How do you turn a traditional organization – one not necessarily expected to embrace AI – into a company that understands the value it can bring and, most importantly, actually does something with it? 

It’s a challenge I faced during my time as Chief Product Officer at the Financial Times. As a company founded in 1888, the FT has seen countless technological revolutions and transformations, which proves it knows how to change. However, sometimes it needs a little help to innovate quickly. 

My goal was to explore how AI could not only be an innovation in itself but also a catalyst for other innovations.

In this article, I’ll share the most valuable lessons I learned throughout this journey, from asking basic questions to choosing the right use cases and creating an environment ripe for experimentation. 

By the end, you'll have a clear understanding of how to introduce AI into your own organization, drive real value, and empower your teams to embrace the future.

Let’s dive in.

Prepare your organization for change

Before you can introduce a new technology, you have to prepare your people for the change. When I started exploring how to integrate AI at the FT, I didn't want to assume everyone was on the same page. So, I needed to ask some fundamental questions. 

The first question was simple: Are we going to lean in or wait and see? The good news is that the FT decided to lean in. 

The next questions were about where and why:

  • Was this just going to affect the product team or the whole organization?
  • Were we focused on efficiency, customer value, business value, or something else entirely? 

The answer, of course, was all of the above.

Use emotion to drive positive change

Next, I had to recognize that adopting AI wasn't just a process – it was a change driven by emotion. 

While some people love spreadsheets and are motivated by a ten-million-dollar saving, that doesn't inspire most people to change their behavior. You need positive emotion. You need people to feel excited and like they can get involved. It has to feel relevant to them.

An easy way to do this is to learn from past successes. In 2014, when the FT shifted its focus to apps and mobile, they gave every single employee an iPad. This allowed everyone to understand the customer experience and get a feel for the new technology. 

We decided to do the same thing with GenAI. We gave everyone access to ChatGPT and became a test organization for Google Gemini.

Drive positivity not fear

Initially, people weren’t expected to use AI tools for any specific use case; they could just use them to write holiday plans or find a good joke. This might seem trivial, but it was incredibly effective at taking away the fear. It helped people get comfortable with the tools and allowed those who were going to embrace them to do so more quickly.

Go broad 

When you’re a big organization, there’s a real risk of pigeonholing AI. You might say, “Oh, that’s just for marketing,” or, “That’s for personalization.” Then, you have to justify its use for every single project. Instead, we decided to go broad. We didn’t know where AI could be applied, so we wanted to explore every corner of the business.