You Like This AI Tool, Now What?: How To Introduce AI Into Your Organization
Falling in love with a cutting-edge AI tool is easy—figuring out how to introduce it into your organization? That’s where the real challenge begins.
For our February webinar, we sat down with Lydia Wu, Founder & Creator of Oops, Did I Think That Out Loud. Known for her popular "AI For HR In Under 90 Seconds" videos, Lydia helped walk us through how to bridge the gap between AI excitement and AI execution.
Check out the full 1-hour webinar below or read on for a brief synopsis of the three topics that were covered.
To gauge where the audience stood in their AI journey, we kicked off with a poll asking if they had introduced an AI tool in their department within the past year. The result? 76% said yes.
And with that, here goes the first topic…
1.) Is Your Organization Ready For AI Adoption?
What factors determine whether a company is ready to adopt AI? Firstly, AI adoption isn’t about simply “doing AI”—it starts with a problem-solution mindset. As much as the news cycle is talking about AI, it is at the end of the day still a technology tool that enables you to solve some very human problems. Before jumping in, companies need to identify the challenges they’re solving, rather than adopting AI for AI’s sake.
The second key factor is technical readiness. AI doesn’t generate data on its own—it relies on structured business processes and well-defined rules. In the age of AI, companies must be intentional about their data and workflows to ensure AI solutions function effectively.
Speaking of AI solutions, there are SO MANY AI tools available on the market. Lydia mentioned that the biggest thing to think about here is the balance between the human and the machine. AI is providing a much better solution to process through the numbers in terms of the volume that we see on the recruitment side. On top of that, AI is able to step out of human biases. There’s a lot of conversation about biases and ethics in AI at the moment, but if you train the AI well, you do see AI picking up on biases and being a lot more blunt about it than people can be.
In short, successful AI adoption requires clear problem-solving intent, technical preparedness, and a strategic human-machine balance.
2.) Best Practices For Pitching AI Tools
We have a team that’s ready for AI adoption, they find this AI tool they really want to implement - how do they go about pitching it to leadership? First, ask the tough question: Do you like this tool because it’s innovative and exciting, or does it truly solve a pressing pain point? As Lydia points out, before pursuing any solution, you need to determine whether the problem is significant enough for leadership to take action.
Next, identify your key stakeholders and position the solution in a way that makes them look like heroes. Aligning the tool’s benefits with their goals will strengthen your case.
Finally, leverage your vendors. AI solution providers have likely encountered similar challenges before, so bring them into the conversation. Their insights and success stories can help reinforce your pitch and increase leadership buy-in.
3.) Implementation & Change Management
Lydia kicked off the discussion by emphasizing that the issue isn’t a lack of trust in technology itself—it’s skepticism about the intentions behind AI’s implementation. With mass media shaping AI’s narrative, rolling out an AI tool isn’t just about deploying technology—it’s about building trust with those who may be hesitant.
For a successful AI training strategy, Lydia recommends:
- Remove the “new tech” barrier – help employees see AI as a tool, not a disruption.
- Make it personal – show individuals what’s in it for them: what they stand to gain and what they might lose by not adopting it
- Roll it out company-wide – don’t limit AI adoption to HR/TA. The more diverse input AI receives from different teams, the better the decision-making output.
The key to AI adoption? Trust, clarity, and inclusive implementation.
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To close, Lydia shared her biggest advice for TA leaders preparing for AI adoption: recruiting strategies from the internet era won’t cut it in the AI era. Hiring top talent today demands a completely new way of thinking and operating.
Huge thanks to Lydia for joining us today and sharing all her great knowledge and perspectives! Don't forget to check out the entire webinar linked above to uncover even more of her insights around these three areas.
And see you on March 26th for our next webinar! We’ll be partnering with Charter, the workplace media company, to explore how the new administration will affect labor laws, AI regulations, & hiring trends. You can register for that live conversation here.
