All CEOs are facing a common challenge: the necessity of AI for maintaining competitiveness. The board is pushing for it, rivals are adopting it, and you're pouring millions into the technology. Even though you're personally enthusiastic, your staff isn't embracing these tools as quickly as you'd hoped. This is costing you both financially and in terms of progress.
TL;DR
- Prioritize investing in people and culture before technology for successful AI adoption.
- Middle managers are crucial for AI implementation, acting as coaches and connecting teams.
- Focus on AI augmenting human capabilities, not replacing them, to drive adoption.
- Successful AI integration requires thoughtful change management and transparency from leaders.
This is the “messy middle” of AI adoption, when organizations shift from experimentation to integration. It's people and culture, not tools, that will enable companies to advance.
Following discussions with clients across the Asia-Pacific region, I've observed that top-performing teams are focusing on how AI can augment, rather than substitute, human capabilities. The significance of this lies in the fact that AI adoption differs considerably across various positions and levels of experience. While entry-level staff explore new ideas without hesitation and senior executives recognize their strategic importance, middle management frequently faces difficulties in connecting these two groups.
This inconsistent strategy prevents leaders from adopting a universal solution. Leaders must connect with individuals on their own terms, making alignment around people a paramount concern, particularly when aiming to manage talent and foster trust.
Having previously headed LinkedIn's APAC operations and overseen sales teams for more than ten years, a key takeaway has emerged: Promoting uptake without clear direction results in expensive missteps. Leaders prioritizing people are the catalysts for sustainable transformation, rather than mandates.
Instead of forcing AI adoption, leaders facing challenges should reconsider their approach to mandating its use. Their focus must shift to the human element, engaging employees in the transformation process by fostering an environment that champions flexibility and recognizes continuous learning and new ideas.
Middle managers are the missing link
Middle managers are central to AI implementation. They're under pressure from superiors to execute on plans they might not completely grasp, all while assuring subordinates about their employment stability. These individuals are responsible for ensuring AI functions effectively on a daily basis. They balance performance goals, team needs, and adoption requirements, frequently without a clear strategy.
They ask themselves: How do I explain these changes to my team? What happens to the career paths we’ve built? How do I remain confident when even I’m uncertain about how AI will affect my own role?
A recent LinkedIn survey revealed that almost fifty percent of businesses anticipated their staff would begin utilizing AI, while simultaneously, 41% of professionals are already feeling swamped by the rapid pace at which they're expected to become proficient in it. Meanwhile, 84% of APAC professionals aged 18–24, and 77% of those aged 25–34, believe AI cannot replace human judgement at work.
Middle managers aren't expected to possess every solution. Instead, their value comes in acting as trusted coaches, helping teams connect the dots between new technology, shifting requirements, and long-term career goals.
Companies that successfully implement AI start with a people strategy before they deploy the technology. They’re brutally honest about what AI cannot do, and create space to gradually integrate it into their operations.
From automation to reinvention
LinkedIn’s research shows that while 45% of professionals use AI regularly for routine tasks, only one in three of those AI users apply it to high-level work like strategy or data analysis. What’s holding them back isn’t technical skill, but instead their sense of control over the technology.
In Singapore, where I’m based, one in four people use ChatGPT on a weekly basis, which is among the highest usage rates in the world. That’s true AI readiness: Singaporeans are going beyond exploration and experimentation to embed AI into daily work. This high adoption rate demonstrates that when people feel they have agency over how they use AI tools, they engage with them more deeply.
Adoption accelerates naturally when professionals understand that AI is amplifying their capabilities, rather than replacing them. That requires companies to move beyond simply using AI to automate tasks, but rather to explore what new possibilities it opens up.
Change management in action
Leaders are being pressured to move faster, and do more with less, at the same time. But they mustn’t lose sight of the need to invest in foundations that set employees up for success. For example, they should give middle managers the time and tools to become confident AI users themselves, before asking them to lead others to adopt AI. Leaders need to reward progress, not perfection.
This is what I call “thoughtful change management:” Aligning people to a shared vision, enabling collaboration, learning from experience, and then relocating resources. Employers can create weekly forums where employees can share both AI successes and failures without judgment, then reallocate budgets away from underperforming AI experiments to pilots that are showing success.
When people see concrete evidence that leadership is investing in their capability–and not just deploying technology for its own sake–they’ll shift from feeling threatened to feeling empowered.
Companies shouldn’t rush through the messy middle; those that win the AI race in the long run may not be those that deployed the technology first, but those that built the strongest collaboration between humans and AI. A firm’s edge will be how well their employees work alongside this technology.
Leaders need to be transparent about where they will use AI, where it falls short, and when human judgment remains paramount. Employees have to see their leaders learning alongside them: That builds the trust needed for meaningful transformation.
The opinions expressed in Coins2Day.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Coins2Day .
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