Adopting AI successfully isn’t about the technology – it’s about your culture. As a leader, your role is not to dictate AI use, but to create an environment where people feel empowered to explore, leverage, and share AI-driven innovations with everybody else.

https://swiy.co/go-ai-in-your-team

Do you have hidden AI talent in your teams?

In the last week, I had two very interesting conversations with senior leadership teams from two very different organisations in completely different sectors. Despite their differences, they had one key thing in common: they were both thinking about how to integrate AI into their organisations.

What struck me was I had almost identical conversations with both teams.

At first, they were talking about what they needed to do was understand AI, craft an organisation-wide AI policy, create strict rules about using AI, engaging IT in creating a safe environment, and so on.

And then came the turning point.

In the middle of this discussion, one person - let’s call her Mikaela - spoke up. In both cases, “Mikaela” wasn’t the Chief Technology Officer, The Chief Information Officer, the Head of IT, or anyone formally responsible for AI. She was a senior leader, but in a non-technical role.

She shared that she had uses AI regularly in her day-to-day work: Experimenting with ChatGPT to draft emails, analyse spreadsheets, conduct competitor analysis, and explore how her team could use AI in their roles. She had even paid for her own subscription to access advanced features and had taken the time to dig deep into the technology.

So when these leadership teams asked me how they should approach AI adoption, my response was clear:

Find and support AI champions in your organisation.

For those senior leadership teams, “Mikaela” is their AI champion! She isn’t formally responsible for AI strategy, but she is curious, proactive, and already using AI to solve real problems. And every organisation has people like her.

The role of senior leadership is not to dictate how AI should be used from the top down. Instead, it’s about helping leaders and managers throughout the organisation to find, facilitate, and support their own AI champions.

This is where many organisations go wrong. The traditional approach is to impose new initiatives from the top down. But that usually takes a long, long time. And with AI, which is moving so fast, it’s difficult to get it right.

A faster, more effective approach is to focus on culture, and start using AI everywhere. Adopting AI is not about the technology. Well it IS, but it’s really about people and technology working together.

And that starts with your people.

For more, join my online presentation about people-powered AI. It’s free, public, and open to everybody. And feel free to invite others in your team and network as well.

Register for the virtual masterclass:

https://swiy.co/go-ai-in-your-team

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