Hidden AI revolution: Why leaders must address covert adoption of new tech

As a parent of young teens during the emergence of social media and smartphones in the early 2010s, I failed to fully grasp the impact of this “cool new tech” or have meaningful discussions with my kids about it. Setting limits on screen time and minimum ages for smartphones and apps felt like responsible parenting at the time.

Looking back, this seems like gross negligence. Like many parents, I failed to fully understand how children were using social media or its profound impact on their social and cognitive development — a reality now backed by extensive research.

As an executive coach in 2024, I’m witnessing a similar pattern unfold across teams and organizations in many industries. Managers today remain largely disconnected from how generative AI is reshaping — or could improve — their organization’s culture and effectiveness.

New research found that 2 in 3 employees use ChatGPT without their boss knowing. Fear of being seen as “cheating” or unprofessional causes workers to keep their AI tricks to themselves. While this came from a limited qualitative study, if you lead a team or organization, ask yourself: Do you know how your people are using generative AI in their work?

Your answer probably mirrors mine from 2014 about my kids’ social media use. Awareness does not equal understanding.

For organizations today, there are several potential drawbacks to this covert adoption:

• A lack of visibility across the team into which methods and practices are most effective and should be shared.

• A decrease in human collaboration as workers turn to ChatGPT and other tools for questions and brainstorming.

• The risk of workers using generative AI as a crutch instead of developing interpersonal skills to deal with emotions at work.

These potential drawbacks can be transformed into opportunities for team improvement. As always, awareness and communication are key. Research shows that generative AI can enhance team communication, collaboration, and efficiency — and even help develop interpersonal skills.

It’s how you go about it that makes the difference.

The qualitative research found that people explored ChatGPT at work out of curiosity, anxiety, or both. As I’ve found in my own work, what begins as casual experimentation quickly develops into daily usage and leads to discovering essential workflow improvements.

What can leaders do? Start addressing AI integration now before it becomes too difficult to control. Managers need to be aware of when generative AI can help augment communication and problem-solving and when it doesn’t. Then create a culture of open experimentation and sharing so others benefit, too.

My own research (a non-scientific survey posted to my LinkedIn page) found that 3 in 4 leaders have either “experimented with ChatGPT a few times” or “use AI tools sporadically but not systematically.” Leaders want to better understand how generative AI can help them with better information organization, improved team collaboration, and enhanced decision-making.

When asked about their AI training and experience needs, survey respondents shared several common issues that align with what I hear daily in my conversations:

• Less daily work stress by using AI tools effectively

• Demystify AI by providing real-world examples of how AI has been adopted at other companies and the outcome

• How to be more efficient by leveraging AI, but without a tremendous investment in training time

• To understand how to utilize AI for a competitive advantage in our industry

• To help me better understand what is currently possible with AI and if we are in a place where AI tools can safely be used with sensitive information

The promise of generative AI that has dominated headlines has created a workforce eager to leverage AI. Leaders, meanwhile, are largely still on the sidelines. Their people are seeking guidance on effective implementation, security, and practical applications. 

This is a leadership challenge. Those who address these concerns head-on can transform potential anxiety into productive engagement with AI tools. 

Here are some specific ways to get started:

• Assess and track: Who is using what? And how? This can be as formal as a survey or casual as a meeting agenda item or Slack conversation. As the leader, it’s up to you to find a way to track the tools and workflows that are helping your team get the work done.

• Identify the gap: What do you need to learn? What do others need to learn? Leaders who haven’t been experimenting with new tools at the same pace as the people on their team have some work to do to catch up.

• Create structure for collaboration and sharing: Start with a collaborative document, Slack channel, or team huddle for ongoing sharing. Include failed attempts, too, since AI doesn’t always help the way you want it to. This will save others from wasting time trying the same thing.

Last week, the Oxford English Dictionary announced the word of the year for 2024 is “brain rot.” It is defined as: “Supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as a result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging.” The term increased in usage frequency by 230% between 2023 and 2024, thanks in large part to TikTok, short-form videos, and infinite scroll.

Seeing generative AI at work through this lens raises important questions for leaders. As we integrate AI tools, we must be mindful of the weight of the potential impact — on the work and the people.

If you have a question or topic related to leadership in the age of AI that you’d like to be addressed in a future article send it to [email protected] or [email protected].