The Toro Company Saves 3 Days Per Course With Articulate 360 AI

The Challenge

The Toro Company creates scalable, consistent training across a vast network of distributors in 125+ countries

The Toro Company’s commercial division creates critical parts, services, and warranty education. The team focuses on the sales and service training of the company’s commercial products like industrial sprayers and mowers. Customers use these products to maintain the pristine grounds of some of the world’s most renowned golf courses, grounds, colleges, and more.

The Toro Company needs its training to be consistent, scalable, and efficient to serve its vast network of distributors, dealers, retailers, and other partners in over 125 countries whose technical skill levels vary. “Our training has to be short, sweet, and exactly to the point,” says Angie Branum, Service Education and Training Manager. “It has to give our learners exactly what they need, when they need it.”

To further complicate their L&D needs, training also has to be as hands-on as possible—even in a virtual environment. “Our audience thrives with hands-on training, but it can be challenging to pull people out of the field or coordinate the travel required to facilitate live training,” says Branum. 

To support this, The Toro Company needs training tools that will allow course creators to quickly develop concise, high-quality, and scalable training to keep up with its ever-improving technology and products.

The Answer

With Articulate 360 AI, The Toro Company creates immersive, agile training that keeps up with the pace of software innovation

The Toro Company has dramatically changed its approach to training. Ten years ago, there were few roles at the company dedicated to training and education, and L&D positions were somewhat siloed. 

Fast forward to today, and training is a major focus across the organization. Dozens of departments each have their own L&D experts to support training needs, and L&D knowledge sharing across teams is prioritized via the company’s thriving community of practice. 

Since starting with Articulate in 2010, the company has increased its user base by 35% to support growing needs for training. “With Articulate, we constantly find new ways to be innovative, creative, and modular with our training to enable quick changes when needed,” says Branum.

To capture the interactivity and customization necessary for scalable, interactive online learning, the team uses Storyline to create branching scenarios and training emulators. These immersive e-learning experiences combine software screenshots, hotspots, and other interactive elements to put learners face-to-face with new types of software. All the while, the team ensures training is as flexible as possible so learners can “choose their own adventure,” jump ahead in training, and access courses from different devices. 

Recently, The Toro Company began working with Articulate’s AI Assistant to further maximize their course creation efficiency. “AI Assistant has been revolutionary for us,” says Angie Haugland, Instructional Designer. “It dramatically speeds up the process of creating first drafts of courses so our team and subject matter experts can focus on what matters most.” 

Haugland notes that this has been particularly valuable for collaborating with SMEs, product managers, and other stakeholders. The commercial team works with highly technical, specialized content—for example, training on service for a specialty mower. Before AI Assistant, creating first drafts of courses with SMEs was a time-intensive and highly manual process. 

“Now, we can upload notes and documents from SMEs to AI Assistant and have it spit out a high-quality course outline with headlines, lesson content, and knowledge checks,” says Haugland. “It’s so much easier and faster to have our SMEs edit something we created with AI Assistant rather than start with a blank page.”

Unlocking Human Potential

The Toro Company saves days on course creation and fosters a community of practice with Articulate 360 AI

Using Articulate 360 AI unlocks substantial time savings—often multiple days per course—for The Toro Company. During her initial trial of the tool, Haugland estimates that with AI Assistant, she saved: 

• 2 days per course creating course outlines
• 4–5 hours per course on creating high-quality first drafts
• 2–4 hours per course merging courses
• 8 hours per course for SME review 
• 2–4 hours per course on knowledge check creation. 

But this time savings isn’t limited to the Commercial division. Through the company’s community of practice, of which a majority of members use Storyline and Rise, they share best practices with a team of over two dozen peers across the enterprise. Branum and Haugland co-lead the community. With a mix of learning sessions, presentations on different e-learning strategies, and more, the company’s L&D team members find the community to be an invaluable tool for strengthening working culture and collaboration.  

“Having our community of practice has been a huge benefit for us,” says Branum. “It’s been an agent of positive change across the enterprise.” 

With Articulate 360 AI, The Toro Company accelerates course creation by multiple days and powers a thriving community of practice across the organization.