To The Moon

Tims China, a coffee chain with more than 1,000 stores, recently held its nationwide skills competition, integrating AI-powered role-play and intelligent learning capabilities from Radnova, operated by YXT.com Group Holding Limited ( $云学堂(YXT)$ ), throughout the preparation process.

By bringing AI into employee training, competency assessment and knowledge capture, the competition evolved from a one-off skills event into a broader organizational capability-building initiative spanning Tims’ nationwide store network.

For large chain businesses, rapid expansion brings a familiar set of challenges: how to maintain consistent service standards across locations, and how to replicate the experience of top performers across a growing workforce. Traditional models built around in-person training, regional coaching and informal knowledge transfer are becoming increasingly difficult to scale.

By introducing AI into the competition, Tims explored a new approach, one that connects employee practice, capability development and organizational knowledge-building, while extending the value of the event well beyond the competition itself.

From Identifying Top Performers to Scaling Best Practices

As organizations grow, the challenge is no longer simply identifying outstanding employees. It is finding a way to replicate what makes them successful.

In traditional operating models, valuable frontline experience—from cashier service and customer communication to complaint handling and food safety—often remains with experienced store managers and high-performing employees. New hires depend heavily on classroom instruction and on-the-job learning, while managers may struggle to track training quality and performance across different stores and regions.

To address this challenge, Radnova embedded real-world business scenarios into the employee development process through AI-powered training. Employees were able to practice repeatedly in situations closely modeled on their day-to-day work, while Tims gained a more structured and scalable way to develop frontline capabilities.

Making Training More Relevant to Real Business Situations

Based on common operating scenarios across Tims stores, Radnova developed a series of AI-powered role-play exercises covering cashier service, customer complaints, communication with delivery riders, media interviews and food safety inspections.

Within the AI training environment, employees interacted with simulated characters and practiced responding to different customer needs, communication styles and unexpected situations. They could repeat each scenario as needed and receive immediate feedback after every session.

Compared with the traditional “learn once, test once” model, this approach shifts training from passive knowledge acquisition to active behavioral practice. Employees not only learn standard procedures, but also strengthen their ability to handle complex and unpredictable situations.

The AI system also evaluates performance against the competition’s scoring criteria, assessing areas such as product and process knowledge, communication skills, service awareness and adaptability. Based on the results, it provides targeted recommendations for improvement.

Managers, meanwhile, can use the training data to identify common capability gaps and provide more focused coaching.

For chain enterprises, this creates a path for turning experience that once depended on individual employees into organizational capabilities that can be replicated across stores and teams.

From a One-Time Competition to an Ongoing Knowledge System

Beyond AI-powered role-play, the competition also used digital tools to improve overall program management.

Radnova’s platform enabled Tims to track participation, practice records, performance trends and competency analysis throughout the competition. These insights can continue to support future employee development and training programs.

At the same time, strong examples, service experience and frontline practices generated during the competition can be captured and converted into enterprise knowledge assets. These assets can then be reused to improve future training and support broader business development.

Traditionally, a skills competition focused on one question: who performed best?

In the AI era, such events can play a much broader role. They can help organizations identify capability gaps, capture practical knowledge and scale best practices across the workforce.

Building Intelligent Productivity with AI

As AI becomes more deeply embedded in business operations, companies are beginning to look beyond isolated efficiency gains. The larger opportunity lies in building organizations that can continuously learn, improve and adapt.

Radnova is advancing its intelligent productivity strategy by helping enterprises build structured knowledge systems and integrate AI into everyday roles, workflows and business processes. This enables companies to turn employee experience, operating procedures and best practices into organizational assets that can be continuously updated, managed and applied.

Tims’ initiative demonstrates the growing role of AI in organizational capability development. AI is no longer simply a training tool. It is becoming infrastructure that connects knowledge, people and business execution.

For chain businesses with large store networks and substantial frontline workforces, future competitiveness will depend not only on products and distribution, but also on how quickly they can replicate expertise, develop talent and strengthen organizational capabilities at scale.

When a skills competition can reach more than 1,000 stores, train 5,000 employees and turn frontline experience into repeatable organizational capability, its value extends far beyond the event itself. It becomes a practical step toward a new era of intelligent productivity.

About YXT.com

YXT.com (NASDAQ: YXT) is a technology company focusing on enterprise productivity solutions. With a mission to "Empower people and organization development through technology," the Company strives to become the supreme provider in building and boosting enterprise productivity by combining over a decade of experience in tech-enabled talent learning and development and with AI-augmented task copilots and unleashing the power of knowledge and synergy. Since its inception, YXT.com has supported and received recognition from numerous Global and China Fortune 500 companies.