Reading time: 13 minutes
Why training with documents and PowerPoints doesn’t work
Picture the scene. Monday morning. An employee opens their inbox and finds a 47-page PDF titled "New Data Security Protocol". They download it. Open it. Read the first page. Maybe the second. Close it. Never open it again.
Meanwhile, Human Resources records that 100% of the team has “received” the training. But reality tells a different story: only 12% of employees apply what they learn in training to their day-to-day work.¹
The problem is not a lack of investment. The corporate training market in Spain generated €2.15 billion in 2023, growing at an annual rate of 7.5%.² And 70% of Spanish companies plan to implement training programs in 2025.³ The problem is that we keep packaging knowledge in formats people ignore.
Documents inform. Training requires something more: guidance, pace, and context.
Most training investment fails to generate real learning because it relies on formats that are neither consumed nor remembered.
Globally, more than $200 billion is spent on corporate training every year. According to Harvard Business Review, only 10% of that investment delivers measurable results.⁴ The rest evaporates: presentations no one finishes, manuals that collect digital dust, e-learning modules with dropout rates of 80%.
In Spain, another figure is even more revealing: only 20% of companies take advantage of subsidized training credits through Fundae.² Out of more than 1.6 million potentially eligible companies, barely 343,000 actually claim these bonuses. In other words, even funded training goes unused.
93% of employees say that well-designed training positively impacts their level of engagement.⁵ People want to learn. The format prevents it.
Across Europe, workplace disengagement is also intensifying. According to Fosway Group, 61% of European L&D teams saw their budgets reduced or frozen in 2024.⁶ And even teams that retain budget continue investing it in formats that do not work.
Every day, more than 350 million PowerPoint presentations are created worldwide. Most are forgotten the next day.
Because they are passive, long, generic, and difficult to keep up to date — reducing attention, retention, and practical application.
The issue is not poor content. It’s that the format works against learning. There are four concrete reasons why a PDF or PowerPoint rarely leads to real learning.
Reading a document or scrolling through slides mainly activates the prefrontal cortex. There is no multisensory stimulation, no interaction, no emotion. The brain processes visual information 60,000 times faster than text, but a PowerPoint full of paragraphs is not visual content. It’s text inside a frame.
Information retention in passive reading formats stays around 10%.¹ In contrast, audiovisual formats achieve retention rates above 65%.
A 40-page PDF or a 60-slide PowerPoint competes against a limited resource: working memory. Average attention span has dropped to 8.5 seconds. Long, dense formats cannot compete in this context.
Training built around short modules achieves completion rates of 80%, compared to 20% for long formats.⁷ Microlearning is one of the key corporate training trends in Spain for 2025, according to the German Chamber of Commerce and Synergie.⁸
The same PDF reaches a sales rep in Madrid and a technician in Bilbao. It does not adapt to role, experience level, or individual pace.
Personalization matters: 93% of employees want training that is easy to complete, 91% want it to be relevant to their role, and 90% want it to be engaging.⁵ In Spain, companies are moving away from generic programs and prioritizing AI-powered personalized training as a key focus for 2025.⁸
Every regulatory change, product update, or new protocol requires reviewing the document, redesigning it, redistributing it, and hoping everyone downloads the correct version.
Many companies still rely on static documents because they believe they are easier to update. The reality is the opposite: keeping internal training up to date with static formats is more costly and less reliable than using tools that allow content to be edited and republished in minutes.
Short, modular video combined with microlearning and self-paced consumption delivers the strongest retention results.
Research in corporate learning has highlighted three key factors that make the difference: visual format, brevity, and autonomy.
72% of employees feel more engaged when training includes short video. Seven out of ten retain information better when it is presented in video format rather than written text.⁵
A study by University College London showed that AI-generated video is just as effective as instructor-recorded video in terms of recall and recognition. Participants preferred it over written materials.⁹
83% of people prefer consuming instructional content in video format.¹⁰
Microlearning breaks training into short modules of 3 to 7 minutes, each covering a single concept. It is not just more convenient: it improves retention by 25% to 60% compared to traditional formats.⁷
When combined with spaced reinforcement (repeating key concepts at intervals), retention improves by 150% in just two weeks.
Allowing each person to learn at their own pace increases retention by 25% to 67%.⁵ This is the opposite of sending the same PDF to the entire organization and expecting it to work equally well for everyone.
