How to introduce AI to a skeptical workplace

Chris was frustrated. He’d used Artificial Intelligence (AI) extensively in college. Now at his first job, he saw very few of his colleagues ever experimenting with it.

At first, Chris tried bringing up AI conversationally. He mentioned creating a meal schedule, as well as planning a cool weekend trip itinerary. But when he suggested to his manager how they might want to incorporate AI into their workflow, he felt rebuffed.

Chris isn’t alone. As the first group of highly experienced AI users is starting work, they have experience with AI. However, they lack the credibility and subject matter expertise to transform workflows. Championing change management initiatives (especially those involving new technology) can be an uphill battle, but the following can help you enter the AI-conversation with your colleagues.

1. Understand the cultural reticence about AI in your organization

A lot of experienced experts have real, valid concerns that AI will replace their expertise. Recent stats suggest that almost a quarter of workers feel AI could make their job obsolete, while almost half see that it will change their job significantly over the next few years. 

So it’s important to first take some time to have conversations with your team, to ask them about their experiences and concerns when it comes to. Here’s a starting list of curious questions you can ask to get a better sense of where your group is currently:

• What have you heard about others using AI at work? 
• Have you used AI yet (personally or professionally)? If so, what has most impressed you about AI’s abilities? Was there anything you found particularly frustrating in your AI experiments?
• What most worries you about AI at work? 

Once you understand your manager and colleagues’ overall stance on AI, the next step is to talk to them about potential small next steps they could take using AI. Ask them what frustrates them at work, then zero in on one part of one workflow that feels most wasteful to people in your group. Offer an AI workaround for that part. Once you have an AI-inspired project, the next step is to help increase your group’s own comfort with using AI.

2. Host an AI “lunch and learn” at work

It can be hard for many at work to admit they don’t understand some of the newer technologies. Also, the less people experiment with AI, the less likely they are to see its true potential.

Consider offering a fun learning activity where you can demo the potential of AI. As a bonus, reach out to some of your AI-savvy colleagues to design and launch the training. This demonstrates to management you’re willing to design and lead projects. It also shows that you can collaborate with your peers in a productive way, and that you’re committed to adding value to your workplace with new technology.

Here are a few things you can incorporate into your AI session:

• Bring a list of prompts that people can use to get started on how to interact with the AI interface. One of the hardest barriers for new users to overcome with AI can be how to start the conversation with this blank screen.
• Split the group into smaller working groups to use AI to design a logo for a company product or service. You might want to think about prizes for originality and the group’s top-rated logo.
• You can provide key objectives for a real or imagined team off-site and have small groups work together with AI to design an agenda that people in the group agree would be helpful. These outputs can also be useful for your next team meeting.

3. Bring your manager into some of your AI-aided problem-solving sessions

You might need to get your manager’s full buy-in before they are open to inviting others to an AI training. As noted earlier, the more people experience AI, the more they can picture it in their workstreams. 

To do this, when there is a piece of your work that requires brainstorming with your manager, ask if you can bring your laptop and connect it to a visible screen to incorporate AI into your brainstorming session while giving your manager a sense of how AI contributes. AI brings some great out-of-the-box thinking and endless ideas that can often help teams generate more innovative answers as a result.

Another easy-to-try strength of AI is as a meeting notetaker. See if your manager would agree to a pilot test of AI team meeting summaries for a few months. That could give your whole team a sense of AI’s capacity to summarize the main points and generate key next steps that help all attendees. It can even offer key insights to those who were absent.

A move towards an AI-enabled workplace

In the end, Chris decided to cautiously bring ChatGPT to his meetings. First, he used it as a notetaker and distributed the notes afterwards, which the team found beneficial. Then, whenever his teammates engaged in a brainstorm, he enlisted AI’s help and shared AI-generated suggestions with his group. Within a few months, more of his colleagues were experimenting with AI, and his manager would regularly enlist Chris’s help to figure out how the company could use AI to lighten the team’s administrative load. 

Whether you decide to try one of these three steps, it’s important to recognize that moving to an AI-enabled workplace can be a cultural shift. And of course, AI is still evolving. It can hallucinate and it can lie. That’s why it’s better to go slow when approaching these types of transitions. You don’t want to force change on someone, or a team, who’s just not there yet. For AI to provide the benefits that it can bring, you need your whole team’s buy-in. Your team might be the tortoise, not the hare, in this AI race, but you can still powerfully influence their journey and build momentum in your organization to take advantage of what’s ahead.

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