Strategic AI Adoption: Designing Smarter Workflows
& Arturo Ferreira
& Kathy Jensen Watts
"Governance all starts with you. Data, policy, personnel all start with HR... This is HR's time."
What it was about
AI adoption succeeds when HR leaders take ownership of the process instead of waiting for IT or legal to define it. It also requires organizations to focus on incremental, process-by-process automation grounded in clean data rather than trying to overhaul everything at once.
By the numbers
Key notes
- Run a simple before/after self-assessment questionnaire with your team to measure readiness and confidence gains from even a short (10-hour) AI training program.
- Start AI adoption with data cleansing and process documentation before layering on automation, since inconsistent processes across locations or divisions will undermine any AI tool.
- Identify individual, narrow processes that save small amounts of time first, then connect those automations incrementally rather than trying to "AI" an entire function at once.
Take this back Monday
Pick one small, repetitive HR task and document the current process end-to-end before letting anyone automate it with AI.
Governance starts with HR, not IT — we should own AI adoption by fixing our data and processes first, then automating incrementally.
Watch out for
- Letting IT run a Copilot pilot in isolation, selecting participants without HR input, and leaving team members excluded and confused about the initiative's purpose.
- Trying to "AI" an entire function at once instead of finding narrow, specific processes to automate incrementally.
- Failing to validate AI outputs for hallucinations before using them (e.g., in HR helpdesk answers or legal/compliance contexts).
Before founding Upscaile, Arturo ran a media company for over 12 years, all while calling himself a lifelong futurist inspired by Ray Kurzweil.
