Cornerstone

Cornerstone sells learning and talent software to about 7,000 companies. Its skills library comes free with that software. Each profile starts as suggestions that people confirm and rate. Two paid add-ons, Skills Architect and People Graph, read people’s actual work instead. Skill levels never reach Workday, even with Cornerstone’s Workday link switched on. Cornerstone publishes no price for any of it.

By Ashish Manchanda Published 16 Sep 2026 Last updated 16 Sep 2026

In one line

Skills tools built into Cornerstone’s learning and talent products. People confirm and rate their own skills. Two paid add-ons read their actual work instead.

Buy it if

You already run Cornerstone for learning or talent. You want each person’s skills to shape the learning recommended to them. You are ready to run a campaign that gets people to confirm their skills profiles.

Do not buy it if

You need skill levels to reach Workday. You want skills filled in without anyone confirming them. Or you cannot get data return and service continuity written into a long contract. Three lenders valued their Cornerstone loans at 57% to 64% of face value in June 2026.

Price

Not published for any Cornerstone product. Its skills library costs $0 extra on top of Cornerstone’s learning and talent products, so far. Skills Architect and People Graph cost extra, as separate add-ons.

A skill counts only once the employee confirms it

Cornerstone’s skills tools start with a skills library of more than 55,000 skills. A tool called Skills Graph looks at each employee’s job title. It compares that title against data from more than 250 million other job profiles. Skills Graph then suggests matching skills and adds them to your library on its own. Your admins can check these suggestions before employees ever see them.

Skills also come from what people write about themselves. If an employee lists “playing guitar” as an interest, Cornerstone adds a skill called “Guitar” to the library. Cornerstone can then suggest that skill to the same person later. Its Skills Library Builder can suggest skills for every active employee at once. It can also copy skills from the CV section of someone’s profile straight into the library. For people applying from outside the company, AI reads their uploaded CV. Their skills profile then moves across automatically once they are hired. Existing employees do not get that same shortcut.

A suggested skill only counts once the employee confirms it. Employees mark each skill as one they have, one they want to develop, or one to ignore. The first two kinds count toward their profile. From there, colleagues can vouch for each other’s skills. Managers and HR can confirm someone as an expert in a skill. A performance review can also include a section that collects skill ratings.

A person’s skill level comes from four numbers added together, each counted differently. The first is a system prediction based on work history. The second is an average rating from managers, and the third an average rating from peers. The fourth is the person’s own latest rating of themselves. A skill rating is just a score, with an optional comment attached. Your admin decides how much each of the four numbers counts, and those four weights must add up to 100%. If your admin changes a weight, working out every employee’s score again can take up to 24 hours. Cornerstone comes with three skill levels as standard, and you can add more, up to ten in total. Cornerstone sets out how it works out the system prediction in a support article for customers.

Cornerstone can also tag your training courses with skills. It reads each course’s title, description, keywords and subject to work out which skills apply. This happens once you switch on a setting called Content Skills Tagging.

Two paid add-ons sit on top of the standard features. Both belong to Workforce AI, the name Cornerstone gave its platform in May 2026. Skills Architect works out what employees can do “from actual work”, in Cornerstone’s words. It finds skill gaps across people, teams and the whole business. People Graph reads “work, learning, and collaboration signals” instead. It links to the project management and work-tracking systems connected to Cornerstone. It uses those signals to model skill gaps, risks and readiness. Cornerstone says the result shows “how people actually work”, not “how they describe themselves on paper”.

Cornerstone built its skills tools in three moves. It bought Clustree, a French company with a skills engine and a skills library, in January 2020. It bought SkyHive’s skills tools and team in May 2024. In May 2026, it relaunched the whole platform as Cornerstone Workforce AI. You may still hear two older names, SkyHive by Cornerstone and Cornerstone Galaxy, for parts of that same platform. Make sure a demo shows the current version.

The included library is free, but both add-ons cost extra

None of Cornerstone’s products carry a published price. Each company pays a different amount, based on its needs and size. Cornerstone gives you an estimate after a demo call.

If you already buy Cornerstone’s learning and talent products, you get the ready-made skills library. It costs $0 extra, so far. Recommending learning based on someone’s skill gaps is included. So is matching people to jobs open inside your company. Skills Architect and People Graph cost extra. So the view of skill gaps across teams and the whole business costs extra.

