Bringing your people along
Knowing where people belong in an AI-augmented system is one thing. Getting an entire workforce there is another.
The leaders in this report are clear-eyed about this: the technology is, in many ways, the easier part. The harder work is cultural: helping people understand what AI means for their roles, their value, and their future, before fear fills the void.
"Initially, talking about AI, the reaction is concern about Big Brother, concern about the headline that AI is going to make your job obsolete. But when I talk to the actual individuals who are in these roles – doing the activity that AI would begin to do a portion of – and they hear what can be eliminated from their day-to-day activities, they're actually excited. Because a lot of what's eliminated is the aspect of their job that isn't terribly rewarding in the first place."
That gap between leadership anxiety and frontline enthusiasm is something several leaders told us they have encountered. The key is getting specific – not talking about AI in the abstract, but showing people exactly which tasks are on the table.
At AbbVie, the approach has been to make adoption visible across the organization.
"It's about creating that muscle, that habit. And then sharing use cases – really talking about the wins across our organization and almost marketing those use cases. So there's increased visibility of where your colleagues have used AI, what they've done with it, and how it has benefited a patient outcome, a financial metric, or their own efficiency."
Building comfort requires intentional structure. At Prime Therapeutics, that meant starting with governance, moving to basic tools, and only then encouraging experimentation, with a cross-functional team designed to keep culture at the center.
"We've created a three-in-the-box team that has a business lead, a technology lead, and a lead from HR – the HR person helping think about culture, training, and how this workforce evolves to be AI plus human."
What that workforce looks like is something Boehringer Ingelheim’s Deb Reardon thinks about with a particular urgency.
"The technology is extraordinarily important, but even more important is the people that go along with it. The people that are going to evolve with AI and utilize it to become the highest performers are going to win. And so thinking about how you really help the workforce understand that this technology is going to help them be better at their roles – and maybe evolve their roles in a different way than they even thought possible – is going to be extraordinarily important."
Bringing people along isn’t a one-time change management exercise. It’s an ongoing commitment to building the kind of organization that can keep pace with technology that’s evolving faster than any previous wave. The leaders doing it well are building cultures that can adapt to whatever comes next.
The next question is about what becomes possible when the broader system changes. The next section explores the structural shifts that could unlock the next level of patient engagement entirely.
