your AI strategy
Hiiiii,
It’s Monday, so you know the drill. I’m in your inbox to talk about all things HR and how we navigate these times together!!!
Before we get into the good stuff this week, don’t forget:
📺 HR Therapy is this WEDNESDAY AT 1PM ET! We’re digging into all things onboarding, what happens when things go sideways and how to build amazing experiences that will keep employees hooked for the long haul.
Moving on to this newsletter, the topic de jour is AI! So today’s focus… your AI strategy.
Does it exist??
CULTURE
Your AI Strategy:Copy anchor linkCopied
TBH: building a long-term internal AI strategy right now can feel a little unrealistic.
The technology is evolving at warp speed, the use cases are shifting weekly, and what felt cutting-edge last quarter is already being replaced by something newer.
The pace feels relentless, and it can make strategy planning feel… impossible.
But, as we alllll know, HR has faced so many challenges in the last 5 years that this is just one more for the books!!!
Really hoping, wishing and praying for those precedented times to come back.
While the future feels really uncertain when it comes to tech, we can’t stop attempting to plan and address what we’re experiencing.
This is honestly the perfect moment to lean into shorter, more iterative strategy bursts that allow for experiments, learning fast, and course-correcting.
Let’s have some fun at this moment!!
Strategy doesn’t need to be a 20-slide deck with a 5-year horizon. It can be flexible, evolving, and deeply useful. You just need a structure that works for your org at this moment.
And that’s what I'm digging into today!
Start with this: how ready are you?Copy anchor linkCopied
Wellll, are you??
Before you start brainstorming use cases or introducing shiny new tools (GUILTY), you need to know what kind of ground you're standing on.
What’s the 411 of your org?
🔍 Time to channel those detective vibes and do an assessment of your organization’s current state because that will shape everything that comes next.
Here’s what to ask: Below you’ll find 4 categories and questions underneath each one that can help you get a clearer picture of where your org stands.
🤖 Tech Inventory: Understanding what’s already in place.
- Are AI tools already being used (officially or not)?
- Is there any AI in the company tech stack already?
- Are employees using tools like ChatGPT or others on their own, without guidance?
- Do employees understand the basic capabilities and limitations of AI?
- Are there any departments already experimenting with AI independently?
🤝 Leadership Alignment: Gauging leadership’s awareness, buy-in, and priorities.
- Who (if anyone) has been designated to lead internal AI efforts?
- Is your exec team onboard with internal AI adoption?
- What is the sentiment on the leadership team, are they excited, skeptical, worried, or somewhere in between?
- Are any leaders personally using AI tools in their own work?
- Has leadership allocated time, budget, or resources to explore AI internally?
⚖️ Policy & Risk: Checking for guardrails, ethical considerations, and consistency.
- Have you created any guidelines for how AI should or shouldn't be used at work?
- Have legal or compliance teams reviewed any AI tools or practices currently in place?
- Are employees aware of what types of data can or cannot be entered into AI tools?
- Have you evaluated the privacy, bias, or ethical implications of AI tools being used?
- Do you have a process for approving or denying new AI tools?
🚨 Change Appetite: Understanding timing, bandwidth, and organizational tolerance for disruption.
- How much change has this organization experienced in the last 6–12 months?
- Are people already feeling change fatigue or is there momentum to try new things?
- Do employees feel safe experimenting with new tools, or is there fear of failure?
- Are there existing programs or pilots that show a culture of iteration and learning?
- If you rolled out a small AI initiative tomorrow, what level of resistance would you expect?
Boom! If you’ve answered these questions, you probably have a clear view into where your org stands when it comes to AI.
And hey, it’s okay if the answers just prove it's chaos right now. I hear from HR teams all day long and AI integrations have been alllll over the place.
Just remember: you wouldn’t launch a new program or overhaul a process without doing some discovery work first. AI is no different!
And what you learned above will help you build a BETTER and MORE SUSTAINABLE strategy.
Where HR can get started: Copy anchor linkCopied
Now, that list above will give you a good sense of where the overall org stands when it comes to AI.
Let’s go one step deeper in HR. In your function, you can start identifying low-risk, high-reward areas to test AI inside the People function.
Here are some use cases for HR:
Recruiting:
- Candidate matching, resume screening, and outreach personalization.
- AI can coordinate calendars across time zones and reduce back-and-forth emails for scheduling interviews.
Onboarding:
- AI can help build custom onboarding flows, and deliver personalized onboarding plans.
- Answer FAQs helping employees find answers in seconds.
Learning & Development
- Tailored course recommendations, learning path generation, and knowledge retrieval.
- AI-powered coaching bots or career development nudges can also boost employee growth. TBH not sure how I feel about this use case, so I’m treading carefully here!
Performance Management:
- Tools can help managers write better feedback.
- AI can surface insights from check-ins, engagement surveys, and goal progress to spot patterns earlier.
HR Ops & Admin:
- Think automation of repetitive tasks like time-off tracking, benefits questions, policy lookups, and org chart questions.
Internal Comms:
- Drafting the first pass of comms
- Creating script for convos
- Analyzes message tone for clarity, empathy, or risk before sending.
Pick 1-2 of these use cases to explore.
During that exploration make sure to take note of questions you may have or feedback. Then think about your broader org - as they are exploring use cases in their department they may have the similar questions...
That's an opportunity for clarity!!! Jot down those questions and think about how you can address them org wide.
Don’t forget about the people:Copy anchor linkCopied
Spoiler alert: No AI strategy sticks unless your people are ready to work with it.
That’s why the next wave of HR work is deeply tied to building AI fluency across the company.
So next week, I’m digging into how to do that.
And guess what?
The people are still at the core of everything!!
I’m going to dig into how to foster a culture of experimentation and how that's key to rolling out your AI strategy.
I'll be sharing my AI Strategy doc that will walk you through everything, help you put a plan in place and I might even include my comms.
STAY TUNED!!
(HUMAN) RESOURCES
- AI’s impact on high wage roles
- Foldable Apple phones... okay.
- Blackstone drops out of the Tiktok deal
- RTO unfolding differently for men & women
WORK-LIFE BALANCE
- 📚 What I’m reading: The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy by Brigitte Knightley. Another Dramoine which is being traditionally published. Recently I fell into a rabbithole about popular fanfics being traditionally published and what it means for the fanfic community. Let’s just say I learned a lot.
- 📺 What I’m watching: The Summer I Turned Pretty. I read all of Jenny Han’s books ages ago and have loved everything they’ve adapted into TV/movies. Team Conrad all the way. He was my fave in the book!!
- 👖 What I’m obsessing over: cleaning out my closet. Listen, I haven’t worked in an office full time since 2020. My closet somehow feels super dated even though it's only been 5 years. Like what do I do with my skinny jeans???
SONG OF THE WEEK
🎧 Cry, HaimCopy anchor linkCopied
Usually Danielle is lead on vocals but this song Este (my fave sister) is the lead on vocals. FOR THE FIRST TIME!!!
And I’m not just obsessed with the song because of that, the subject matter is very relevant to my emo Pisces self!!
I LOVE A GOOD CRY.
Emotions are fun and I have a lot of them.
That's all for this week! I hope you enjoyed this, please let me know what you think and what other topics you'd love for me to cover. I'm allll ears.
Reminder: Take care of yourself and know that I support you.
