How AI is helping decode team dynamics

In a classroom at London Business School, participants logged onto laptops and entered a shared virtual world where artificial intelligence (AI) was used to help analyse how they communicated, collaborated and made decisions under pressure.

The exercise was run by Jenson8, a UK-based company developing immersive team-training tools for employers. Its browser-based platform, Boomathon, is designed to look like a game but function as a live diagnostic of team behaviour, using AI to support facilitators with data gathered during the session and post-session feedback.

"So today, what you've been looking at is something called Boomathon. And Boomathon is an online, immersive problem-solving experience," said Jenson8 founder and CEO Jena Davidson.

"What we've done within Jenson8 is we thought how can we use AI to amplify those skills," said Davidson.

The company says the platform can be accessed via a web link, without headsets, downloads or specialist hardware, allowing participants in different locations to join the same high-pressure scenario from standard laptops.

"The great thing about immersive learning and immersive tech is that you're not pretending to be anything. You're doing, you're being, you're feeling in real-time; you're just showing up as your authentic self," said Davidson.

She said Jenson8 is using AI to gather more real-time data during the exercise and to act as what she called a "thought leader" alongside the game, generating prompts and questions intended to help participants reflect on how they behave in teams.

"We have a thought leader... that sits alongside the game and can give insights and ask questions that help the people to increase their self-awareness and think deeper," Davidson said.

Jade Mountain, director for strategic digital learning solutions at London Business School, said the AI acted as a support mechanism for facilitators rather than replacing human judgement.

"What the AI is doing is allowing us to collect data information that a human couldn't possibly do," Mountain said. "Then I can use my qualities and my skills and my expertise to say, 'let's unpick that'."

Jenson8 offers several immersive formats: Boomathon surfaces real-time behavioural data to help teams adapt, while Boomerang is a longer, deeper dive into actions and behaviours.

The technology reflects growing interest among employers and education institutions in AI-assisted tools that can help assess and develop hybrid or distributed teams beyond conventional workshops and staff surveys.

Camera: Stuart McDill, Editing: Stuart McDill, Production: Matt Stock/Reuters