Skills Architect also comes as part of Cornerstone’s talent development package. People Graph comes as part of its top package. That top package is aimed at companies “orchestrating readiness at enterprise scale”. Josh Bersin, the HR industry analyst, wrote that existing customers get the new Workforce AI tools. They do this by upgrading to a new licence tier, which has no published price.

Vendr tracks what companies actually pay for software. In September 2026, it put the typical Cornerstone OnDemand contract at $27,402 a year. That was for a minimum of 100 to 250 users. The actual quote depends on how many users you have, and which parts you choose. It also depends on any content subscriptions, how much setup work you need, and how long your contract runs.

US government contracts show what large companies pay. The Navy’s order for Cornerstone licences, for the year to 23 September 2026, comes to $6,447,500. A Department of Defense order for licences and content, for the year to 14 August 2026, comes to $5,636,059.25. The Social Security Administration’s order, for the year ending September 2026, comes to $1,061,667.50. None of these orders break down parts or seats, so they do not give a price per person. One older order does. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau paid $413,847.04 for Cornerstone training software for 1,700 users. That contract ran five years, from November 2018 to November 2023. That contract began before the Skills Graph launched in September 2020. So it is a price for training software, not for skills.

More than 70% of Cornerstone’s customers are small and midsize businesses. Cornerstone says small ones typically have fewer than 1,000 staff. It says midsize ones generally have 1,000 to 5,000. It publishes no minimum company size for its skills products. But the customers named on its page for smaller businesses talk about learning, HR, content, reporting and training. Those customers have 260, 800 and 2,500 staff. None of them talk about skills. Its ready-made packages for smaller businesses can be set up in as little as six weeks. Get a reference customer of a similar size that uses the skills features.

While you are a customer, anyone with the right permissions can pull skills data into Cornerstone’s own reports.

You could also build this on your own systems. We have mapped what that looks like. See it as an agent

It suits companies already running Cornerstone for learning

The standard skills features fit four situations best.

It tags courses with skills and recommends them

Cornerstone can tag your courses with skills on its own. It can then recommend courses based on skill gaps. For pointing people to training, this comes with a Cornerstone learning licence.

People and managers can own skill levels

You choose how many skill levels to use, up to ten. You also choose how much each score counts. That includes the person’s own rating, their manager’s rating, their peers’ ratings, and the system’s prediction. You can make managers count more than the system.

Skills lists stay in step with Workday

A connector links Cornerstone to Workday. A connector is software that keeps two systems in step. It keeps declared skills matching in both directions. It also sends the skills people are developing to Workday. You need a Cornerstone Learn or Elevate subscription to use it.

You can bring your own list of skills

You can load your own list of skills into Cornerstone, and load ratings in from other systems. If you do this, turn off Cornerstone’s automatic skill suggestions, so the two lists do not clash. Decide early which list your company will run on.

Cornerstone has six limits to weigh before signing

Some limits sit in the product itself. Some sit in how it is sold. Its finances matter too before you sign a long contract.

Skill levels do not reach Workday

The Workday connector sends skills across. It does not send skill levels, or the skills attached to jobs and courses. You might make promotion or succession decisions in Workday. If so, the levels agreed in Cornerstone never reach it. Setting up the link takes more than switching it on. Installing it in a test system needs a written agreement with your account manager. Workforce AI customers must also match each Workday skill to the right Cornerstone skill by hand.

Profiles fill only as far as people take part

AMS runs recruiting for other companies and has more than 8,000 staff. It ran workshops and handed out help sheets to get good skills profiles from staff. AMS says this step matters for its use of Talent Marketplace. That is Cornerstone’s tool for matching people to jobs inside the firm. AMS also had to agree what counts as a skill across the whole firm. Cornerstone’s setup wizard includes sample messages to help staff fill in their profiles. Getting people to actually confirm their skills is still work your own team does. Budget time for that push before you launch.

The skills features come with the learning and talent products

Cornerstone does not publish a price for its skills features alone. You may want them without the learning or talent products. Get Cornerstone to confirm it sells them that way, and at what price.

Course tagging cannot be switched off

Once you turn on Content Skills Tagging, you cannot turn it off again. Decide which list of skills you are keeping before you switch it on.

Its AI agents are set up with Cornerstone’s engineers

Cornerstone says custom AI agents are “typically delivered within two to four quarters”, which is six months to a year. Cornerstone’s own engineers set up every agent together with you. Skills Architect is one of those agents. Expect it to arrive as a project with Cornerstone’s engineers. It will not be a setting you switch on yourself.

