Businesses are just beginning to implement AI on a large scale within their operations. A report from McKinsey & Company, published in 2025, indicated that roughly two-thirds of companies are still just experimenting with AI, and have yet to implement it more broadly.
TL;DR
- Most companies are still experimenting with AI, not broadly implementing it.
- Successful AI integration requires a human-focused strategy, investing in people and skills.
- Companies like Johnson & Johnson and Standard Chartered are investing in AI literacy and employee training.
- Thoughtful AI rollout, focusing on valuable use cases, is crucial to avoid techno-stress.
Industry experts suggest the solution isn't technology, but rather people. For successful AI integration at work, businesses must adopt a human-focused strategy for its implementation, requiring investment in both technology and employee skill development.
“If you have a tool and people don’t know how to use it, it’s going to be sub-optimal. To expose organizations to what AI can do, AI literacy is fundamental,” said Rowena Yeo, the CTO and VP of technology services at Johnson and Johnson, at a Nov. 13 Coins2Day dialogue on generative AI at work.
“There is definitely an appetite for people to learn, but what we are not seeing a lot is companies investing in going from AI fluency to adoption,” said Gastón Carrión, the managing director and APAC lead of talent and organization for Accenture, which sponsored the dialogue.
“For every dollar that we spend on technology, we should spend three more on people, to help them to transition into the future,” Carrión added.
Johnson & Johnson introduced a required AI fundamentals course for its approximately 80,000 employees worldwide, according to Yeo, and also offered additional masterclasses designed for various roles within the company.
The company has also discovered applications for the technology specific to certain fields, such as in drug discovery. According to Yeo, the firm, which innovative medicine arm is expected to generate over $57 billion in sales in 2025, employs AI to pinpoint new drug targets and create superior molecules.
Companies can also look to AI to enhance productivity in back-end processes, experts said.
Retail bank Standard Chartered, for example, now allows supervisors to tap generative AI to craft year-end performance reviews.
Piloting the tech from within the organization helped to create a safe sandbox for experimentation, said Will Brown, the head of human resources at Standard Chartered. It also served as a litmus test to gauge how employees feel about AI adoption in the company.
“It created a dialogue where people were openly having conversations on how they felt about their bosses writing performance summaries with the support of generative AI,” Brown said.
The bank has also rolled out an AI-driven talent marketplace, where workers can upload the skills they possess and wish to learn, while managers can post open calls for projects requiring workers with specific skill sets.
Brown stated this fosters a “gig-based economy” inside the organization, allowing for faster skill dissemination.
Thoughtful AI rollout is crucial
After experimenting with different use cases for AI, companies should hone in on a few and scale up use. After “sprouting a thousand flowers across the organization,” Yeo said that J&J found that only 15% of AI use cases were driving 90% of its value.
Academics such as Connie Zheng, an associate professor at the University of South Australia, have also advised caution regarding the widespread implementation of AI throughout businesses.
Before implementing AI, managers must assess its usefulness. Hasty deployment could lead to increased “techno-stress” and negatively impact staff morale. Zheng suggested that tasks like year-end performance evaluations should remain largely human-led, noting that employees, particularly those from Gen Z, value direct input from their supervisors.
To reward and promote workers, supervisors need to be genuine and conversational—“and I don’t think AI can do that,” she added.