How to Get AI Adoption Right in Your Org

The corporate AI adoption playbook everyone's following doesn't work.

AI Adoption Chasing Next
Your Advantage This Week · Edition #26

Stop thinking your team is capable because they took AI training.

Stop bringing in consultants to assess your business before you bring your whole team's baseline skills up.

Stop mandating integration from the top down through technical teams or high performers.

This approach creates a small group of builders while everyone else stays passive, and nothing sticks.


Here's why that fails:

There's a huge difference between training that checks a box and training that creates builders.

Most training teaches them how to use a tool or dumps technical explanations they don't need.

Becoming a builder teaches them how to see opportunities and create systems.

Companies are stopping at generic training and top down mandates because they don't have anyone who deeply understands how AI fits into organizational strategy...

They have technical people who know the tech and are capable builders, but strategy and adoption are totally different.

When you mandate AI from the top and make specific teams responsible for it, you're reinforcing that strategy is for select people, not everyone.

AI Adoption Chasing Next

Then the rest of the team isn't empowered to identify where AI fits in their own workflows.

They're not empowered to build small systems that compound into bigger ones.

Instead, they're waiting for someone to tell them what to do.


Here's the issue with that:

When solutions are prescriptive, they don't get adopted...

The person building it isn't the person using it, so there's a disconnect between what gets created and what solves problems.

True adoption happens when you create an environment where people are given permission to build and identify opportunities themselves.

When your entire team can see where AI unlocks value in their specific work, when they can prototype small workflows and understand how they scale into bigger systems...


This is when transformation takes hold and compounds.

You don't need to start with a $20k consultant building solutions for your org.

Instead, spend that money uplevelling your team so they become the builders.

This is what makes everything click.

You now have 100 people identifying opportunities instead of 5.

The solutions they build will get used because they're solving their own problems.

And they'll feel good about the direction because they were part of it.


Use this prompt to audit your team's skills:

AI Adoption Audit Prompt:

This audit uses four questions to reveal whether your team is progressing with AI or only experimenting on the surface.

1. It focuses on four signals:

  • Behavior change after training
  • Workflows built or improved with AI
  • Whether people act on their own or wait for direction
  • Who can design a full workflow

2. After each answer, you get a clear read on what your response indicates.

3. The audit ends with a summary table and a direct view of your team's capability level.

Result: A fast, honest assessment of your team's AI maturity.

Run the audit and see where your team actually stands.

Get the Full Prompt →

Riley

Does your current strategy look like what I described?

If so, it's time to rethink your approach.

If you want an org full of builders, check out my training below.

-Riley

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