Workforce AI is new

Josh Bersin wrote about this on launch day. He said the Workforce AI offering was not fully complete yet. He had talked with a few customers. They included a wealth management firm, a large media company and Cisco. Cisco’s Chief Learning Officer says Cisco uses Cornerstone’s skills data to develop and move people across the organisation. Get references that say which parts of the product each customer uses.

Cornerstone has been privately owned by Clearlake Capital since October 2021. So the filings of the lenders who fund it give one public view of its finances. Those lenders report what they think their loans are worth. Three lenders looked closely at their Cornerstone loans in filings for the quarter to 30 June 2026. They valued those loans at 57% to 64% of face value. That means each dollar owed was worth only 57 to 64 cents to them. Ares Capital put its largest Cornerstone loan, $137.5 million, at $88.0 million. Blue Owl put its $160.4 million loan at $92.2 million. Blackstone Private Credit Fund put a $17.8 million loan at $11.4 million. Six months earlier, Ares and Blue Owl had valued those same two loans at about 90% of face value. In the quarter to 30 June, Ares marked its Cornerstone holdings down by a net $43 million. That was the largest fall among all the companies Ares named. These are lenders’ valuations of Cornerstone’s debt, not Cornerstone’s own figures. They say nothing about the software itself. In a long contract, spell out how you get your data back. Also spell out how the service keeps running if Cornerstone’s ownership or funding changes.

What should you ask Cornerstone before you sign?

Show us a new starter’s skills profile on day one. Which skills are only suggestions, and which count toward their level? Good answer: A clear split between suggested and confirmed skills.
What does the system prediction look at? Send us the article that explains it, without a customer login. Good answer: A written answer and the article, before we sign.
What do Skills Architect and People Graph each read? Which of our systems must connect, and what does each cost on top of the library? Is Skills Architect an add-on, or part of the talent development package? Good answer: What each one reads, which systems connect, and a price for both.
For companies like ours, what share of staff have confirmed and rated at least five skills after one year? Good answer: A percentage, not a few examples.
Your Workday link does not send ratings across. If we leave, can we export confirmed skills and ratings in one file? It should show who gave each rating, and the system’s predictions. Good answer: Yes, in the contract, with a name on each rating.
Content Skills Tagging cannot be turned off. What happens to our course tags if we change our skills list later? Good answer: A plan for the old tags.
Lenders valued your loans at 57% to 64% of face value in June 2026. What does our contract say about getting our data back if your owners change? What does it say about keeping the service running? Good answer: A data-return clause and a service clause, both in writing.
You say custom agents are “typically delivered within two to four quarters”. What does the subscription cover? What is billed separately as engineers’ time? Does that timeline apply to Skills Architect? Good answer: A separate number for the subscription and for engineers’ time.

Start with the included library, then compare Microsoft and TechWolf

Cornerstone’s paid add-ons are Skills Architect and People Graph. Their closest alternatives are Microsoft People Skills and TechWolf. A third option is to use the skills library already included, and buy nothing new. Which one fits depends on whether you run Cornerstone, and what you need the data to do.

If you already run Cornerstone for learning, switch on the included skills library first. Run the campaign that gets employees to confirm their profiles. Look at what comes back before anyone prices Skills Architect or People Graph. Confirmed skills with manager and peer ratings may answer your question. If so, stop there. You will have bought nothing new.

For skills worked out from people’s actual work, look beyond Cornerstone’s own add-ons too. Price Skills Architect and People Graph against Microsoft People Skills and TechWolf instead. Both turn up in our guide to skills intelligence software, which covers exactly that job. Microsoft People Skills reads Microsoft 365 only. If you hold a Copilot or Viva licence, it adds $0 extra, so far. Microsoft says it is not designed for promotion or pay decisions. Skill levels might be meant to feed decisions like promotions or pay. If so, Microsoft People Skills is not the right tool for that job. TechWolf publishes no price. Cotality is the smallest company it names in any case study, at about 5,000 people. For a much smaller company, get TechWolf to confirm it takes on companies that size.

If you do not run Cornerstone at all, our advice is different. Read our guide to skills intelligence software instead. It sets out which jobs need skills worked out for each person. It also covers which jobs are served well by a simpler tool. That kind of tool just asks people directly, rather than working anything out from their profile or their work.