Navigating Organizational Change and AI User Adoption

At our June roundtable event, we had the privilege of hearing from multiple presenters who shared how organizations can help their employees embrace change. Our presenters also shared how they have incorporated Copilot into their daily routines, in an attempt to personally embrace the change, they are advocating for in their organizations.

Embracing the AI/Human “Learning Loop”

Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, penned an essay earlier this month, outlining how he believes that they way organizations can improve is by creating a “learning loop,” where humans train and improve AI processes in an iterative loop. The key is that the outcome of this loop becomes an organization’s intellectual property, so that even if the exact language model were to be traded with another, the specific instructions, knowledge, and tools would remain part of the organization’s repertoire.

In this scenario, human knowledge and understanding are immensely important to knowing what to train the AI models to do, making humans more, not less important. As Satya said in this article,

“Companies need to turn their workflows, domain knowledge, and accumulated judgment into AI systems that improve with each use…. Every improved workflow generates better training signal, which accelerates the accumulation of tacit knowledge unique to the firm. The companies that build this early will have an advantage that is hard to replicate.”

Communicating the Why

Our first Roundtable speaker, James Evans, spoke about the need to create emotional safety for employees when implementing any new technology, including AI. Employees need to understand not just the “what,” but they also need to understand the “why,” and “WIFM,” or “what’s in it for me,” so they understand the personal benefit from adopting the new technology. Otherwise, employees may quietly stop using the technology. This could happen without fanfare, but result in employees reverting to older, “tried and true” methods. Because of this, it’s important to continually monitor the adoption of new technologies and continue to address any reservations or pushback, so people feel valued and understand the need for the new technology.

Training Employees on Process Improvement

One of our roundtable participants pointed out during our conversation that leadership is often tasked with process improvement, so it can come naturally for leaders to think about how AI can be incorporated into daily processes. However, most employees are trained to perform specific tasks. If Satya’s learning loop is to be implemented, and they are being asked to build agents that perform tasks for them, rather than doing the tasks themselves, this is unfamiliar territory for most. It was pointed out that employees need to be trained to think about more wholistically about processes and not just individual tasks.

How We Can Help

Over the last two years, our company has been shepherding multiple organizations through the monumental change that AI has brought. Our roadmap helps our clients crawl, walk and run toward AI adoption, making the “learning loop” a reality.

Crawl

  • Leadership Technical Awareness: We first work with leadership teams, to ensure they understand the technical functionality that is available with Microsoft 365, including Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Premium, built-in agents, and custom agents.
  • Leadership User Adoption Guidance: Next, we work with leaders to understand how to communicate with employees about the new technology, working with leaders to build assets that will assist them during the adoption process. This may include guidance on how to build an AI policy, how to assemble an AI council, and how to create an AI “champions” group in Teams or Viva Engage.
  • End-User Training: Once leadership teams have created a plan for deploying Copilot to their organization, we provide technical training to those who will be using it. This could be a several-hour demonstration of Copilot and agentic functionality, or a whole day of training that includes hands-on labs. We have multiple Microsoft Certified Trainers available, who are equipped to deliver Microsoft-official courseware.

Walk

  • Role–Specific Guidance: AI will be used in vastly different ways, depending on which role a user has within an organization. For example, a financial analyst may be very interested in which language model will help them create Pivot Tables in Excel, whereas a salesperson may want to know how to create an impactful PowerPoint presentation. In light of this, we sit down with a small group of users within a specific role, and “workshop” ways to improve a single process. This not only helps them use AI to improve the process, but it also teaches them the process of how to use and refine prompts in an iterative fashion.

Run

  • Creating Custom Agents: Some companies are ready to take the next leap, which is to automate a specific process into a custom agent. For these clients, we can provide coaching on how to use Copilot Studio to create custom agents, or we can take on the construction of these agents. Either way, our clients are experiencing the efficiency and quality that comes from combining repeatable processes with the power of AI.

Conclusion

AI adoption is not a one-time software rollout; it is an ongoing, organizational learning process. The most successful organizations will be those that help their people understand the “why,” feel safe experimenting with new ways of working, and learn how to improve processes and not just complete tasks. When leaders pair thoughtful change management with practical Copilot training and agentic development, they create the conditions for a learning loop to take root.