What Conversations People Practice When No One’s Watching: AI Role Plays in the Wild
Written by Senior Program Manager, Stephanie Evans
Ever replay a difficult conversation over and over and wish you could try it again? Most of us mentally rehearse difficult conversations, but it's hard to predict how the other person will react.
Since launching AI-driven Role Play in late 2024, LinkedIn Learning has released 350+ scenarios to help learners bridge that gap, on everything from providing tough feedback to de-escalating a heated customer conversation. These interactive sessions let you practice professional conversations in private and receive feedback based on expert criteria paired with content recommendations from our library. Best of all? You can also create your own custom role plays based on your unique workplace situation and practice as many times as you want.
Top Role Play data is based on LinkedIn Learning data and was compiled by LinkedIn Associate Content Analyst Marrion Macandog in partnership with Senior Program Manager Stephanie Evans on the LinkedIn Learning team. We used sessions per Role Play per week to rank conversations. Longer methodology below.
We’ve unlocked our Top Role Plays and supporting courses mentioned in this article through March 31st, 2026. Use the links below to access.
Some of the findings were exactly what you'd expect: difficult feedback, tricky coworkers, demanding customers. But digging into the data shows a more nuanced picture of what people most need help with at work. So what conversations are people practicing?
- Hold a Cross Functional Partner Accountable for Deadlines
- Coach an Employee on Prioritization and Deadlines
- Give Constructive Feedback on Presentation Skills
- Encourage Inclusive Participation in Team Meetings
- Demonstrating Emotional Intelligence
- How AI Improves Business Processes
- Set Improvement Goals with a Struggling Employee
Our learners are using AI to show up more human in every conversation.
- Individuals are practicing how to influence and coach peers without formal authority.
- Managers are working on performance-coaching their team and championing AI business strategy.
We also looked at the early data for recently-released Role Plays for workers on the front line. Coping with stress and conflict resolution rose to the top.
- Workers in healthcare and the service industry are practicing how to cope with high-stress situations while maintaining operational efficiency.
Curious how Role Plays work in action? Check out this video.
Individuals Coaching Peers Without Direct Authority
We all know that sinking feeling when you’re responsible for a project and have a teammate who isn’t delivering. Because they’re a peer, you don’t have the authority to just ‘manage’ the issue directly. Stakeholder communication and influencing without authority are nuanced skills that learners are practicing in our most popular role play, Hold a Cross Functional Partner Accountable for Deadlines.
In this Role Play, learners talk with an (AI-simulated) key cross-functional partner that has missed several deadlines and is delivering sub-par work. The goals include digging deep into specific examples and ultimately holding them accountable. After the conversation, the AI evaluates learners on a variety of factors, including clarity, prioritization, and overall relationship management.
Introverts around the world can rejoice that Encourage Inclusive Participation in Team Meetings tops the list, too. In this Role Play, learners practice providing feedback to a peer who keeps interrupting others in meetings.The evaluation criteria on this are nuanced, ranging from expectation-setting to emotional intelligence and striking the right tone to prevent an argument. It’s all in service of creating space for quieter team members.
Of note, these Role Plays align with LinkedIn’s Top 2026 Skills on the Rise report, which lists Executive & Stakeholder Communication as one of the fastest-growing skills in the U.S. Why? Effective communication with leadership and key stakeholders can have an outsized impact on relationship-building, business decision-making, and influence. Naturally, learners want to get this right in a fast-paced workplace.
How to build these skills:
Managers Practicing Performance Coaching
Role Plays dedicated to helping leaders coach their employees dominate the top list of practice scenarios. The majority of our most popular Role Plays help managers (especially middle-managers in hands-on coaching roles) provide feedback to their employees on everything from better prioritization to improving presentation skills.
These conversations show that prioritization, feedback, and performance coaching are top of mind for leaders in a complex work environment that’s accelerated by AI and powered by interpersonal skills.
In Coach an Employee on Prioritization and Deadlines, a manager is helping a technically strong employee who is repeatedly missing deadlines due to prioritization issues. In Demonstrating Emotional Intelligence, a manager can practice coaching a team member who has become defensive about recent tough performance feedback. The manager needs to demonstrate emotional intelligence through empathy and the use of open-ended questions to keep the conversation constructive. Similarly, for Set Improvement Goals with a Struggling Employee, managers can practice supporting an employee through a tough performance review and creating tangible goals for them to get back on track.
With reports (Gallup) indicating middle managers are feeling the squeeze of modern workplaces, these courses and Role Plays provide skills to manage up, down, and across the organization. Leadership and Management as a skill ranks on our LinkedIn’s Top 2026 Skills on the Rise report. Organizations with strong leaders are best positioned to foster high-performing teams and retain talent amidst rapid change.
How to build these skills:
Leaders Championing AI Business Strategy
While most of our top Role Plays focus on human skills, it makes sense that leaders would also want to practice advocating for the use of AI to improve business processes. AI Business Strategy is one of the fastest-growing skills on LinkedIn’s Top 2026 Skills on the Rise report. Across organizations, there’s a good deal of confusion and concern around whether AI can actually improve productivity and the ROI for this resource-intensive technology.
How AI Improves business processes not only helps leaders practice advocating for AI, but also evaluates whether there’s a strong business case being made. For this conversation, a leader meets with a department head who is hesitant to invest in AI solutions, citing concerns about cost and implementation challenges. The goal is to explain how AI can specifically improve business processes, all while clearly articulating AI’s value.
