Empowering your AI champions to become AI builders

Our 2025 Enterprise AI adoption report reveals a growing tug of war between employees and executives as more companies integrate AI. Unchecked, this tension can cause power struggles and even lead to sabotage. The most successful enterprises overcome this challenge by empowering AI champions — individuals who can bridge the gap between different departments and drive cross-functional adoption and collaboration.

Identifying and transforming these AI champions into builders can elevate organizations and drive innovation. But becoming a builder requires more than just the right AI technology — it demands proper skills and knowledge. Writer is the end-to-end platform for scaling agentic AI in the enterprise. Discover how AI champions from every business function are becoming builders with our collaborative development environment, learning hub, and AI program management.

The power of empowered AI champions

AI champions are employees who fully embrace AI and are eager to advocate for its adoption within their organization. Think of them as internal evangelists, bridging the gap between executive vision and employee execution. They understand the nuances of your organization, the challenges your teams face, and the opportunities AI can offer.

Empowering these team members creates a ripple effect, driving broader AI adoption and fostering a culture of innovation from the ground up. The numbers speak volumes: An astounding 98% of AI champions have already contributed to building or designing AI tools (59%) or are eager to get involved (39%).

Investing in your AI champions is a significant boon for their careers. This creates a virtuous cycle — empowered AI builders contribute to your company’s success, leading to their professional growth and further fueling their passion for AI innovation. Nearly all (94%) of the AI champions surveyed in our report agree that being an AI advocate has positively impacted their professional lives. They cited benefits such as:

• Higher job stability (42%)
• Greater respect at work (37%)
• Faster promotion opportunities (21%)

At Vizient, Senior Vice President of AI Optimization Steve Waldon and his team developed an approach where they equip champions from different workforces with the “Iron Man suit” of AI.

“They would then provide the inspiration for everyone else on what it could be like. It turned out to be a super positive thing, everybody was clamoring for the technology,” Waldon says. “When you put on the suit, it’s essentially co-intelligence. You’ve learned to think in prompts. That has proved to be really instrumental in a positive engagement with the technology.”

Almost a year after partnering with Writer, Vizient is achieving an ROI that is four times higher than the team’s initial expectations. The project saves more than 100 collaborators nearly 2.5 hours each week, and the team projects a first-year savings of $700,000.

Steps to transform AI champions into builders

With the right platform and technology partner, becoming an AI builder doesn’t require a data science degree or extensive engineering experience. Writer democratizes the role, allowing anyone to create sophisticated applications and workflows. No-code and low-code tools like AI Studio and Agent Builder empower anyone from product teams to business leaders to become builders. The key is effective AI program management, ensuring that AI champions have the proper tools and training to transform into capable builders.

Step 1. Identify potential AI champions

The first step is identifying those individuals within your organization who possess the passion, curiosity, and aptitude to become AI champions. It’s important to find champions from different key functions. Look for employees who:

• Understand business’ core processes: They understand how work gets done within the organization, allowing them to identify where AI can add the most value.
• Show genuine interest in AI: They actively seek out information about AI, attend webinars and conferences, and experiment with AI tools.
• Possess strong communication skills: They can articulate the benefits of AI to others and inspire them to embrace new technologies.
• Are natural problem-solvers: They can identify opportunities to apply AI to solve business challenges and create new value.
• Are eager to learn: They are willing to invest the time and effort to acquire the skills and knowledge necessary to become AI builders.
• Are influential within their teams: Their colleagues respect them, and they can influence their opinions and behaviors.

At companies adopting generative AI, 77% of employees are either already AI champions or have the potential to become AI champions within their organization. This shows there are likely many more people within your organization than you may think.

Step 2. Supply necessary training and resources

Once identified, equip these champions with the training and resources they need to build and design AI agents. This is where you train the trainer, teaching them how to map blueprints for AI agents to follow.

AI tools and platforms

Give champions the right AI tools and platforms to experiment with and build AI solutions. Writer AI Studio enables both business users and engineers to build custom AI agents. Agent Builder enables frictionless collaboration where IT tackles technical complexity and business defines the logic‌ — ‌all within one shared development environment.

Annemaria Nicholson, the senior manager of AI and content ops at Salesforce, wanted to build a custom collection of AI agents that could support use cases across the entire company. To do so, they trained their champions to use AI Studio, Writer’s suite of development tools that makes it easy for anyone to build and deploy AI agents.

