Working Smarter with SMEs: How AI Is Transforming the Content Gathering Process

"AI doesn't replace your subject matter expert — but it can make every hour you spend with them dramatically more productive. Here's how to bring AI into your SME workflow from preparation to post-interview synthesis."

First, a quick refresher: SME stands for Subject Matter Expert — the domain authority who provides the content knowledge that instructional designers shape into effective learning experiences. If you've worked in ID for any length of time, you know the dance: scheduling interviews, taking frantic notes, chasing follow-up clarifications, then trying to stitch it all into a coherent course structure.

That workflow hasn't changed much in decades. Until now.

AI tools — particularly large language models like Claude, ChatGPT, and others — are quietly transforming how instructional designers prepare for, conduct, and process their SME collaboration. This article walks through five practical ways to integrate AI into that process, at every stage.

Role of the SME vs Instructional Designer (and Where AI Fits)

As an instructional designer, you're the architect of the learning experience — not necessarily the domain expert. You might be asked to build courses on neurophysics, compliance law, financial operations, or surgical procedures in the same quarter. You rely on SMEs for the knowledge; your job is to translate it into learning that actually changes behavior.

Image: Role of Subject Matter Expert

AI fits into this relationship as a force multiplier for the instructional designer. It doesn't replace the SME's expertise — that's irreplaceable — but it dramatically reduces the cognitive overhead of the ID's side of the equation: research, question development, note synthesis, outline creation, and first-draft generation. 5 Ways to Use AI When Working with SMEs Below are five practical tips to help you get started working with subject matter experts:

1. Use AI to Do Your Pre-Interview Homework Before you meet with your SME, you need domain fluency — not expertise, but enough to ask intelligent questions and understand the answers. Traditionally, this meant hours of reading. AI compresses that dramatically.

Ask your AI tool to give you a primer on the subject area, explain common misconceptions, surface the key vocabulary, or map out the typical processes involved. You'll walk into the interview already grounded in the basics — which impresses SMEs and earns their trust faster. Example AI Prompt: "I'm an instructional designer preparing to interview a subject matter expert on pharmaceutical cold chain compliance. Give me a foundational overview of the topic, the key terminology I should understand, and 3–5 common areas where employees typically struggle or make errors." You can also ask AI to help you craft a focused list of open-ended interview questions tailored to the specific domain. Feed it your learning goals or audience description and let it generate a question bank you can refine and prioritize before the meeting.

2. Transcribe and Summarize Your Interviews with AI

Recording your SME interview (with permission) has always been best practice. AI takes this further: tools like Otter.ai, Fireflies, or even built-in transcription in Zoom and Teams can produce a full, searchable transcript of your conversation automatically.

But transcription is just the start. Once you have that raw transcript, paste it into an AI tool and prompt it to extract the gold: Example AI Prompt "Here is a transcript of an SME interview on [topic]. Please: (1) identify the 5–7 most important concepts the SME emphasized, (2) flag any gaps or areas where they said 'it depends' or gave vague answers, and (3) list any follow-up questions I should send via email to clarify." This turns a 45-minute conversation into a clean, actionable summary in minutes — and ensures you don't miss anything important buried in the middle of a long tangent.

3. Generate and Refine Your Interview Questions with AI

Asking great questions is a craft. The best SME questions are open-ended, performance-focused, and designed to surface the "why" behind a process — not just the "what." AI can help you build a richer question set than you'd develop alone, especially when you're working in an unfamiliar domain.

Start with your standard question framework, then ask AI to expand, vary, and sharpen them:

• What does excellent performance look like in this role?

• Where do most people go wrong with this process?

• What's the single most important thing a new learner must understand?

• What would you want someone to be able to DO after taking this course?

• Are there any common misconceptions you'd want us to directly address?

Feed these into your AI tool with context about the subject and your target audience, and ask it to suggest domain-specific follow-ups, reorder them for conversational flow, or flag which questions might feel redundant to an expert SME. Pro tip: Ask AI to help you translate instructional design jargon into plain language for your SME. Instead of asking about "learning objectives," ask what they want learners to do differently after the course. AI can help you reframe your thinking into language that resonates.

4: Use AI to Respect the SME's Time — and Your Own

Subject matter experts are busy. The window you have with them is precious, and it should be spent capturing knowledge — not doing administrative work. AI can take on the time-consuming tasks that used to eat into your SME preparation and follow-up.

Before the interview, use AI to:

• Research and synthesize any existing resources the SME shares with you

• Draft a proposed course outline to react to (it's often easier to edit than create)

• Identify overlaps with any existing training materials in your organization

After the interview, use AI to:

• Draft a professional thank-you email that references specific insights from the conversation

• Generate a summary document to send back for SME review and validation

• Create a prioritized list of follow-up questions rather than scheduling another full meeting
  

Example AI Prompt: "Draft a brief, professional email thanking [SME Name] for their time today. Reference that we discussed [topic], and include 2–3 specific follow-up questions about [gap areas]. Keep it to under 150 words and close by offering to send a draft outline for their review."

5. Turn SME Content into Course Structure Using AI

Perhaps the highest-leverage application of AI in the SME process is what happens after the interview: transforming raw knowledge into a structured learning experience. This is where the instructional designer's true value lies — and AI can dramatically accelerate the first draft.

Once you've synthesized your SME notes, feed them to an AI tool and prompt it to generate:

• A proposed module outline with learning objectives per section

• A storyboard outline or lesson flow for each module

• Formative assessment questions based on the content

• Scenario-based examples that illustrate the SME's key points

• A plain-language summary the SME can validate for accuracy

Example AI Prompt: "Based on these SME interview notes about [topic], create a 4-module course outline. For each module, write 2–3 measurable learning objectives using Bloom's Taxonomy action verbs, suggest one scenario-based activity, and propose two knowledge-check questions. Target audience is [describe learner]."

The output won't be perfect — and it shouldn't be. Your job is to apply your instructional expertise to evaluate, refine, and shape what AI produces. Think of AI as your first-draft writer and your SME as the accuracy validator. You're the editor and architect connecting both.

After the course launches, loop your SME back in by sharing course metrics — enrollment, completion rates, and assessment scores. AI can even help you build a brief, data-driven summary report to send them, reinforcing the value of their contribution and paving the way for future collaboration. A Note on AI Limitations in SME Work AI is powerful, but it has real limits worth naming. A language model can synthesize, suggest, and structure — but it cannot replicate the experiential knowledge of a seasoned professional. It may confidently generate content that sounds right but is factually wrong for a specific domain. This is especially critical in technical, legal, medical, or compliance-heavy subject areas.

Always treat AI-generated content as a starting point for SME validation, not a finished product. Build SME review into your workflow explicitly — and remind your SMEs that their role as accuracy validators becomes even more important when AI is part of the process. Bottom line: AI handles the volume work so you can focus on the relational and strategic work — the conversations, the judgment calls, and the design decisions that no tool can make for you. Working with SMEs has always been both art and science. AI doesn't change that equation — it just gives instructional designers a far more capable set of tools to show up prepared, process knowledge faster, and deliver better learning experiences. The relationship at the heart of the process remains deeply human. AI just helps you honor it more effectively.

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