The AI Adoption Gap

Did you know Maslow never drew a pyramid?
Organizational psychologist Dr. Neha Chatwani opens with this provocation, setting the tone for the whole conversation: AI adoption calls on us to question the assumptions business and management have relied on for decades.

Neha is an author, TEDx speaker and founder of the Workplace Atelier. For more than twenty years, she has helped leaders, teams and organizations navigate change and build strong cultures. In this episode, she explains why humans are far better at change than we’ve been told, and why companies cutting learning and development budgets in response to disruption are doing the opposite of what survival requires. She also shares essential leadership skills and how organizations can become crafters of disruption instead of waiting for change to happen to them.

Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction to Dr. Neha Chatwani and her work
01:13 Questioning traditional hierarchies and the pyramid of needs
07:24 The challenge of managing rapid technological change
10:37 The importance of soft skills and curiosity in organizations
12:46 The role of learning and sharing in organizational agility
18:26 Lessons from disruption and AI adoption
22:46 The importance of listening and engaging with resistance
33:48 The role of leadership in fostering a learning culture

Connect with Neha:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/neha-chatwani/

Note: The episode thumbnail was created using AI-modified imagery.

In our very first episode, we sit down with Coral Diez-Carbajo, a Vienna-based localization and AI strategist and member of the AI Localization Think Tank. Coral has spent a decade at the frontline of AI-driven change in the language industry, making her, as she puts it, "the canary in the AI coal mine" for what every other industry is now facing.

We dig into why high adoption numbers rarely mean real transformation, why governance gets misused as either a shield or a weapon, and why the "human in the loop" concept often does more harm than good when it's treated as an afterthought rather than a real partnership. Coral makes the case for flipping AI decision-making from top-down to bottom-up, letting the people doing the work decide what gets automated and sharing what actually builds trust when teams are asked to change how they work.

A conversation about identity, trust, and what gets lost when AI transformation is run like a software rollout instead of a human transformation process.

Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction Coral Diez-Carbajo
2:33 The Disconnect Between Leadership and Employees
5:04 Governance in AI Implementation
6:51 Empowering Employees in AI Adoption
9:03 The Role of Human Expertise in AI
11:53 Trust and Communication in AI Transformation
14:11 Resistance to Change and Human Behaviour
16:46 The Importance of Continuous Learning
18:48 The Future of AI and Human Collaboration

Connect with Coral:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/coral-diez-carbajo/
https://www.ailocthinktank.com/

Note: The episode thumbnail was created using AI-modified imagery.

Discover why AI transformation is less about technology and more about people, processes, communication and the habits that turn AI ambition into everyday business impact.

This is your podcast for the human side of AI transformation.
Your think tank for what actually works when AI meets everyday reality.

Why does the pilot succeed but scaling fails?
How do you measure ROI beyond tool usage?
And what makes someone actually open the tool on a Tuesday morning?

I'm Sandra Noll, and I've spent more than a decade helping organizations turn complex change into concrete action. On this podcast, I talk with people who close this gap every day.

The AI Adoption Gap- a conversation series on the future of work.

First episode launches September 9, 2026.

Sources from the Trailer:

• SD Worx, HR & Payroll Pulse 2026 (16 European countries, 5,936 HR managers & 16,500 employees, surveyed Jan 27 – Feb 20, 2026) — sdworx.com
• Zylo, 2026 SaaS Management Index — zylo.com/2026-saas-management-index
• McKinsey & Company, "The State of AI in 2026: On the Road to ROI" (n=1,719, surveyed May 4 – June 8, 2026) — mckinsey.com