“AI Studio gives us the freedom to innovate at scale,” Nicholson explains. “We are empowering 50 champions across the organization to use its no-code functionality to build apps for their specific business processes and see immediate results.”

Learning platforms

Champions can have access to the best tools and platforms, but they’ll barely scratch the surface if they lack the skills and knowledge to drive real change. Enterprises need to invest in their people as much as they invest in technology.

Provide access to online courses, tutorials, and other learning resources covering various AI topics. Writer AI Academy is the go-to hub for becoming an AI expert. From earning a Power User Certification to watching quick tip videos and accessing on-demand courses, champions have everything they need to improve their skills and start building AI agents.

Vendor partnerships

Selecting the right vendor is crucial for the success of AI initiatives, as 98% of the C-suite believe that vendors should help set the vision for AI at work. But a staggering 94% of executives report that they’re not completely satisfied with the current support they receive. Writer’s program management bridges this gap and supports you throughout the entire change management process.

Through on-site workshops and hackathons, we equip your AI champions with practical and hands-on resources, making sure they have the knowledge and skills to drive AI adoption. Drawing from our experience with hundreds of enterprises, Writer AI program management serves as the connective tissue for AI within your organization. Our unique delivery approach includes a blueprint for AI workflow delivery that unites business and IT, along with foundational programs to enable your end-users and prepare your organization for change.

Step 3. Foster a supportive and innovative environment

Providing training and resources is only half the battle. You also need to create a supportive environment where AI champions feel empowered to experiment, innovate, and share their knowledge with others.

Without executive buy-in and proper change management, overcoming organizational inertia and driving meaningful change can be difficult. At Adobe, Senior Group Manager of Digital Strategy and Global AI Enablement Jason Baer spearheaded an ambassador program to drive adoption. They selected 50 people around the globe in every geography and every sales-based role.

“They’re on the hook to basically identify tasks that they used to do manually,” Baer says. “Now they do it with AI. So we’re talking about tasks that typically used to take an hour on average. Now, we’re taking five minutes with prompting. They identify them, they socialize them within their respective role, and now we’re starting to see that adoption. So we really have a program in place to drive AI and show people the potential time savings and show people what they can do with that extra time.”

Salesforce recently launched an AI champions program to foster knowledge sharing and expertise. They encourage their employees to experiment with AI, developing proficiency in prompt engineering and a deep understanding of relevant AI use cases. To support this, they provide their team members with demos, recordings, and tip sheets so they can effectively use the custom agents they’ve developed using Writer.

“This program ensures that every team in our content organization has a designated expert who can answer questions and provide guidance on AI best practices,” says VP Content Experience, Dean Atchison.

Step 4. Provide continuous learning opportunities

AI constantly evolves, so it’s essential to encourage your AI champions to engage in continuous learning and development. Salesforce focused on “always-on” enablement, making it easy for busy employees to constantly learn and grow. They have agent-building contests, hackathons, showcases, and recognize winners to encourage constant growth.

Behind every successful AI agent are skilled builders who design the blueprints, set the parameters, and make sure the technology aligns with business goals. That’s why enterprises need to upskill their teams and focus on their development. Relying solely on technology without the expertise to guide it will leave you lagging behind. Invest in your people, and they will drive the innovation and success that technology alone can’t achieve.

Uber has people sentiment at the core of their frameworks. They want to reassure their team that AI can act as a co-intelligence, not a replacement. Director of Global Community Operations Hadley Ferguson focuses on upskilling her team to work on high-impact tasks, letting AI agents handle more manual work.

“We also wanted to ensure that the people on our team feel supported and empowered,” Ferguson says. “The customer support space has changed a lot over the last few years, and we wanted to make sure that our people would be set up for success with great training on the generative AI solution we chose.”

Writer is the end-to-end solution for empowering AI champions

Writer empowers enterprises to create their AI HQ — where IT and business collaborate to build, activate, and supervise AI agents together without compromise, all in one place. Our platform provides the tools, training, and support you need to transform your AI advocates into active builders. Employees who use Writer are nearly two times more likely to be AI champions compared to those who don’t use Writer.

Download our 2025 Generative AI adoption report to learn more about what other strategies the most successful enterprises are using to maximize the potential of AI.