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Leaders and employers have different views on using AI at work. Some only allow vetted programs.
Others recognize that employees will use other AI tools no matter what, and you may as well gain efficiencies and productivity. If you’re determining how best to encourage your team to experiment with AI or you’re open to expanding your usage, read on.
These 20 Fast Company Executive Board members share their perspectives and experiences on supporting their team members to find helpful ways to use AI in their roles.
I don’t tell employees how to use AI. I give them a clear business problem, guardrails around data and quality, and permission to experiment. The most useful AI use cases emerge when people are measured on outcomes, not tool adoption, and when small wins are shared so others can adapt them to their own roles. — Chris Erhardt, Chris Erhardt Consulting
We don’t push people to use AI. In my experience, how someone uses AI is often a reflection of how productive they already are. The people who meaningfully increase quality output with AI tend to be the same people who were already highly productive before it existed. So instead of mandating tools, we focus on hiring very strong operators and then let them leverage whatever tools help them move faster. AI amplifies talent, it doesn’t create it. — Zander Cook, Lease End
I start by modeling curiosity. We have brainstorming sessions where we ask, “What repetitive tasks are slowing you down? Where could AI help?” For our team, that looks like automating guest list management, generating event timelines, or even drafting client recaps. Then, we celebrate the wins. If someone uses AI to save hours, we showcase it in a team meeting. It’s about experimenting safely and rewarding creativity, not forcing adoption. — Diana Sabb, Create Something Amazing
The tools are intuitive enough now that people don’t need technical skills — just an understanding of their own work. Give training, make technology easy to use, and then let them tackle real problems. Hours chasing documents? Let them build a solution. When people fix their actual daily frustrations, adoption happens naturally. Just start before the gap gets too wide to close. — Dan Amzallag, Ivalua
Integrate AI into the daily workflow. Start by using it to reduce busywork and support the tasks that actually generate revenue. When people notice that a small effort on their part leads to noticeably better results in their own roles, the time spent learning feels justified—and those early successes naturally encourage wider adoption. — Jani Hirvonen, Google
Employees find helpful AI uses fastest when leadership makes it safe, specific, and measurable: give them a few “approved” tools plus guardrails, then run short experiments tied to real work outcomes (time saved, defects reduced, cycle time). This matters because many employees are already using AI at work while leaders often lag on formal plans—so structured enablement prevents shadow-AI and turns curiosity into repeatable value. — Nagesh Nama, XLM Continuous Intelligence
Simple. Encourage them to use it. They will find how it’s helpful to them. Plus it’s changing and upgrading daily. So, experiment. At this stage of its development, our most critical asset is to be curious about it, not scared of it. And to those who are scared of it and its job-stealing potential, I literally say: Make it work for you, so it won’t be able to make you work for it. — Barney Robinson,Orchard Creative
We have a Friday “Learning Spotlight” where team members present results from recent AI tests. We are looking for efficiency, effectiveness, and creativity; we also are continuously seeking new AI technologies and beta partners so we can see and use the solutions ourselves. Our team is empowered and supported from the top down to continuously research and test. — Mack McKelvey, SalientMG and The Credentialed
You do not roll out AI. You mess around with it. I use it openly. I tell my people, “I ran this through AI because my brain was tired.” That one sentence does more than any training session. I connect AI to the parts of work everyone secretly hates. Rewriting the same email. Staring at a blank doc. When it saves mental energy, people adopt it on their own. I also say this out loud early: AI is here to help you think, not watch you work. If you do not say that, people assume the worst. — Bhavik Sarkhedi, Ohh My Brand and Blushush Technologies
The most effective way to help employees use AI well is to normalize education and peer exchange, not mandate adoption. Invest in practical education. Short learning bursts, live demos, and role-based examples help employees move past hype and fear. Second, create forums for sharing. Team chats, standups, or dedicated channels where employees trade prompts, workflows, and lessons learned turn AI into a collective capability. The best ideas rarely come from the top down; they spread laterally when people see peers saving time, improving quality, or reducing friction. — Britton Bloch, Navy Federal Credit Union
I encourage people to identify their most repetitive or tedious tasks first; those are usually the low-hanging fruit where AI delivers immediate, obvious value without requiring anyone to become a technical expert. — Frédéric Renken, Lassie
I focus AI on work we can automate, where it doesn’t change the customer experience. That’s things like summaries, categorization, first-pass drafts, checklists, and internal documentation. If tone or trust is involved, a human owns it. — Travis Schreiber, Erase.com
We frame AI as a teammate, not a threat. We encourage experimentation in real workflows, not theoretical ones. Start with one repetitive task you dislike and see how AI can remove friction. The learning compounds quickly once people see time coming back to them. — Stephanie Harris, PartnerCentric
Though AI represents significant potential, many organizations are struggling to get ROI on their AI projects. I recommend starting with clear business goals rather than ad hoc individual employee efforts. Then, embed AI into automated business processes wherever possible to get the best results. — Christina Robbins, Digitech Systems, LLC
I’ve been encouraging my team to make AI part of their job, not a side hobby. We define a few “must-win” workflows per function (support, marketing, product, ops), share a lightweight prompt/playbook library, and then run short show-and-tells where teams demo real wins and real failures. The goal is practical leverage: better customer outcomes and faster iteration. Being in the education industry in particular, I think the question has already moved from whether to use AI to how to use it responsibly and effectively. — Max Azarov, Novakid
I use friction as my starting point, not AI. We identify two or three friction points which slow the workflow such as rewrites, handoffs, seeking information, ongoing client updates, and meeting recaps. Then, team members create manageable experiments using AI to reduce cycle times or clarify processes. We have developed an AI council for these tests. — Debra Andrews, Marketri
High-performing employees often avoid AI because learning it makes them feel like beginners again. That discomfort reads as failure, so they disengage. The real work is psychological, not tactical. You have to normalize the learning valley and be honest that it will feel bad before it feels useful. Grit matters. Repetition matters. If people keep going through the discomfort, AI quickly becomes intuitive. — Andrea Lechner-Becker, GNW Consulting
Approve a short list of enterprise-grade tools, require a one-line provenance note for every AI output, and run small, measurable experiments that pair AI with a human review step. Reward employees who produce repeatable time or cost savings from AI so adoption becomes performance-driven, not speculative. — Kevin Leyes, LeyesX and Leyes Media
Use it as a monthly agenda topic where everyone on the team discusses and shares how they are using AI tools to get their work done efficiently. — Ruchir Nath, Dell Technologies
Just like any other tool or technology you deploy to your workforce, AI requires enablement for teams to begin adopting it. Train employees, show them the benefits possible, and follow up with lessons and content they can engage with on-demand. Leadership plays a role in modeling AI usage, otherwise teams will not follow. — Irina Soriano, Seismic
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The Fast Company Executive Board is a private, fee-based network of influential leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience.