating engaging, relevant, and culturally sensitive learning experiences.

Humans stay in control with a built-in collaborative prompt and review process

Articulate AI tools are intentionally collaborative. Give AI Assistant direction by adding learning objectives or source material to your prompts. Both AI Assistant and Articulate Localization also include built-in human review processes for L&D or language experts to validate, edit, and refine the results. These critical quality checks help mitigate bias and improve course accuracy, relevance, and inclusivity.

Articulate maintains a strong focus on AI for language and learning accessibility

Articulate Localization supports right-to-left language translation and 70+ languages, helping teams make training available to broader, more linguistically and culturally diverse audiences with ease. It simplifies the complex process of multilingual e-learning, making it faster and easier than ever to improve course language accessibility.

AI Assistant for Storyline can also now automatically generate image alt text and closed captions for visual and audio content. These features help create more inclusive learning experiences for people in cultures or regions where visual descriptions, transcripts, or multilingual captioning are essential for understanding and participation.

What else does Articulate do to encourage human-centered AI use?

AI tools are only as responsible as their use. That’s why Articulate is committed to providing ongoing education, support articles, and best practices on responsible and inclusive use of AI in learning, including how to write better prompts, validate AI outputs, design accessible learning experiences, and mitigate bias in generated content.

Explore these helpful resources to learn more:

• Mitigate AI Image Generation Bias With Proper Prompting
• Writing With AI: Everything You Need to Know
• E-Learning Localization Best Practices
• All About Accessibility 
• 5 Tips to Help You Choose Characters in E-Learning

Looking ahead

AI is transforming how we design and deliver learning, but cultural intelligence is what makes it meaningful. When we combine the strengths of both, we create experiences that not only reach learners but truly resonate across cultures.

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Aperian is a platform providing cross-cultural training and learning content to foster seamless collaboration and greater innovation. Through self-paced courses, assessments, and live workshops, they equip leaders and teams to thrive in today’s culturally complex world.

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