Platform access level: Org Admins, Managers, and Writers (anyone who builds courses).
Creator writes the entire course for you, from the lessons to the questions to the visuals. Your part is the direction, so the effort goes into answering a few setup questions well.
To start, choose Create new on the Content page, then Build with AI. The sections below take you through creating a course with AI, in the same order as the screens.
1. Describe your course and audience
The first step of building a course with Creator is answering a series of questions. Those answers are your prompt, and they steer everything Creator generates toward the business outcome you want, so this guide gives you a prompt template for each question.
Use this table to shape answers that get Creator's best output, matched to each question as it appears on screen:
The screen asks | You fill in | How to answer it | Example |
What is this course about? | Course topic |
| "Handling common customer objections for Product X using the 4 P's strategy" |
What is this course about? | Training type | Pick from the dropdown. This one deserves its own decision: see the table in section 2. | Product Training |
Who is the target audience for this course? | Audience | Keep it simple: | "Junior sales representatives at Company Y" |
Who is the target audience for this course? | Expertise level | Pick the level, then put the richer detail in the expertise field: They can | "They know Product X's details. Their challenge is handling objections. They're motivated by closing more sales." |
Tip: Set the Expertise level to at least Intermediate unless the topic is genuinely brand new to your learners. A lower setting makes Creator spend the course explaining basics your audience already knows.
2. Choose the training type
The training type dictates the style, format, and the specific question types Creator will generate. A Compliance course leans on multiple choice with strict recall, while Skill Building relies on real-world scenarios. Pick it deliberately:
Training type | What it does | Question style | Best for |
Awareness Building | Builds knowledge and connects concepts to the learner's role | Understanding the topic and why it matters | Learners new to this content |
Reinforcement | Helps learners recall and apply what a prior course taught | Recall and application of existing knowledge | Learners with prior training |
Skill Building | Develops a practical ability | Applying the skill to real scenarios | Learners building a new skill |
Product Training | Teaches product knowledge, features, and best practices | Recall and the ability to communicate it | Learners needing product-specific knowledge |
Compliance | Ensures adherence to policy and regulatory guidelines | Recall accuracy and adherence | Learners needing mandatory compliance training |
Onboarding | Integrates and ramps up new employees | Preparedness and connectedness | New employees starting a role |
Knowledge Check | Assesses retention or gathers feedback | Recall, scenario practice, and feedback | Surveying and validating readiness |
Note: Not sure which fits? Start with Awareness Building. It's the safest choice for content your audience hasn't seen before.
3. Define the target behavior and knowledge
Further down, the screen asks the two questions that do the most work in the whole setup. The first defines the outcome; the second defines what learners must understand to reach it.
For both questions, Creator offers AI suggestions. Accept one, edit it for control, or select Regenerate for fresh options. Use this table to shape each answer.
The screen asks | How to answer it | Example |
What specific action or behavior do you want your learners to demonstrate by the end of this course? | By the end, | "By the end, junior sales reps can address the 5 common objections using the 4 P's strategy when pitching Product X." |
What knowledge do your learners need to have to demonstrate that behavior? | From | "From the objections guide: the 5 common objections and a response for each." |
A few habits separate a prompt that gets a strong first draft from one that needs three regenerations:
Narrow objective: One specific skill or outcome beats a broad topic. "Address the 5 common objections using the 4 P's strategy" gets a focused course; "get better at sales" doesn't.
Everything serves the objective: If a detail in your audience description, your source material, or the knowledge you list doesn't serve the target behavior, leave it out. It won't make the course better, and it can pull Creator off target.
A named person, not a category: Use "Bob, a junior sales rep" instead of "sales reps." Creator writes more specifically when it's writing for someone, not a group.
Tip: Before you generate, ask yourself whether each answer is there because it serves the objective, or just because it was available. For the same discipline applied to the course itself once it's built, see Best Practices for Creating Content.
4. Set length, language, and media
Still on the first screen, set how the course is built.
Number of lessons: Choose how many days the course runs. Design for depth over breadth: short focused lessons with one or two interactive questions each.
Primary language: Set the language Creator writes in. You can add translations with AI later, so pick the main one here.
Media generation: Turn on Generate images and infographics using AI to have Creator create visuals for each lesson as it writes.
5. Add reference material
Give Creator your own material so it builds from your content. All of this is optional.
Upload files: Upload txt, pdf, docx, pptx, jpg, png, and zip files, up to 50MB each with no limit on the number of files; SCORM packages upload as a .zip.
Add a link or paste text: Point Creator to a webpage, or paste reference text directly.
Keep AI focused: Turn on "Keep AI focused on only the materials I've provided" to restrict Creator to your sources. Leave it off, and Creator can also bring in outside resources; everything it uses is referenced in the References tab, so you can trace it either way.
Point to what matters: Use the focus field to tell Creator what to include or ignore, like "Must include the onboarding steps" or "Ignore the case studies."
Note: Video and audio files aren't supported. Upload a transcript instead. When you're set, choose Continue.
6. Check the details and refine the outline
Before writing anything, Creator plays your answers back.
Every answer from the first screen appears here, from the course title and training type through the audience, expertise level, target behavior, knowledge components, and length. Creator writes the outline and then the whole course from these answers, so correct anything wrong before you continue.
Next, on Refine outline, Creator generates a lesson-by-lesson outline and shows it to you as editable text, one entry per lesson.
Adjust anything before you move on. If you need to step away, your edits will still be there when you come back.
7. Generate the course
When the outline looks right, Creator writes the full lessons and questions from it, then verifies the course.
You don't have to watch it work; if you need to step away, you can pick up right where you left off.
8. Review the generated course before you schedule
What Creator generates is a strong first draft, not a finished course. Walk this checklist in the content editor (see Using the Content Editor for the full tour) before you schedule it:
Read every lesson: Go through each lesson as a learner would, checking accuracy, tone, and nuance.
Check the length: If a lesson runs over 1200 characters, use Creator's "optimize length" to tighten it while keeping the main ideas.
Check every image: If a visual doesn't fit your scenario, upload your own, use AI to modify or replace it, or regenerate all the images across the course in one click.
Trace the References tab: Every claim the AI makes is traced back to a source here, including any outside resources it used when the keep-AI-focused toggle was off.
Balance the questions: Creator favors scenario-based application questions and includes AI-graded open-ended ones. Make sure each open-ended question has a clear right and wrong answer so learners are graded fairly, and don't let free-response questions pile up: too many lowers engagement. See Using Question Types and AI Assessment.
Keep the built-in benchmarks: Every Creator course begins and ends with a confidence-lift question that measures the shift your training created, and a learner sentiment question sits on the last lesson to capture how satisfied learners were. Leave them in place.
Once your course exists, the same "Build a course" menu offers two more AI-powered paths. You can translate it for a wider audience with Translating an Existing Course, or tailor it to a different audience with Modifying an Existing Course.
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Note: Need help at any point? Reach out to your Arist Customer Success contact, or email support@arist.co.