The most effective adoption mechanism in our whole AI program wasn’t in the plan. It was lunch.
We had built the formal machinery you’d expect. Learning modules, working sessions, a community of practice, executive updates. All useful. But the moment I keep coming back to happened when a group of people sat down informally and one of them showed a colleague how she’d used AI on a piece of analysis that normally takes half a day. It was done in minutes, and it was her work, not a demo.
The effect on the room was different in kind from anything our formal program produced. Within days, people I’d never reached were trying the same technique on their own data. Nobody mandated it. Nobody scheduled it.
It took me a while to understand why it worked so well. When the message comes from IT or from me, it arrives carrying an agenda. Of course the technology executive says AI is transformative. But when it comes from a peer, someone with the same workload, the same scepticism, no stake in the program, it lands as evidence. She isn’t selling anything. She just found a better way and couldn’t help sharing it.
There’s an important lesson in that for those of us who lead these programs. We over-invest in broadcast and under-invest in the conditions for peer exchange. The formal program creates capability, but the informal moments create belief. You can’t schedule belief, but you can make room for it. Communities of practice with actual time to share. Showcases where the presenters are practitioners, not the project team. Leaders who ask “show me how you did that” in front of others.
Our job isn’t to be the hero of the adoption story. It’s to build the stage, then get out of the way.
Where in your organisation do those lunch conversations happen? And is your program feeding them or crowding them out?