How ready are we to lead a truly AI-powered organization?

Today, the organizations at the leading edge are approaching generative AI not just as a digital transformation, but as an organizational reinvention. And a lot of that work comes down to change management and fostering a culture of creativity, empowerment, and collaboration.

The theme of this year’s World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, “Collaboration for the Intelligent Age,” couldn’t be more timely. AI depends on collaboration like we’ve never seen before — between leaders and employees, across systems and workflows, and between people and the technology itself.

Here’s what forward-thinking leaders are doing to lead the charge.

Summarized by Writer

• AI adoption in organizations requires comprehensive change management, not just technology implementation, to maximize ROI and foster a culture of innovation.
• Identifying and empowering change champions across different departments is crucial for successful AI integration.
• Reimagining and automating mission-critical workflows with AI involves a thorough review and documentation of existing processes to integrate human expertise effectively.
• Empowering non-technical employees with no-code and low-code tools can democratize building and engineering roles, promoting diversity and inclusion in tech.
• Building trust in AI systems requires transparency in data quality, representativeness, and bias mitigation — including the use of synthetic data to address historical imbalances.

Prioritizing enterprise-wide change management

What happens when AI enables you to turn an eight-week process into an eight-minute one? The tech might be ready, but the organization likely isn’t.

Organizations often understate the crucial role of change management in this shift. The reality is that AI adoption isn’t just about implementing a new tool or platform. It’s about completely rewiring how we work. Think of it like relearning how to read and write — it’s that fundamentally different.

But when done right, AI can 10x your best employees, drive substantial revenue growth, reduce costs, speed up time to market, and dramatically improve productivity. It can fundamentally change how we work, creating a better, more inspired future of work.

Transform your mission-critical workflows with AI at the core

AI is only good as the underlying processes that guide it — but in the enterprise, these workflows are complex and nuanced. AI can’t fix what’s broken, siloed, or locked in people’s heads. That’s why the challenge lies in actually mapping out these workflows — most of which span layers and layers of fragmented tools, disconnected teams, or simply ‌haven’t been documented.

Getting clear on our workflows, and fundamentally re-building them with AI at its core, takes bridge-building, breaking down silos, and creativity. It also means giving employees the time and tools to document their hard-earned insights and expertise. Otherwise, you risk losing that valuable knowledge and failing to integrate it into your AI systems. The companies that learn how to transform these mission-critical workflows and recreate core operations to be AI-first will see the greatest value creation and competitive advantage in 2025.

View AI as a team sport

Even with the right infrastructure in place, adoption won’t automatically happen. This transformation takes a team effort. Folks across an organization — from the C-Suite, to business users, to IT — need to be on the same page about the goals, strategies, and methods for implementing change and rethinking workflows from the ground up. The ones leading this charge are both visionary and hands-on. They recognize AI’s potential, not just as a hyped-up chat app, and have a clear grasp on the work it takes to get there. They’re prioritizing employee adoption and education and they’re building AI fluency across the board.

And let’s not overlook the fact that women are overwhelmingly leading the charge in enterprise bridge-building. Two-thirds of our top customers have women as their executive buyer, champion, or both, with nearly a quarter falling into that last category. They’re driving the coalition building and alignment across teams, bridging divides, fostering the kind of creativity AI success depends on, and empowering everyone to shape and scale AI.

Find your change champions

Identify “change champions” within your team who can lead by example and inspire others to fully embrace the technology. When we introduced AI agents to Uber’s customer support team of 40,000, they brought on Michael, who brought unique skills as a UX designer, conversational architect, and product manager. He spoke the language of product and engineering, making the transition smoother and easing fears.

He recruited hungry talent from within the org and launched “Feed Your Mind Friday” for continuous learning. These initiatives quickly turned junior team members into efficient prompt coordinators, even without prior AI experience. This shifted the team’s mindset to view AI as an opportunity for fun and innovation — rather than something to be feared — and earned support and trust company-wide.

Not every organization is going to have 100 Michaels, but Writer can help you find five.

Empowering people: the secret ingredient to AI transformation

The AI transformation is people-first. The best companies are using AI to elevate, not replace their workforce, giving every employee the tools to build, create, and innovate in new ways.

Redefine what it means to be a builder

AI is redefining who can become a builder. It’s no longer just engineers or technical experts. Now anyone can build sophisticated AI applications and workflows. No-code and low-code tools like Writer AI Studio are making this possible, turning data scientists, product teams, and business leaders into builders. It’s incredibly democratizing who can become a builder in the age of AI.

