HowNow

HowNow is a corporate learning platform that combines an LMS, a learning experience layer, skills mapping and a content library in one system, with AI doing much of the administrative work. The home page headline is "Learning that means business", and the company describes HowNow as an intelligent learning platform "that connects what your people learn to the skills they need so you can prove it's working." It is built for L&D and HR teams that run onboarding, compliance, upskilling and leadership development and want to show the effect on skills, not just course completions.

What the product is

HowNow's own summary is "One smart home for all your learning": a platform to create, deliver, measure and manage all of an organization's L&D, from onboarding to upskilling to role readiness. The site lists six uses it is built for: onboarding, upskilling and reskilling, compliance (with easy reporting, automated renewal and engaging content), knowledge sharing by internal experts, leadership development, and revenue enablement for sales and customer teams. Learning is delivered in the flow of work, inside the tools employees already use, and the company says AI agents do the heavy lifting behind the scenes.

What a training team gets

The learning platform. The core covers creating content, discovery for learners, delivery in the flow of work, automation, logging of learning done elsewhere, and insights. HowNow's blog lists the main features: an AI pathway builder that creates personalized learning paths from skills gaps, role context and business goals; adaptive learning that gives each learner a path based on role, skills and progress; AI curation that finds, tags and organizes content from internal sources and external libraries; learning communities that make peer expertise visible and searchable; career paths that show each employee their skills, gaps and where they can grow; and unified search that pulls any course, document or expert answer from one search box across the organization's tools.

Skills Intelligence. This is the part HowNow leans on most. The platform shows what skills people have, what they need and how to close the gaps, mapping skills to roles and to learning. HowNow's blog says its skills framework is built from World Economic Forum data and live job listings and maps every employee's skills and proficiency levels automatically, without forms or self-assessment surveys. Employees can correct and extend their profile through Self-Added Skills and peer endorsements. Each person gets a Skills Profile showing the skills they have, the ones they are missing and what to learn next, and Smart Pathways match content to each person's gaps automatically. Every learning resource, pathway and internal expert sits on the same Skills Graph.

Guru AI coach. Guru is described as an AI agent that can teach, coach, challenge and adapt the way a top human trainer would. It answers questions, runs practice scenarios, reinforces learning and gives feedback, all powered by the organization's own knowledge, and teams can build their own scenarios. The blog adds that Guru coaches through role-play and cites its sources.

HowNow+ content library. HowNow+ adds more than 10,000 off-the-shelf learning resources from providers such as Skillsoft and MindTools, skills-mapped and included in one subscription. The blog says the library plugs into ChatGPT, Copilot and Claude, so an AI assistant can draw on real learning content.

Where learners use it. HowNow offers a Chrome extension, a Slackbot, a Microsoft Teams bot and a mobile app, and the blog lists OneDrive and SharePoint among its third-party integrations. That matters for adoption: employees can find learning in Slack, Teams or the browser instead of visiting a separate site.

Compliance and reporting. Compliance training runs in the same system as onboarding, leadership development and career pathways, so evidence is not split across tools. HowNow's blog says reporting puts learning, skills and performance data in one view.

Pricing, security and support

HowNow does not print a price list. According to its blog, pricing is quoted per organization after a demo, and the pricing page carries an ROI calculator for modeling the investment first. The blog also says HowNow includes its AI for everyone rather than reserving it for a higher tier.

On security, the home page states "ISO 27001. Cyber Essentials. GDPR. Check." and links to a Trust Centre. HowNow presents its service team as a reason customers stay, promising support that is proactive and service that is personal. The blog reports ratings of 4.5/5 on G2 and 4.5/5 on Capterra, and lists five G2 Spring 2025 badges (including Easiest Admin and Best Support), a Fosway 9-Grid Core Challenger position for 2026, and Learning Technologies Silver and Brandon Hall Group Silver awards.

Customer results

HowNow publishes named results. On its blog, TomTom launched the TomTom Academy on HowNow in late 2024. Six months in, learner activation had reached 90%, every new starter had completed onboarding, around 10,000 skills were mapped to content, and the same Academy had onboarded over 1,000 business customers alongside employees. AND Digital, a consultancy of around 800 people, reports that 75% of employees visit HowNow every working day, that curation time halved and that induction admin fell by 80%.

Other figures from the same posts: Trainline halved its compliance time, Hotelplan mapped 300+ roles to skills in a month and hit 99% activation, and GovNet lifted engagement by 36% in three months. The home page adds 3,000 managers upskilled, 33% faster ramp-up of new starters, and 97% activation within 4 months. Customers named include Investec, Depop, Crunchyroll, Infinity Works and HM Government. Craig Randell, Group IT Director at Hotelplan, is quoted saying HowNow "stood out for its ability to deliver personalised, contextual learning in the flow of work, supported by AI and strong integrations with the tools our teams use every day."

Who it suits

HowNow fits mid-size and large organizations whose L&D team wants to move from tracking course completions to managing skills: companies with many roles, a steady flow of new starters, compliance obligations and a wish to deliver learning inside Slack or Teams. The automatic skills mapping saves the long taxonomy project such organizations usually face, and the bundled content library lets a team launch with material on day one. The TomTom example shows it can also serve customer education from the same academy.

A small team that only needs to assign a handful of mandatory courses will use a fraction of what HowNow offers, and buyers who want a self-serve price will need to book a demo first.