A team of teachers. One full year. That's what it used to take to create a single comprehensive course.
Jason Marchese, Learning Content Specialist at Sidecar, knows this reality quite well. With 15 years in education and nearly a decade working at an association in Morocco, he's lived through the marathon that is traditional course development. The endless meetings, committee reviews, and subject matter expert scheduling nightmares—all for one course that might be outdated by launch day.
But here's what's happening right now at Sidecar: Using our new AI-powered workflow, what used to take a team of educators a full year can now be done by one person in two weeks.
That's not a typo. Two weeks.
This transformation isn't about cutting corners or compromising quality. It's about fundamentally reimagining how educational content gets created, updated, and delivered. And for associations trying to keep pace with rapidly changing industries, this shift couldn't come at a better time.
You know the drill. Creating a new course starts with good intentions and a kickoff meeting. Form a committee. Schedule meetings with subject matter experts—if you can get on their calendars. Draft outlines. Review. Revise. Review again.
Months pass. The committee debates whether Module 3 should come before Module 4. Someone leaves the organization, taking their institutional knowledge with them. New regulations drop, requiring another round of revisions. By the time you're recording final content, that cutting-edge information from your kickoff meeting is approaching its expiration date.
The human cost is real. Your talented educators spend more time in meetings about the course than actually creating it. Your subject matter experts grow frustrated with the endless revision cycles. Your members keep asking when the new certification prep will be ready, and all you can say is "soon."
Many associations have tried to solve this with technology—spending years and thousands on custom software solutions that still aren't delivering results. Traditional course creation moves at a pace that made sense in a different era. Today, when industries transform overnight and professionals need immediate guidance on emerging trends, that pace simply doesn't work anymore.
Let's talk numbers. Fifty-two weeks down to two weeks represents a 96% reduction in development time. But this isn't just about doing the same thing faster—it's about what becomes possible when you operate at this speed.
When course design takes a year, you have to be incredibly selective. You can maybe produce two or three major courses annually, which means guessing which topics will still be relevant 12 months from now. You can't afford to experiment or iterate based on member feedback because there's simply no time.
But when course creation takes two weeks? The entire landscape shifts. You can respond to industry changes while they're still unfolding. New regulation announced? You can have comprehensive compliance training ready before your competitors have scheduled their first planning meeting. Emerging technology disrupting your field? Your members can access in-depth education while the topic is still dominating industry conversations.
The cascade effect transforms your entire education program. When you can move this fast, experimentation becomes feasible. Test new formats without year-long commitments. Create specialized content for niche member segments who've been underserved. Update existing courses the moment new information becomes available. Your education program evolves from a slow-moving freight train to something far more responsive and dynamic.
At Sidecar, we faced our own version of this problem. Different associations kept asking if we could adapt our AI education for their specific members. The traditional approach would have us running custom workshops indefinitely, but we only have so many team members, and there are only so many hours in the day.
So we asked ourselves: What if we could create customized versions of our AI courses without starting from scratch each time?
The solution began with our existing content—the AI Learning Hub courses we had already recorded with human instructors. AI education happens to be particularly well-suited for this approach because the fundamentals translate across industries. Whether you're a lawyer, engineer, or healthcare professional, the core concepts of how AI works remain the same. What changes are the examples (legal contracts vs. engineering specifications), the terminology (clients vs. patients), and the specific applications (document review vs. diagnostic assistance).
Here's how the process actually works:
First, we took our existing AI Learning Hub content and used AI to break it down into its core components. Next, we identified every place where industry-specific content appeared. Every time an instructor said "member," that became a variable that could be "client" for lawyers or "patient" for healthcare. Every generic example became a placeholder for industry-specific scenarios. Every business concept became adaptable to different professional contexts.
Then we built what we call the Learning Content Agent (LCA)—a tool that brings everything together. Here's what happens: You tell the LCA you need a lesson for accountants. It pulls the core educational content, swaps in accounting terminology, inserts relevant examples, and then does something remarkable—it creates a complete video lesson with an AI instructor.
Using ElevenLabs for voice generation and HeyGen for the video avatar, the LCA produces professional educational videos that look and sound like traditional recorded courses. But instead of booking studio time, coordinating schedules, and dealing with multiple takes, the entire production happens automatically.
The result? We can now create customized versions of our AI education for any industry in days instead of months. We can also update existing content consistently (every course in our current AI Learning Hub was created using this workflow—check it out here). But here's what really excited us: This approach isn't limited to AI education. The same process that lets us quickly customize content for different industries could help any association accelerate their educational development, regardless of topic.
Related: If you're more of a visual learner, check out our recent podcast episode on YouTube where Jason demos the LCA.
Speed in course creation unlocks capabilities that were previously impossible. Here's what associations can achieve when operating at this velocity:
Rapid Response to Industry Changes
When major developments hit your industry—new regulations, technological disruptions, market shifts—your members need guidance quickly. Traditional timelines mean arriving months late to the conversation. With two-week development cycles, you can deliver comprehensive education while topics are still actively shaping your members' daily work.
Test and Learn Without the Risk
Traditional course development requires massive upfront commitment. Once you've invested months in development, you're locked in. A two-week cycle could change the entire risk equation. Try something innovative. If members love it, expand it. If they don't, pivot immediately. The cost of experimentation drops so dramatically that avoiding experimentation becomes the riskier choice.
First-Mover Advantage in Professional Development
In every industry, there's competition to help professionals understand and adapt to change. The association that delivers quality education first becomes the trusted source. Those arriving months later often find their members have already sought guidance elsewhere—usually from generic sources that miss crucial industry nuances.
Continuous Improvement That Actually Happens
We've all been there—launching a course knowing certain sections could be better but lacking time to perfect them. Or discovering six months later that a key example no longer applies. With rapid development capabilities, updates happen when they're needed, not during the next major revision cycle three years from now. Your educational content stays fresh and relevant.
Here's encouraging news: You don't need to abandon your existing content or completely reimagine your education program. The transformation can build on what you already have.
That successful certification prep course from three years ago? It probably still contains valuable content that just needs updating. The webinar series your members love? It could become a full self-paced course with interactive elements. The expertise residing in your senior members' heads? Finally capture and formalize it into accessible education.
Start with one course. Choose something important but not mission-critical—perhaps new member orientation or an elective professional development topic. Use AI to analyze what works, identify what needs refreshing, and enhance the learning experience. Build your first AI-augmented course and see what happens.
Watch how members respond to receiving fresh, relevant content while topics are still current. Notice how your team feels when they can iterate based on feedback instead of being locked into decisions made months ago. Experience the satisfaction of being first to market with education on emerging trends in your industry.
"A team of teachers. One full year." That's the old story.
The new story looks different: One person. Two weeks. Customizable for different audiences.
This transformation is happening right now, though we're still in the early stages. Our process at Sidecar is only a few months old, and we're learning and refining every day. Jason and our team are discovering new possibilities weekly—ways to make content more engaging, methods to speed up customization, techniques to ensure quality while moving fast.
We look forward to sharing more with the association community as these processes mature. What we know already is that this approach works. It's practical, available, and transforming how we think about educational content creation.
Your association possesses incredible expertise. Your members need that expertise delivered at the speed of industry change. The math is simple but powerful: 26x faster means you can finally keep pace with your profession's evolution.
The tools exist. The process works. Early adopters are already seeing results. Your members are counting on you for guidance through industry changes. Those changes aren't slowing down. But now, for the first time, you have a way to keep up.