What’s the Real ROI of AI in Your LMS? How Open LMS Drives Top Results

Creating unique, engaging and highly effective learning experiences hinges on your ability and drive to keep your learners front and center. Advanced learning technologies will allow you to deliver top quality education and training, but distinguishing true value from hype isn’t easy. (It may even seem like it’s getting harder by the day!) AI can be a powerful tool in your arsenal, but using it safely and effectively to achieve the highest return on your investment requires a strategic approach. Given the evolving nature of the technology, this is easier said than done.

Fortunately, you don't have to go at it alone. At Open LMS, we embrace AI with enthusiasm. From driving learner engagement to reducing administrative workload, the potential benefits are profound. Our teams of experts also understand how important it is to avoid overpromising and to stay true to our core principle of providing human-focused design that offers tangible results.

Read on for three ways Open LMS teams can help you harness the power AI stands to offer for smarter, more impactful learning at your institution or organization.

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1) Learning First, Not AI First: Cautious Optimism Helps You Balance Tried and Tested Tools with New Tech

A 2025 study suggests that experienced open-source developers can actually take up to 19% longer to complete their tasks with AI. AI made these developers slower, not faster. This is a counterintuitive result, refuting the conventional claims that AI boosts efficiency. Does this mean the promise of productivity in other areas—like education and corporate learning—rings hollow too? Simply put: No.

AI can absolutely speed up processes, automate tasks, reduce administrative burdens, and boost learner engagement. But going all in on AI to the extent of disregarding your existing skills and tools can be a mistake, preventing you from getting the full value of your tech stack.

This is why a cautiously optimistic approach to new AI tools and features makes sense. With all the hype surrounding these products, it can be tempting to use AI for the sake of it and expect massive results. But your organization will probably not attain the results you're looking for unless you carefully, strategically, and meticulously implement new solutions only where it makes sense, gathering data on how your users and learners are impacted along the way.

It can be difficult to undertake that kind of initiative on your own, but that is what Open LMS experts are here for. Our Solutions Architects are focused on understanding your true needs. Our Onboarding team makes sure you get up and running smoothly. And our Customer Success and Adoption & Education teams are invested in helping you succeed. We're all committed to empowering you to deliver the best learning experience possible. All our teams are exploring AI features both inside and outside the Open LMS platform, but we don't call ourselves an “AI-first” platform, though we welcome the exciting benefits this technology promises. We’ll always be a “learning first” platform.

Our goal is to make sure the people in your organization save time or learn more effectively and safely. This is why every single feature, tool, and plugin that we allow in your LMS environment only exists for the benefit of the educator, administrator, or learner. This is no different when it comes to AI products. Our rigorous evaluation processes ensure that all tools meet high standards for security, integrity, and privacy—giving you the freedom to tailor your AI strategy without compromising on quality.

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2) Putting the Choice in Your Hands: Selecting AI That Best Meet Your Goals

An open-source learning environment puts control firmly in your hands. Open LMS is powered by Moodle™, and its modularity and flexibility ensure you can benefit from the specific solutions your administrators and learners need. Our approach to AI tools is built on the same principle.

We're not about locking you into a single AI vendor. Instead, you can integrate a growing variety of LLM providers in your environment, helping you create the perfect recipe to support your institution or organization's goals.

We offer access to AI features in four key ways:

Open LMS Tools

AI-Assisted Editor for TinyMCE helps with generating text and editing tasks. You can also look forward to AI functionality being built into our custom-developed plugins, such as Conduit and Personalized Learning Designer.

Moodle™ Core

You can make use of the largest open-source education project in the world to modularly build your AI-enhanced learning environment.

Thanks to the adaptability MoodleTM offers, you can add multiple AI providers, including OpenAI and Azure, to streamline and speed up:

• Text generation
• Image generation
• Text summarization

Community Plugins

These tools are developed and tested by a global community of Moodle™ users. Moodle™ checks every plugin via automated testing, while we manually test the plugins before clearing them for install in our sites. Our teams will always make sure that anything we allow into your environment is a top-quality and secure addition.

Third-Party Integrations

Trusted platforms, like Turnitin and Teachermatic, integrate seamlessly into Open LMS, so you can check learners’ work for authenticity and save time on planning and quiz creation.

Choosing the AI solutions that best align with your organization’s goals and existing technologies can help keep your learning environment organized and effective so you get the most value from your tech stack. With Open LMS, you're empowered to choose only what you need to ensure administrators and learners are actually using the AI products you onboard.

Every single option we offer is efficient and secure. AI tools are only introduced after careful vetting and a thorough evaluation analyzing how these tools operate in the real world. Open LMS is also ISO/IEC 42001:2023 certified. This means we have exceptional standards for AI in areas such as risk management, alignment, and ethics.

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3)  Evaluating Success: Analytics & Reporting Capabilities That Drive Continuous Improvement

When it comes to ROI, the proof is always in the pudding. Though strategic estimations and careful planning must play a role, the best way to know if a solution is worth your investment is to implement it and collect data on the results.

Ultimately, a tool will only prove or disprove its worth when your learners or administrators reap value from using it in a real-world context. This is why it’s so important to work with an LMS that empowers you to adopt new solutions flexibly, quickly, and securely.

With Open LMS, you can take advantage of a rich open-source environment that allows you to get new initiatives off the ground quickly but safely. Thanks to our data analytics capabilities, you can then access data insights to understand how these new solutions are performing and if they’re worth your investment.

Open LMS’s Open Reports Engine helps you access over 20 different relevant data sources, so you can easily create custom reports for stakeholders across your  organization. This helps you understand how solutions work in the real world, supporting discussion on how AI tools drive value.

We all know that this technology is evolving rapidly, making the metrics for success difficult to identify at times. This is why Open LMS offers a variety of support avenues to help you understand how to make the most of these tools as time goes on. We’re your partners in AI exploration, offering dedicated support, training, and providing space for connection and discussion.

Want to Learn More? Get Ready for Take Off With Our Expert Team

We’re hosting Planet AI: An Open LMS Excursion on September 24 and 25, 2025, to help you explore the possibilities of AI and learn how to make the most of your investment. This is a virtual event spanning two days. You’ll come out the other side with a clear understanding of what AI can do in your learning environment.

• Day 1: Safely Landing on Planet AI - Discover more on the risks, benefits, and exciting possibilities of  introducing new technologies and tools into your environment. Day one will ease you into the whole new world of AI in L&D.
• Day 2: Making Planet AI Habitable for Humans -
  Explore the practical aspects of creating the AI-enhanced learning environment of your dreams. You’ll learn more on tailoring your LMS to the specific needs of your administrators, users, and learners. We’ll even offer a hands-on exploratory workshop, ‘Bring Your Open LMS To AI’. Day two is all about exploration, focussing on key new approaches to AI we believe you’ll see in the near to medium future.

We hope to see you there! Save your spot below.