2x Bestselling Author, AI Keynote Speaker, Digital Change Expert. I help people navigate AI change to unlock next-level human potential.
One of the most effective tools for AI adoption? Storytelling. Telling the stories of your early wins and explorations can humanize the work, model how change can happen thoughtfully — and inspire people to embrace new ways of thinking and working. I’m often struck by how many interesting stories of AI-driven advancements are hidden within an organization. I was speaking about this at an event when I was approached by an engineer who had used Anthropic's Claude hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) for a workflow to support a resource-intensive process. It had reduced the time it took the team to manage the work from weeks to hours — and they loved it because they were now able to use their time for more strategic business development. I asked who had heard this story. The answer? No one outside of her group. Her journey to thoughtfully pull AI into process improvement, how she thought through data privacy and security, and worked closely with end users to deliver more value to customers represents a treasure trove of fantastic behavior to model for others . . . and an inspiring moment of grassroots innovation in support of the company’s strategic objectives. It was a story that needed to be told. Stories work because we connect to them emotionally. And these stories can be found all over large organizations. Find, articulate, and share the stories that are happening in your organization. Show how work can support your existing strategic objectives. Share what was hard about the process — and use this as an education moment on how to think about responsible AI, data privacy, security, and governance questions. If your work identifies issues that need to be resolved, view that as a positive outcome — you've learned something important. Then, work to create a proper process for addressing those issues, which can become part of the ongoing story and learning experience. Marketers have long used storytelling and use cases to bring the “possible” to life and inspire action. The tough — and unique — pressures of AI change demand a rethink of how we inspire change. Capturing and telling stories make abstract change initiatives more tangible for employees, help them visualize how they can contribute, and counteract fears and concerns. It’s also a way to celebrate and recognize successes. ***** What do you think? ****** >>>> Have you used storytelling to support change? >>>> What have you found to work best? ________ Hi 👋 I’m Alison McCauley. I’ll be diving more into the challenges and opportunities of AI change in future posts. Follow me for more on being human at the AI crossroads 🙋♂️ 🤖 💡 #aitransformation #changemanagement #storytelling #responsibleai