[00:00:00] Linda Schwaber
Hello.
Welcome, everybody. I see folks are starting to join and get in here.
We have a lot of people joining us this morning for a very interesting topic that I know many of us are tackling right now in our organization. So I'm here with Nicole, who is a total expert on it, and I'm thrilled to learn from her today as I'm sure you are as well. We'll give it a minute. And as people are joining, let us know in the chat where you're joining us from and what's your favorite way AI is improving your work or life right now. What are you using AI for right now?
[00:01:05] Nicolle Merrill
Oh man. I just experimented using Claude to review my calendar and find times that I could readjust. I hate dealing with my schedule. And I teach a lot of classes around AI agents in the workplace. So I was demoing this for one of my classes, and I started to say, wait a minute, maybe I could actually just use this. So it became an example that turned into something really useful. So yeah, looking at my calendar and saying where can I do deep work, and then it will just make recommendations. You can approve them, and then it just schedules it for you.
[00:01:35] Linda Schwaber
That's pretty awesome.
I mean, Claude is blowing up. I made my first art artifact yesterday. It's not perfect, but I'm very excited because I feel like it was a barrier I needed to cross. Now that I've done it, I can do it again and again.
[00:01:55] Nicolle Merrill
Yes, I love these. They're creating little micro apps that you could just drop into your team and say, hey, look what I made. I'm making lives easier.
[00:02:10] Linda Schwaber
Exactly. We've got lots of responses coming in from attendees, helping with newsletters, responding faster to emails, using Gemini to draft, review, analyze, and brainstorm. So much great stuff here. Let's dive right in.
First of all, a little bit of housekeeping. Live transcription is enabled for this webinar, so if you need to use this feature, you can click on show captions at any time at the bottom of Zoom. This webinar will be recorded, and we will share it with those who are registered. And we want to hear your questions. Please ask them throughout this session.
I'm Linda. I work at Hone. If you aren't familiar, we are an AI powered people development platform. We blend live expert led development experiences with AI coaching, role plays, and lessons to tackle manager development, team performance, and AI transformation. The goal is to create continuous reinforcement and change, not one and done learning.
So really excited to be here today with Nicole Merrill. I'm going to stop sharing my screen so you can share yours.
[00:03:30] Nicolle Merrill
Thank you so much for having me today. Let me just get set up here.
We're sharing. There we are.
Okay. I love the successful handover. So welcome to today's talk. We're talking about momentum today. How do we keep the momentum going in the midst of a lot of AI chaos inside of our organizations?
I'm going to start with my favorite headline from the last year. It says, everyone's talking about AI agents, barely anyone knows what they are. It's the biggest buzzword in Silicon Valley, but companies and enterprises lack a common understanding, and it's causing problems.
I love that because it validates what many of us are experiencing inside organizations as we try to increase AI adoption and integrate it into workflows.
Two big themes I'm seeing right now. First, AI adoption is uneven. We see this across industries and within organizations. Some teams are ahead of others, often because they have more time or resources to learn AI.
Second, the novelty of AI has worn off. There was a lot of excitement at first, but now we see AI fatigue, skepticism, and even fear. This creates challenges for bringing people along and keeping momentum going.
This is not just a technology story, it's a people story. Workers start when they understand the plan. Leaders need to redesign work and provide clarity and confidence. That includes simple use cases, guardrails, skills, trust, and support.
As workforce development professionals, you play a major role in AI transformation. That includes preparing people for new roles, creating learning opportunities, developing skills, identifying opportunities to apply those skills, and defining how people are rewarded.
But right now, most AI investment is going to technology, not people.
So how do we create clarity? We start by defining learning outcomes.
I want you to reflect on two questions. What should happen after everyone is trained on AI, and what is the goal of your AI training?
A common pattern is leadership says we need to do something about AI, which turns into everyone must use AI. Then we launch programs and measure tool usage. But that doesn't create transformation.
If your goal is to become an AI driven organization, your training needs to focus on workflow redesign, building AI solutions, and managing AI agents.
Another goal could be preparing employees for emerging AI roles. That requires role based learning, skill mapping, and planning for future needs.
Once learning outcomes are clear, we can design formal and informal learning opportunities. Formal includes courses, workshops, and hackathons. Informal includes office hours, peer learning, demos, and hands on experimentation.
This creates a learning roadmap. A roadmap gives clarity and focus so people know what to learn and when.
It also answers what's in it for me. We need to show people how this helps them adapt, grow, and prepare for future roles.
Managers are critical to AI adoption. Employees are far more likely to see value in AI if their manager supports it.
Managers need to identify use cases, measure impact, ensure quality, and guide teams.
Right now, managers are being asked to do AI work, but their job descriptions haven't changed. They're told to find AI use cases without clear guidance.
We also need to think about accountability. If AI produces an error, who is responsible?
There are also guardrails and ground rules. Guardrails tell people what they can't do. Ground rules tell them how to work with AI.
Many blockers come from unanswered questions. We need conversations to define norms.
AI adoption is an ongoing process. It doesn't end.
Where can you make the biggest impact in the next three to six months? There is a huge opportunity right now to define how AI is used in your organization.
That's the talk. I'm happy to take questions.
[00:35:20] Linda Schwaber
Thank you so much, Nicole. I do have one question from the chat around managing people versus managing AI agents.
[00:35:40] Nicolle Merrill
Managing AI agents is different from managing people. AI agents don't behave like humans. They don't take initiative, may not have memory, and operate differently. So this requires a different type of training.
[00:37:00] Linda Schwaber
That's definitely something we're hearing more about.
Thank you again, Nicole. If anyone wants to learn more about AI transformation, feel free to reach out.
[00:37:40] Nicolle Merrill
Thank you so much. Bye.
