I'm being asked more often to help businesses and teams learn how to use AI. The same questions regularly come up through the IA•AI meetup I helped co-found, both from our members and in speaker presentations: How do we bring along the AI-curious, or even the laggards, without leaving people behind? And how do we do it while keeping humans at the center of the work?

Most organizations have a huge range of AI experience.

One employee may already be building sophisticated workflows while the person sitting next to them has barely opened ChatGPT. Others are total skeptics who don't want to touch AI. However, nobody wants to feel left behind. All in all, simply putting everyone through generic "AI training" isn't necessarily the answer. The goal shouldn't be to make everyone good at AI. It should be to help people do their current work better.

For example, a typical salesperson doesn't need to know everything an AI tool can do. They might benefit from learning how it can help research a prospect, prepare for a sales call, summarize notes, or draft a thoughtful follow-up. Someone in operations, finance, or marketing will have completely different opportunities.

Help them start with their actual work, identify what could be done better, then introduce the technology that can help. That's much easier to understand than a long list of prompts and features with no connection to someone's day-to-day responsibilities.

Emphasize humans at the center

This is also where keeping humans at the center matters. AI can research, summarize, draft, analyze, and automate at an incredible pace, but people still provide context, judgment, relationships, accountability, and the understanding of what a good outcome actually looks like. Effective AI adoption isn't about replacing those things. It's about helping people understand when AI can assist them, when they need to verify its work, and when the human should lead entirely.

What to do this week

• Ask your team where they already use AI, including uses you may not know about.

• Find one person who is AI-curious and start with a real task from their job, not generic AI training.

• Pair more experienced users with people who are still learning and encourage them to share practical examples.

• Keep asking: Did this actually make the work better, or did we just add AI to it?

How can I help?

I've been helping explore these questions with my friends IA•AI and working directly with interested small and mid-sized businesses on practical AI adoption and training. No single curriculum fits every organization, and that's part of why I enjoy this work. It starts with understanding your people, their work, and what you're actually trying to accomplish.

I'd love to help you. If you're trying to get more comfortable with AI, level up your AI workflows, or wonder how to bring your team along without losing the human element that makes your business work, we should talk.

Contact me and let's talk about what practical AI training and adoption could look like for you or your team.

Your Tech Pal,

—Joshua

Disclaimer: I use AI to help write emails like these. I originate, review & edit all AI-assisted work I publish.