Respecting individual time and context is key to improving engagement in internal training.
| Indicator | Documents and PowerPoints | AI video and microlearning |
|---|---|---|
| Knowledge retention | ~10% passive reading¹ | +65% audiovisual content¹ |
| Completion rate | ~20% long formats⁷ | ~80% short modules⁷ |
| Personalization | Same content for everyone | Adaptable by role, language, and level |
| Production time | Weeks (design + layout + review) | Hours (import PPT → video with avatar and voice) |
| Ease of updates | Redistribute full file | Edit and republish in minutes |
| Consumption data | No visibility (who read it?) | Who watched what, drop-off points, responses |
By first transforming the lowest-performing content into short video modules, without redoing all materials or creating a complex project.
The data is compelling, but theory alone is not enough. The real question is whether this shift is viable without an audiovisual production team and an inflated budget — especially in Spain, where SMEs dominate the business landscape and L&D resources are often limited.
The transition does not need to be radical. A company with an 80-page procedures manual can transform it into 15–20 video modules of 3 to 5 minutes each. Every module covers a specific topic, can be consumed independently, and can be updated without touching the rest.
SmartExpert, an HR tech company, used AI video tools to create more than 10,000 minutes of training content, saving 800 production hours and $70,000 in costs.⁹
This type of transformation is what makes it feasible to digitize corporate content without multiplying resources. And training large teams stops being a logistical problem when content is adaptable, scalable, and measurable.
Platforms like Vidext enable exactly this: importing existing documents or presentations and transforming them into video content with avatars, voices in more than 40 languages, and built-in interactivity — all within a collaborative environment and without the need for a technical team. It is using AI as an ally in internal training, not as a replacement for human judgment.
Start with the lowest-performing content: what no one completes, what generates the most questions, or what requires frequent updates. Transform those modules first and measure impact before scaling.
Yes — and better than documents. With AI creation tools, updating a video is as fast as editing text. The only scenario where video does not fit is information that expires within hours, such as shifts or real-time pricing.
Yes. Modern platforms allow you to create videos with avatars and professional voiceovers from a script or by importing a PowerPoint or PDF. No camera, studio, or video editor required.
With interactive video, you can track who watched each module, how long they spent, where they dropped off, and which questions they answered correctly. PDFs offer no such visibility.
Resistance to change is normal, but the data is clear: 83% of people choose video over text for instructional content.¹⁰ The problem is rarely employee resistance — it is the inertia of training design.
As a direct consumption format for training, less and less. As raw material to create better content, yes. Existing presentations can be used as a base to generate video modules without starting from scratch.
Less than continuing as you are. Ineffective training carries an estimated cost of $13.5 million per year per 1,000 employees.⁴ In Spain, 80% of companies do not even use their subsidized training credits through Fundae.² AI video creation tools offer affordable monthly pricing and reduce production time by up to 70%.
There is no need to reinvent training. What needs to change is the wrapper. You can have the best training program in the world — if it is packaged in a 50-page PDF or a 70-slide PowerPoint, most of your team will not make it past page three.
This is not about demonizing documents. It is about recognizing that the way people consume information has changed — and corporate training formats have not kept up.
The good news is that transforming training no longer requires audiovisual production budgets or months of development. The tools exist. The data supports the change. All that’s left is making the decision.
In corporate training, the format does not support the content: it determines whether someone learns or disengages.
If you want to see what your training would look like in a format people actually consume, explore how Vidext works for training teams.
¹ Video Training Statistics 2025 - Research.com
² Corporate training data in Spain - Smartmind / Fundae
³ HR Challenges and Trends Study 2025 - Pluxee / Factor Humano
⁴ Employee Training Statistics 2025 - eLearning Industry
⁵ 70+ Employee Training & Development Statistics 2025 - Whatfix
⁶ Digital Learning Realities 2024 - Fosway Group
⁷ Microlearning Statistics & Trends 2025 - eLearning Industry
⁸ Corporate training trends 2025 - AHK Talent / German Chamber of Commerce
⁹ AI-Generated Video in Corporate Training - Panopto
¹⁰ Training Video Trends 2026 - Research.com
@ 2026 Vidext Inc.
Newsletter
Discover all news and updates from Vidext
@ 2026 Vidext Inc.
