What is the difference between Verbatim, Structured and Adaptive?
The three options for how closely a course follows the document you upload, and when to use each one.
Verbatim, Structured and Adaptive are the three ways the AI agent can treat your source material. Verbatim keeps your wording exactly as written. Structured keeps your content and terminology but reshapes it into a proper learning flow. Adaptive treats your document as a starting point and writes a fuller course around the learning outcomes you chose.
The difference comes down to one thing: what has authority. In Verbatim and Structured, your document does. In Adaptive, your learning outcomes do.
When do I get to choose?
The AI agent asks this question when you upload a single source document or a SCORM package. If you start from a prompt alone, or upload several documents, the question does not appear and the course is built adaptively, because there is no single source for it to follow. Multi document uploads default to Adaptice.
How do the three compare?
| Verbatim | Structured | Adaptive | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What decides the course structure | Your document | Your document | Your learning outcomes |
| Your wording | Kept exactly | Kept, with sentences tidied for clarity | Used, rephrased or replaced |
| Your terminology and examples | Kept | Kept | Kept where useful |
| Order of material | Follows your document | Follows your document | Ordered to make teaching sense |
| Can it leave things out | No | No | Yes, anything that does not serve your outcomes |
| Can it add new material | No | Connective writing only, such as intros and a recap | Yes, where your outcomes need it |
When should I use Verbatim?
Use Verbatim when the exact words matter and changing them would be a problem. Policies, compliance content, regulated procedures, safety instructions, terms and conditions, anything that has been through legal review.
Your content is not rewritten, reordered or summarised. It is turned into screens and blocks so it works as a course, so the presentation changes even though the words do not.
Verbatim is available for a single upload of any supported type. If you upload a presentation, the agent also tries to match the layout of each slide, keeping images together on the same screen where they appeared together on the slide.
When should I use Structured?
Use Structured when your content is right but the shape is not. A dense policy document, a long training manual, a deck that runs as one flat sequence of slides. You want everything to survive the trip, but you want it to teach properly rather than read as a document someone has pasted into a course.
Structured is the middle option, and worth understanding properly because it does more than it sounds like:
- Your content all carries across. Structured is designed to bring every section and sub-topic with it, including specific examples, case studies and reference material. It does not summarise your source.
- Your order is preserved. Sections appear in the order they appear in your document. Nothing is reordered, merged across or skipped.
- Your terminology stays. Specific terms and examples are not swapped for generic ones. Sentences may be tidied for clarity and reading flow.
- It finds structure even when your document has none. If there are no formal headings, the agent reads the content, finds natural topic boundaries and groups related material into sections itself. It can work from bold standalone lines, numbered outlines, slide boundaries or simply topic shifts in the prose.
- It picks the right block for the content. A comparison in your document becomes a table, a set of steps becomes a checklist, FAQ-style content becomes an accordion. You do not get screen after screen of heading and paragraph.
- It adds the connective tissue a course needs. A course introduction, short section introductions, and a recap at the end. That is authored writing, but it wraps your content rather than replacing it.
When should I use Adaptive?
Use Adaptive when your document is background rather than the script. Notes, a reference document, a deck that covers roughly the right ground, or source material that was never written to be taught from.
Adaptive builds the course around the learning outcomes you chose during intake, so:
- Sections map to your outcomes, not your document's headings.
- The order is whatever teaches best, usually foundations first and applied material later.
- Material in your document that does not serve your outcomes can be left out.
- Material your outcomes need that your document does not cover can be written for you, pitched at the audience you selected.
Adaptive will not contradict your document on facts where your document has authority, and it will not drift from the audience, tone or language you chose.
Frequently asked questions
Which one should I pick if I am not sure?
Structured. It keeps everything you gave it and makes a proper course out of it, which is what most people want from a document they already trust. Verbatim is the right answer when the wording is legally or operationally fixed, and Adaptive when you want a course rather than a conversion.
Does Verbatim mean absolutely nothing changes?
Your words do not change. The presentation does, because a document has to become screens and blocks to work as a course. Nothing is rewritten, cut or reordered.
Will Structured leave any of my content out?
No. Carrying all your source content across is what Structured is for, including examples and case detail that a summary would drop.
Can I change the setting after the course is built?
The choice applies when the course is built, so there is no switch to flip afterwards. You have two options: ask the agent to make the changes you want in the course you have, or build a new course from the same document with a different setting.
What if I upload more than one document?
The course is built adaptively, because there is no single source document to follow. Your documents are all used as material.