A FIELD REPORT FROM TEN ORGANIZATIONS
AI is landing everywhere. The people work is landing with no one.
This summer I sat down with HR, people, and enablement leaders across ten organizations, from a thousand-person nonprofit to global enterprises, and asked one question ten different ways: where is the human side of AI adoption actually landing?
The full report covers all eight findings, with anonymized stories and quotes from the people living them, plus eight concrete moves for anyone responsible for the people side of AI.
You'll get the report by email, nothing else unless you ask for it.
What's inside
The answers were candid, sometimes uncomfortable, and remarkably consistent. Technology budgets are funded while adoption belongs to no one. HR is almost never invited, and the teams shaping AI adoption invited themselves. And two years into heavy AI spending, the CEO has started asking the ROI question.
The ownership vacuum
Why nobody owns adoption, and what the organizations that solved it did differently.
The manager multiplier
The single strongest finding of the tour: team adoption tracks manager adoption almost one to one.
What actually moves usage
It isn't training. What works instead: role modeling, peer learning, and hands-on time.
The fear no one is naming
Why silence about job security is making everything worse, and how the best organizations talk about it.
The budget argument
How to fund adoption like you fund tools, with a money trail your CFO will recognize.
Eight moves for HR leaders
Concrete, permission-free actions for anyone responsible for the people side of AI.
Included with your download
The AI Seat at the Table business case template. If you lead an HR or people function, your download also includes a two-page companion: a fill-in memo template for making the case to your CFO or CIO that a slice of the existing AI budget belongs in adoption, plus guidance on the number to ask for and the objections to expect.
Get the Report & the Business Case Template
Written to be shared
The report is authored by Barbara Roos, founder of Trailhead Communications, a leadership and change advisory helping organizations navigate the human side of AI adoption. If the findings resonate, pass them along to the person in your organization who needs them.