How to get in front of the AI shift, even if you think your business already is

You might already think of your business as AI-forward. You might have tools in place, a strategy in development, or team members who champion AI. And you’re probably right to feel good about that progress. But here’s the question worth sitting with: Is your team actually changing the way they work, or are they just using new tools in the same old ways? writes Jessica Trumble.

That distinction, between adopting AI and genuinely embedding it, is where most businesses find themselves stuck, often without realising it.

SMEs are genuinely well placed here. Unlike large organisations weighed down by security teams, complex compliance processes and slow-moving change management cycles, smaller businesses can move fast. But new AI tools, capabilities, and use cases are emerging faster than any business can sensibly evaluate them. Even people with strong tech backgrounds are becoming overwhelmed. And if that’s true for your most capable people, what does it mean for everyone else?

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: whatever AI strategy your business has is probably already out of date. It’s a bit like spending months learning to drive, then hitting the road in a Model T Ford while Waymos glide past you.

This means the goal isn’t to master today’s tools. It’s to build a team that can adapt not once but continually, as the landscape keeps shifting. And that’s why behaviour change is the single biggest lever most businesses need to pull right now.

The skills gap is real, and it’s closer than you think

A 2025 Skillsoft survey found that only 10 per cent of managers believe their workforce has the skills needed to achieve business goals in the AI era. And 91 per cent suspect employees are overstating their AI capabilities. This isn’t a reflection of bad intentions. People want to seem capable. But it does mean that what looks like AI adoption on the surface can mask a much thinner reality underneath.

Building genuine capability takes more than access to tools. It takes direction, practice and a cultural willingness to keep learning.

Start with strategy, but keep it lean

Behaviour change doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It needs direction. But when we talk to businesses about AI strategy, we often see the same common traps cropping up.

The first is AI “shiny object syndrome”: a well-meaning team member champions a particular tool or automation that sounds compelling, but pulls time and resources away from changes that would deliver real business value. The second is inertia: AI is overwhelming, and without clear direction, teams can quietly default to doing not much in this space. The third is ad hoc adoption: too many tools picked up independently across the business, creating friction, confusion and, sometimes, unintended security exposure.

A clear AI strategy helps sidestep all three of these common traps. Importantly, it also gives your team something they need more than you might expect: confidence. When people understand what your business is focusing on from an AI perspective, why, and how they can contribute, they stop quietly wondering whether they’re doing too much, too little, or whether their role will exist in six months.

The good news is that a useful AI strategy doesn’t require months of work. Keep it high-level. Define the areas you want to focus on, why those areas matter, how you’ll approach them, and how you’ll know if it’s working. A simple set of questions can get you a long way, such as:

• What are our main manual, repeatable processes?
• Can we safely automate them?
• What would that free up our workforce to do?
• What do we not want AI doing?

The goal isn’t automation for its own sake. It’s automation that genuinely creates space for smarter, more meaningful work.

The practices that make it stick

Once there’s a shared direction, a few key habits will help your team build and sustain real AI capability.

This includes assigning clear ownership to each tool or automation area. Someone who has the time and mandate to become a genuine power user – a go-to for their colleagues, not just an enthusiast. Without this, even good tools drift towards inconsistent, minimal or inefficient use.

Secondly, build in a regular review rhythm, so your strategy evolves without being in constant flux. A light check-in every couple of months – asking, is this doing what we planned, and is the investment worth it – prevents stagnation and the temptation to chase every second new AI tool release. A deeper review every six months, including ROI, keeps things transparent and accountable.

Right now, none of us can confidently quantify the impact AI will have on our workforces in the longer term, so experimentation, curiosity and consistent effort are all important. As is radical honesty, quantified impact assessments and fast fail/learn cycles to ensure the genuine impact of embedding AI and shifting the way teams work is understood and managed closely.

The people equation

The businesses that will look back on this period as a turning point won’t necessarily be the ones that moved earliest or adopted the most tools. They’ll be the ones who figured out how to bring their people along a rapidly shifting journey by building genuine capability, unlocking the superpowers of their human workforce, maintaining psychological safety around intentional experimentation, and fostering a culture that treats adaptability and curiosity as core skills.

AI will keep changing. The businesses that thrive will be the ones whose teams can change with it.

Jessica Trumble is the founder and CEO of We Are Charlotte.