How to Map Capabilities to Content (using Acorn AI)

Here’s what we’ve observed in our time: learning content doesn’t create business impact unless it’s directly tied to the capabilities people need to perform. Having a lot of content might seem important, but if it’s not relevant to your organization then you’re not actually getting a return on investment.

Of course, linking capabilities and content sounds simple enough, but can be a tedious process when done manually. That’s why we’re advocates for making the process AI-driven as a way of automating the grunt work.

In this guide, we’ll walk through how you can map capabilities to content using Acorn AI.

What is capability-to-content mapping?

Capability-to-content mapping is the process of linking every learning resource—courses, videos, PDFs, events, pathways—to the specific capabilities they develop.

This means:

• Learners develop the right capabilities for their role
• No one wastes time completing irrelevant content
• Development aligns with business priorities.

We’ve seen consistently that organizations don’t lack content—in fact, over 90% of companies say that too much irrelevant training was stopping learners from engaging with learning at all. But when it comes to learning content, less is more, and relevancy is king.

Why make this an AI-driven process?

The short answer is that humans shouldn’t spend their workdays doing repeatable, tedious tasks. AI is good at pattern-matching, and it’s good at doing it quickly and at scale, giving HR and administrators more time to focus on more strategic tasks.

Manual mapping requires you to know what each piece of content is about and who it’s for so you can accurately assign capabilities to it. And if you don’t know it all, then you have to open each piece of content, interpret learning outcomes, compare them to capability definitions, check proficiency levels, and make a judgement call. It’s doable, but the more content you have (and you will end up with more as your organization scales) the worse it will be.

With AI, you can do it all in minutes.

Acorn’s AI evaluates:

• Content descriptions
• Learning objectives
• Behaviours and actions described
• Proficiency level indicators
• Capability relationships inside your framework

… and determines which capabilities are best suited for each piece of content. Yeah, we still recommend you double-check that it’s all accurate, but it saves you a lot of the thinking.

How to map capabilities to content with Acorn AI

What you need for this process: 

• Capabilities module turned on 
• Acorn AI toggled on 
• A connected LMS, whether Acorn or otherwise 
• A capability framework, either your own or pulled from our Capability Library 
• Content in your catalog.

In Acorn, capabilities can be assigned to:

• Courses
• Live Learnings
• Videos
• Resources
• Partnered Content.

Note: this feature is only available to Admin users.

Step 1: Analyze capabilities

Navigate to your Capability Dashboard via the Admin menu. From the widget on the right side of the dashboard, select “Add Capabilities to Content”. This action will only be available if you have an active capability framework in the system already. If you don’t, here’s a guide on how to upload your own capability library.

On the next screen, there are two options to choose from: manual or AI capability mapping. Choose “Map Capabilities to Content with AI”. Click “Create New Capability to Content Mapping”, and select the capabilities you want to map content to. You can search for the capabilities you want by name or by capability set.

Once you’ve made your selection, click the “Analyze” button and Acorn AI will analyze the capabilities to determine suitable content.

Step 2: Review and confirm mappings

Review each piece of recommended content for each selected capability.

You can:

• View each piece of content via the hyperlink
• Review the AI-suggested capabilities and proficiency levels via the eye icon under Tagged Capabilities.
• Adjust each capability’s proficiency levels via the eye icon under Tagged Capabilities to make sure they align with content.
• Remove capabilities from suggested content using the X button, or the delete button when you view the proficiency levels.

Once you’re happy the mapping is accurate, click Add Capability, then Confirm.

When you’ve reviewed all recommendations, you can either click Next to continue, or Save Draft & Exit to return later. If you click Next, you’ll need to enter a name for the mapping. We suggest going with capability groupings or content type.

Click Confirm Mapping, and your capabilities will successfully be added to your content.

On the Capability Mapping Overview Dashboard, you’ll be able to see all your mappings and their status (in progress and completed) listed.

Final thoughts

Mapping capabilities to content is the mechanism that turns learning into capability development. It doesn’t matter how much content you have if none of it is relevant to your people, but by linking learning to the capabilities your workforce needs to succeed, you make sure that your learning matters.

You can find more technical how-to resources, explainers, and definitions in our Help Center.