Avoid these 2 AI adoption mistakes and set your team up for success

51% of the marketing is piloting or scaling with AI, with the number one desired outcome: time savings. 

But a shocking 75% of marketers mention a lack of AI training (source). And to my big surprise, some employees still don't embrace AI and stick to their usual way of working. Maybe it’s fear or ignorance, or perhaps it’s because we don’t love what we don’t know—who can tell?

AI is here to stay, and it's about time to take it seriously. Do you want to know how to start with AI in your team and organization? Then this is for you. 

• The 2 mistakes in AI adoption: IT-only and siloed
• What to do instead: bottom-up and top-down approaches for success
• Frequently asked questions about AI adoption and training

Credit where credit is due, thanks to Arne Mosselman for writing ‘From the Ground Up.’ All content below originates from Arne’s whitepaper, and I have added some of my insights and experiences.

Let’s dig in.

Avoid these 2 mistakes in AI adoption approaches

Knowing what not to do is as powerful as knowing what to do. These are the two common missteps in adopting AI.

Mistake 1. Treating AI as an IT-only project

When AI is treated solely as an IT initiative, we miss its creative and human potential. This approach is too focused on cost-cutting and tech management. 

For the boomers amongst us, remember how we started with ‘the internet’ back in the days in that same IT department? And look at where it is right now, for and by everyone in the organization. 
 

Mistake 2. Innovation in silos

Isolating AI within a specific department creates a scattered effect, doubles the work, and prevents sharing experiences, learnings, and knowledge. You’d be amazed at how many companies implement AI only within a single department.

What can you do to successfully adopt AI? Go bottom-up and top-down. 

Bottom-up: innovation on the work floor

Change always comes from two ways: bottom-up and top-down. These are the recommendations from the work floor. 

• Creativity for everyone across teams
  AI sparks and fuels innovation in every department, much like social media did for content creation across marketing, communications, corporate, sales, customer care, and HR.
   
• ⁠Low-cost experimentation, high revenue
  AI licenses are affordable, with major time savings on everyday tasks. For about €350 per year in license and training, each employee could save around four hours. That’s a whopping ~10% time gain for ~1% of the brutal annual salary. Smart investment, right?
   
• ⁠⁠Let AI champions lead by example 
  Employee see, employee do. When they see their coworkers embracing AI with enthusiasm and success, that inspires them to give it a try too.

Now, let's look at what needs to be done by the leadership, top-down. 

Top-down: leadership support for growth

You can't lead if you don't know what you're talking about. So the leadership team has to learn to work with AI as well and create a safe environment to experiment. 

• Leadership commitment: they have to set ambitious, realistic goals, legitimize AI use, establish ethical boundaries, and give guidance to AI adoption easier. 
  
  Next to that, they themselves have to lead by example and also learn to work with AI. Monkey see, monkey do.
   
• Change Management: they, the leaders, have to realize AI is a change and needs change management, not just the rollout of a new tool. They have to guide and support the integration of AI in the daily work processes and facilitate a safe environment to experiment and learn to work with AI while they break the vertical and horizontal silos to share learnings and knowledge.

This is the strategic framework that the leadership team has to give.

• Clear objectives
  To measure is to know. Besides, it helps to mitigate employee fears and highlights the productivity benefits of daily tasks.
   
• ⁠⁠Training
  This is a no-brainer. 75% mention they lack formal and continuous training. It's good to realize that ‘one training is no training’; you have to set up a program with multiple sessions and share experiences and knowledge. 
   
• Internal communication
  The best way to succeed is to highlight small successes and share the daily struggles and fears and how other employees overcame them. Sharing is caring. Don't keep it secret.
   
• ⁠Encourage experimentation
  This experimentation is so important that I will mention it for the third time. You must foster and encourage a culture of structured experimentation to explore and scale AI. Fail fast, learn faster, and dare to experiment, be innovative, and dare to make mistakes.
   
• Measure Impact
  In line with the objectives and internal communications, measure and share. Nothing is as sticky and inspiring as success with new technologies.

Frequently asked questions about AI adoption and training

• What if I just start small with AI in marketing?
  
  Well, at least you're starting; that's good. But do you want to keep AI exclusive and secret for marketing only? 
  
  Or do you want to empower other employees as well to work more efficiently and faster, so they have more headspace to improve the quality and not just the quantity of their work? 

• How do I begin with AI if I don't know where to start?
  
  Then, call Arne. He's the one who can help you and guide you on how to set this up in a solid and measurable way. He's your strategic counterpart for AI. 
  
  I highly recommend him because he's good and brutally honest in the typical Dutch way, not a self-proclaimed guru or cowboy. Just to let you know, I'm not affiliated, nor do I get a fee; I recommend him because he's one of the best and, above all, a really nice guy and easy to work with. 

• What makes good AI training for my marketing team?
  
  ‘One training is no training.’ What I hear from many marketing and comms people is that they feel their AI training is either too technical or too high-level, packed with impressive capabilities but lacking practical steps and a follow-up to keep it going. Often, they feel super inspired but don't know how to start using AI in their daily work. Without clear, hands-on tips and tricks, they scratch the surface of AI and give up when their results don’t give them the excitement they felt during training. 
  
  My best-kept secret for good training: small groups, 4 to 8. Let them bring their struggles with examples to the training. Start with the overview of what they need to know and what they can forget — followed by how to prompt and the reason behind the structure of a good prompt. Hands-on practical fun pushing and poking AI around gets them started. And follow up with a shorter session to ask questions and dive a bit deeper where needed. If you also want to have a training like this, contact me.

Wrapping it up

Implementing and adopting AI makes me think back to the days when we took our first steps with websites. And when we embraced social media, every department jumped on the content creation. We came from far and let’s use those lessons learned to embrace the exciting future ahead.

What not to do in AI adaption 

• Make AI an IT journey
   
• Start in a one siloed department

How to set up AI adoption for success

• Bottom-up: empower creativity and innovation for everyone, against low experimentation costs with high revenue, and give stage to AI enthusiasts to inspire others.
   
• Top-down: lead by example; leadership has to work with AI as well, treat it as a change and not a tool, give objectives, measure and communicate them, provide training, and again, encourage experimentation.

If you want to know more about this, contact Arne Mosselman. He knows. Download his whitepaper, 'From the Ground Up: How Generative AI is Revolutionising Industries, and discover how to build an AI-powered strategy that upskills teams and fosters innovation.' 

If you want to know more about how to use AI for your marketing and content team, then, quite biased, of course, contact me.

Need help to start with AI today?

If you need any help setting up this new process and getting your team started while hitting the ground running, don’t hesitate to drop me a DM on LinkedIn. 

If I'm not your designated person, I can certainly recommend someone in my network who can help you.  

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