Working in tech, I learned that technology alone doesn’t spark transformation. The people do. And people approach new technologies in wildly different ways. To be successful, companies need to adapt to that line of thinking, just like companies expect their teammates to adapt to transformative technologies, like AI.
3 TYPES OF AI ADOPTERS
When we rolled out a custom-built company GPT to our 14,000 teammates several years ago, we saw three clear groups emerge.
First, there was the “jump-in-with-both-feet” crowd. These are the early adopters who treat anything new like a shiny toy. Next were the skeptics who wondered how much of an impact AI would have on their daily work lives. And finally, there was a big group that genuinely wanted to learn but didn’t know where to start. This was brand new for them; there was no roadmap, no “user manual” they could reference.
If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Almost every client I’ve spoken with since has described the exact same pattern inside their own walls. If AI is going to become a core skill like using Excel or email, we have to help everyone build their AI literacy. And the best way to get thousands of people to actually use something new?
Gamify it.
GAMIFICATION: MAKE AI LITERACY FUN
There’s a mountain of research, like this 2023 study, showing that people learn better when they’re having fun. But there’s also a simpler truth here. People are competitive. Some compete cooperatively, in a “let’s all get better together” way, while others just want to win. We built our Insight AI Flight Academy platform to tap into both instincts.
The AI Flight Academy guides every teammate through levels of AI literacy, with a fun flight theme, skilling them up from a humble gate agent to flight crew, then up to first officer, captain, and finally sky maverick. Each level has its own requirements, like some company-mandated trainings and learning modules, in-person AI sessions, company podcast episodes, themed challenges—all while teammates keep up with an increasing number of required average monthly prompts.
They’re not just checking boxes and watching videos. This combination of sessions, skills challenges, and real use case requirements helps ensure teammates put the skills they learn to use immediately in ways that will actually impact the work they’re doing.
They exit AI Flight Academy training sessions and use what they learned, pulling together comprehensive research on a sales target or analyzing a few different proposals to pull out key points from each. Those are just a few examples, but everyone has to play. And everyone can track their progress and everyone else’s progress. Achievements using AI get celebrated, helping to get the competitive juices flowing in individual departments. This way, the entire company moves forward together.
UNEXPECTED INNOVATORS
With more of our employees getting comfortable using AI, we’re beginning to see innovations come out of teams that aren’t traditionally treated as innovation hubs, like finance, logistics, partner management, and sales teams.
These teams weren’t just using AI to summarize emails; they were generating genuinely creative ideas. And once people built that experimentation mental muscle, the ideas came fast and furious.
Some were brilliant but not yet feasible. Many required data and systems to catch up before they could work at scale. But the sheer volume of creative ideas has proven that a great deal is possible when you democratize access and literacy.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR THE FUTURE OF WORK
Gamifying AI isn’t a silly gimmick. It’s a practical, human-centered strategy for driving AI adoption at scale. It gives people permission to explore, permission to be wrong, and permission to grow.
And the result is a workforce that’s empowered by AI, not frightened by it. So, the new challenge? Assessing the zillions of AI ideas generated and prioritizing to meet our business needs: What’s good, what’s feasible, and what can scale. We built a platform and methodology to validate ideas, put them in the context of business outcomes, and then prioritize them. Like with AI Flight Academy, we were our own test subjects first, and our conclusion was that there’s nothing to be scared of if you’re pulling together in the right direction, toward AI innovation.
From the get-go, AI amounted to a new superpower for our teammates. Training them to use this new tool called for out-of-the-box thinking. With AI Flight Academy, we adapted by empowering them to get comfortable, experiment, and come up with new use cases. It’s become about more than just gamified training. We’re validating the business value of what they are thinking up as they become more proficient with AI, which has also validated the training itself as invaluable. Across an evolving IT landscape—and workforce—gamification proved to be the right play.
Juan Orlandini is CTO of Insight Enterprises.