Evolve roles alongside AI

Forward-thinking companies aren’t looking to cut jobs. They see AI as a lever for value creation and real innovation, not just incremental productivity. They’re empowering their employees to shift their focus and take on more strategic and creative work. We’re already seeing this in action. At Intuit, content writers are now content architects, using agentic AI to orchestrate their work. This shift gives them more leverage within their organizations, allowing them to take on more strategic and widely applicable roles.

But access to AI isn’t just a matter of having the tech itself, it’s also about having the skills and knowledge to use it in a way that drives real change. The companies leading in AI today aren’t just investing in technology, they’re investing in their people. They’re spending the time and resources necessary to upskill their employees and bring them along in the era of AI.

During The Female Quotient panel, Stacy Janiak, deputy chief executive officer at Deloitte, introduced the concept of the three Rs as a way to put employees first.

• Retraining: Making sure every has a level of AI fluency
• Reskilling: Building a cohort of digital AI natives and making sure it’s inclusive
• Reimagining: Rethinking all the processes we have and how AI can change them

Break down barriers with AI

For too long, we’ve talked about the diversity problem in tech, but we haven’t done enough to solve it. AI has the potential to level the playing field.

One of the biggest shifts we’re seeing is how Generative AI is making knowledge work more accessible. It’s becoming the new interface for human intelligence. That’s huge. It means non-English speakers can contribute more effectively, and people with dyslexia or other learning challenges, who might have been locked out of knowledge-based jobs, now have a tool that works like a language calculator for them.

AI is also reshaping the hiring process itself, reducing skill gaps and lowering barriers to entry-level positions. We discussed this during a panel I spoke on at Davos, Who Benefits from Augmentation? session. “AI is a leveler as it grants access to high-paying jobs without the need for a four-year degree,” says Ravi Kumar, CEO of Cognizant. “The gap within an occupation, and the gap between occupations is going to shrink.”

The leaders getting this right aren’t just adopting AI, they’re rethinking how they can create opportunity. They’re using AI to remove a huge bottleneck that’s kept a lot of
underrepresented groups out of tech.

Building trust through transparent AI systems

AI is only as fair and reliable as the data it’s trained on.

Avoid homogeneity through collaboration

AI can reinforce bias if we’re not helpful. During The Female Quotient panel, Jennifer Belissent, principal data strategist at Snowflake, brought up that companies using HR screening software as their first pass on CVs can end up with a workforce that looks identical. Why? Because the system is trained on the data the company has about profiles they’ve traditionally hired.

We need to bring in third-party, diverse datasets and create more representation in our AI systems and break the bias cycle. This means actively seeking out and incorporating diverse perspectives, experiences, and backgrounds into every stage of the AI development process, from data collection to deployment. We’re seeing this in action across industries, like in women’s healthcare.

If you work at a company that’s using AI, ask the questions: What’s in the training data of these models? How was it collected? And what steps are being taken to address any potential biases? Transparency is the first step in building trust.

Use synthetic data to address bias

To build a future that looks different from the past, we need better data, not just more of it. Synthetic data, artificial data that mimics real data, offers a path forward. This technique allows us to train models on more representative, unbiased inputs. Our latest frontier model, Palmyra X 004, is the first model of its size to be trained on 100% synthetic data.

True collaboration in the intelligent age requires global access

While it’s important we work together to empower end-users, it’s also vital to make sure governments and vendors can innovate alongside each other. How can we ensure AI fuels a democratic future, not an authoritarian one?

Luc Triangle, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, shared similar concerns at the Who Benefits from Augmentation? WEF session. “How do we take the world on board in this evolution? Because at the moment I’m concerned that this evolution will be an evolution for the happy few already at global level…We need to take the world on board in this evolution. Otherwise this is another engine for growing inequality and growing instability and growing geopolitical conflicts and tensions.”

While governments are starting to lay the groundwork for the necessary infrastructure, they can’t force the private sector to innovate. The train has left the station — companies need to step up now to keep up with the breakneck pace of AI.

Creating a future of work that works for us all

We already have the technology, and it’s good. But the future of work isn’t just about technology — it’s about people. The problem is‌ integrating it in a way that’ll fundamentally change how we work. It’s as much of an implementation and adoption challenge as it is a tech one.

So, the question is: Are you ready to lead the charge towards a truly AI-powered organization? Are you ready to put in the hard work of change management and adoption? Here at Writer, we’re also in the business of change management. Partner with us and we can help you navigate the complexities of change management to build a truly AI-powered organization.