Four Questions That Reveal Whether Your AI Training Is Working
Most companies have announced something about AI by now. A town hall slide. A pilot program. Maybe a lunch-and-learn nobody attended.
But announcements aren't adoption. And adoption is what determines whether your company figures this out or falls behind.
Here's a simple way to find out where you actually stand: ask your employees four yes-or-no questions.
Question 1: "Have you been in a workshop where your team built AI workflows for your real work?"
Not a demo. Not a generic "intro to ChatGPT" session. A working session where people brought actual tasks from their actual jobs and left with something usable.
Most AI training fails here. It's too abstract. People watch someone else do impressive things, nod along, then go back to their desks and do nothing different.
The fix isn't more inspiration. It's more specificity. Teams need to work on their own problems, in the room, with help available when they get stuck.
If most of your employees would answer "no" to this question, your training is probably theater.
Question 2: "Do you have someone who helps you figure out how to use AI in your job?"
Learning a new tool is one thing. Figuring out where it fits into your work is another.
Most people don't need more tutorials. They need someone who understands their role well enough to say: "Here's where AI would actually save you time" or "That's not a good use case—don't bother."
This doesn't have to be a dedicated AI coach. It could be a manager, a peer, or someone from another team who's figured things out. The point is that someone exists and is accessible.
Without this, people either waste hours on dead ends or give up after their first failed experiment.
Question 3: "Do your leaders talk openly about how AI will change your business?"
Not vague statements about "staying competitive." Specific conversations about what might change, what won't, and what's still uncertain.
Silence from leadership gets interpreted. Usually as "they don't know" or "they're not telling us." Neither interpretation helps.
The best thing leaders can do is think out loud. Share what they're seeing. Admit what they don't know yet. Invite input from people closer to the work.
This isn't about having all the answers. It's about making AI a normal topic instead of something that only gets discussed in crisis mode.
Question 4: "Is your manager skilled at using AI in their own work?"
This one matters more than most companies realize.
Managers set the tone. If they're using AI visibly—in meetings, in their communication, in how they solve problems—it signals permission for everyone else to do the same.
If they're not, it signals the opposite. People notice when their boss hasn't touched the tools they're being told to adopt.
You can't train your way around this. Managers need to go first, make mistakes publicly, and show that experimentation is expected.
What to do with the answers
If you're a leader, run this as an actual survey. Anonymous. Simple. Four questions.
The results will tell you whether your AI efforts are landing or just making noise.
If the answers are mostly "no," that's useful information. It means the gap isn't awareness—it's support. People have heard about AI. They just haven't been helped to use it.
That's a solvable problem. But only if you're willing to see it first.
