How an AI workshop can unlock adoption across your office

AI adoption is not a top-down endeavor. In fact, it's already happening across most organisations. Over 75% of workers across the US use their own AI tools rather than company-provided ones. In the UK, surveyed workers say that it’s “better to ask for forgiveness than permission” when it comes to personal AI use in the workplace. In siloed organisations, it seems like every department adopts its own AI approach. Finance automated reports whilst Marketing tried ChatGPT once and decided that the output is inadequate. These cultural gaps require cultural solutions. When every department interprets AI differently, you need to build a shared understanding before you can get a sense of momentum across the board. So, why not bring everyone into one room together?

The value of an AI adoption workshop

The AI adoption workshop addresses your cultural gaps through structured discovery. The workshop flattens hierarchies: your senior managers who've been hesitant about AI can sit as an equal to the junior staff who've automated half their workload. This enables the best practices to spread and for ideas to spread across departmental lines. The workshop tackles pressing questions head-on: what data can safely go into ChatGPT? How should staff verify AI outputs before client delivery? And exactly how much work time should go into experimentation? All of these uncertainties around AI that have been building up across the months can be addressed in a single workshop session. This guide will walk you through how. 

How to run your own AI workshop

Pre-workshop: don't assume anything

Even if you think everyone's on the same page, you're probably wrong. Some people may use AI regularly on their personal devices, others think ChatGPT is just a shortcut. Send out a quick 3 minute anonymous survey beforehand. Just the basics like "Have you used AI tools?" and "What's your biggest AI-related concern?". The results will probably surprise you and help you tailor the session to the on-the-ground reality.

Set the tone 

Remember that the workshop is not about teaching staff directly. Instead, treat it as a shared opportunity for learning. Research shows that 77% of employees are confused on how to use AI in their work. Emphasize that there are no stupid questions and that new ideas and clarifications are the goal.

09:00–09:15 – Welcome & Introductions 

Facilitate a quick introductory round where everyone shares their current AI experience level (none/curious/using daily). Use this to level the playing field, nobody needs to pretend they know more than they do.

09:15–09:30 – Demo 

Show a real workflow example relevant to your industry. Pick something practical that multiple departments could use. Include both the wins and the fails. Show a hallucination example. Ensure everyone sees the same baseline example to prevent "but I thought AI meant..." confusion later.

09:30–09:55 – Discussion: What's Already Happening? 

Ask these key questions: What AI use cases have people already tried? What worked? What didn't? What are the blockers or concerns? Use this discussion to surface hidden applications, identify your AI champions, and let anxieties air out. Be prepared to discover that one department has been using ChatGPT for months while another thinks it's banned.

09:55–10:20 – Hands-On Exercise 

Break participants into small mixed-department groups. Give each group a shared company task to try with AI. Have them present back what they learned. Ensure cross-department mixing, this demonstrates that everyone's figuring this out together, not competing.

10:20–10:30 – Next Steps 

Summarize the key learnings that emerged. Set clear expectations for follow-up. Make commitments concrete before people return to their desks.

What You'll Learn from Running One

1. What’s really happening across the organisation

The workshop gives you a clear, unfiltered view of how AI is already being used. That might include unexpected champions, risky practices, or teams who’ve quietly gone further than expected. Hearing this directly - in a neutral, peer-led setting - beats any survey or audit. It gets you out of assumptions and into evidence.

2. Who your internal leaders are

You’ll spot the people already experimenting, automating, and helping others. These are your early adopters - the ones who’ll bring others along if given the platform. Once identified, they become a core group for future pilots, training, or internal comms. They’re your best resource, and the workshop helps them surface.

3. Where the misconceptions and anxieties lie

The session will flush out common sticking points:

• What data is safe to use?
• How accurate is “accurate enough”?
• How much time is okay to spend on experimentation?
  You’ll also hear the emotional undercurrent - fears of being replaced or left behind. Once surfaced, these concerns can be addressed calmly and in public, rather than whispered in corridors.
  
  

4. What to codify now to move faster later

By the end of the workshop, you’ll likely have a rough sense of what needs clarifying - and what doesn’t. That gives you the building blocks for a simple internal AI FAQ or usage policy. Doing this early saves repeated debates later, and gives everyone confidence that they’re experimenting within safe bounds.

Conclusion

The beauty of the workshop format is that it’s cheap, simple and does not require AI expertise. All that it requires is making the time to create a space for your team to figure AI out together. However, if your time is constrained, there's a certain consultancy that can happily deliver this workshop for you.

If you’re ready to propose this internally, here are a few key points to share with your team:

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