Most organizations treat AI adoption as a skills issue: train people to use tools, and you’re done. But this moment demands much more. It’s not just about deploying new technology. It’s about rethinking leadership, reimagining identity, and reshaping how organizations think and change.
A few days ago, Professor Ethan Mollick put into words something we’ve been working closely with at OK5: the important renewal in the AI-era is not technical – it’s human, cultural, and strategic.
The core insight
AI can make individuals more productive. But that doesn’t automatically translate into better organizational performance.
To realize real value, we must rethink how work is structured, how decisions are made, and how people are rewarded. This is not about upgrading tools. It is about upgrading the logic of the organization.
The human bottleneck
Top-down urgency doesn’t work here. You can’t lead this kind of transformation without addressing what it means for people. For organizations to change, people must change. And that doesn’t happen by command.
Today, many employees are hiding their AI use or avoiding it altogether. Why? They are afraid. Afraid of layoffs, of losing status, or of punishment under unclear policies.
If leadership sends the wrong signals, for example that AI-driven productivity leads to job cuts, then innovation dies in silence. Instead, organizations should build strong and even bold incentives for AI experimentation. Make it safe to try, safe to talk, and safe to fail. Celebrate and reward those who find transformative ways to use it.
The deeper shift: redefining work
Leaders must start anticipating how work itself is changing in the age of AI.
Our organizations were designed for human intelligence. Now we have machine intelligence on demand. That changes everything, from job roles to organizational structures to the meaning of expertise.
We need to redesign workflows where humans and AI complement each other. The goal is not just faster execution, but rather to create value in fundamentally different ways.
This isn’t the responsibility of IT. It’s not HR’s job either. Redesigning how work gets done is not a departmental initiative. It is a core leadership responsibility and it requires coordinated effort across functions, not isolated action within silos.
Shaping the future of work
No one has special knowledge about how to integrate AI into your company. There is no playbook. But this process can be supported. At OK5 we coach leadership teams through reframing assumptions, creating space for exploration, and supporting identity-level change.
This isn’t about getting better at using tools. It is about becoming the kind of organization that can thrive in an AI-powered world.
How does your leadership and organization need to renew to remain relevant and to truly benefit from AI?