How to build these skills:
Recommended by LinkedIn
Workers on the Front Line Are Building Their Emotional Resilience and Coping Skills
Healthcare Workers
We recently released role plays specifically to support healthcare workers. In the early data, Role Plays related to resilience, conflict resolution, and communication in high-stakes situations are rising to the top. (You can also check out Skills on the Rise in Healthcare as part of LinkedIn's 2026 report here.)
Top Healthcare Role Plays
- #1 Building Resilience Through Strengths: A Manager’s Support Conversation for Healthcare Workers
- #2 De-escalating an Upset Patient for Healthcare Workers
- #3 Closing the Care Gap: Effective Patient Handoff for Healthcare Workers
- #4 Driving Operational Efficiency Through Care Coordination for Healthcare Workers
Resilience and Conflict Resolution
In Building Resilience Through Strengths: A Manager’s Support Conversation for Healthcare Workers, a manager practices helping their overwhelmed employee. The goal is to identify the employee’s strengths and model empathy while helping create practical strategies for coping. De-escalating an Upset Patient for Healthcare Workers allows a healthcare worker to engage with a patient who is visibly upset and verbally escalating. The goal is to apply de-escalation techniques, build rapport, and guide the conversation toward resolution without worsening the situation.
Operational Efficiency in High-Stakes Situations
In addition to conflict resolution and de-escalation, our Role Plays dedicated to communication and efficiency in fast-paced healthcare environments are also popular.
In Closing the Care Gap: Effective Patient Handoff for Healthcare Workers, the goal is to provide clear, structured communication and confirm critical details to ensure continuity of care and safety.
Driving Operational Efficiency Through Care Coordination for Healthcare Workers tasks a Care Coordinator with persuading a Hospital Administrator to adopt effective care coordination and discharge processes to improve patient outcomes and streamline workflows.
How to build these skills:
Service Industry Workers
Understandly, those in customer-facing roles in restaurant and retail environments are focused on succeeding in fast-paced environments, handling frustrated customers, and recovering from mistakes. Essentially, team work and efficiency in high-stress situations.
Top Service Industry Role Plays
Often, team members are working to prioritize, delegate, encourage others, and model strong performance under stress, understaffing, and miscommunications with team members and customers alike.
Across these top four Role Plays, learners are presented with an upset customer or challenging situation such an understaffing on the shift, and practices de-escalating the customer’s concerns while remaining within store policy. Anyone who’s worked in the service industry will recognize why these conversations are worth practicing in a simulated setting.
How to build these skills:
The Future of AI-Powered, Human-Centered Learning
We all know the common adage–people won’t necessarily remember what you say, but they’ll remember how you made them feel.
Across industries and roles, people are using AI‑powered Role Plays to practice conversations that foster trust and well-being while maintaining performance.
There’s one vision of the future of work where AI makes the workforce more robotic. And there’s another where human skills become the true differentiator. In that human-centric future, the most valuable skill is knowing how to talk to other people. And Role Plays help learners practice how to show up as their best selves in those conversations.
Insights from our Content and Product Leadership Team
Our Content Strategy and Product Leadership team shares a glimpse into what’s ahead for 2026 and beyond.
As AI handles more technical work, interpersonal skills become the scarcest, most valuable capability in the workforce. These skills can't be automated, but they can be practiced. AI-powered Role Play is experiential learning at scale: giving people a safe space to build the muscle memory for the moments that matter most.
–Mary Treseler, Director of Content, LinkedIn Learning
Looking forward, our content strategy will continue to prioritize practice‑based, role‑relevant learning, the sweet spot where AI doesn’t replace human skills, but helps strengthen them. We’ll expand Role Plays to more industries, roles, and moments that matter, pairing them with expert-created content that helps learners develop and apply future-ready skills.
–Shea Hanson, Director of Global Content, LinkedIn Learning
As Role Play continues to scale globally, we continue to invest in new functionality based on customer demand. Expanding admin reporting for role play gives organizations clearer insight into skill development and engagement, while adding more languages ensures learners everywhere can practice real world scenarios in a way that feels relevant, inclusive, and actionable.
–Cara de Freitas Bart, Head of Product, LinkedIn Learning
In a human‑centered future, learners who can communicate, connect, and lead will stand out. AI‑powered Role Plays help you turn learning skills into real-world action.
Methodology
Role play session data spanning from January 2025 to January 2026 was collected for this analysis. To normalize engagement and enable comparison, sessions per role play were aggregated by week, and then the average across all weeks was calculated. The analysis included over 500 role plays created by LinkedIn (1st party), Enterprise organizations, or individual users.
Ebrahim Khalil Kanoo B.S.C (c)•27K followers
1moThis insight into how AI supports challenging conversations is fascinating. Highlighting that AI enhances rather than replaces human skills reinforces the crucial role of empathy in our workplaces. Making these role plays widely accessible is an important step for how we develop leaders and build stronger teams.
LinkedIn•5K followers
1moThis is really powerful actionable learning Stephanie Evans . I am excited to share this piece with my clients to create real-time learning experiences for learners through AI powered role play.
Alphabet's Verily Provided by…•407 followers
1moI tried the role play, it was just fabulous. I enjoyed carrying out a conversation in a field that I have had some experience. It was very helpful to see my conversation analysis with strengths and areas of improvement suggested. Vijay Singh there are some for the manufacturing shift hand offs that may be helpful to Cepheid such as https://www.linkedin.com/learning/role-play/scenarios/urn:li:la_rolePlayScenario:urn:li:llsServeScenario:90409218?trk=share
This is actually powerful. Practicing hard conversations in private before having them for real? That builds confidence and emotional intelligence. AI as a safe space to rehearse tough moments makes a lot of sense. It’s not replacing human skills, it’s strengthening them.