Eight recruiters sat through AI training twice, nodded along, and never opened the tools again.
Their manager was planning a third session. Instead she asked the team one question: what’s the worst part of your week?
The answer came back the same from everyone. Writing up candidate summaries after interviews. Two hours of typing, every day.
So she set up one AI tool that drafts the summary from the interview notes. The team adopted it in three days. No session required. The tool removed a task they already dreaded.
Why the training failed
Hand people a new tool and most keep using the old one. Give everyone on your team a brand new phone and half will stay on the one in their pocket. The new phone isn’t bad. The old one still works.
A feature tour tells people what a tool can do. That’s an answer to a question nobody asked.
What to do instead
Find the task that makes your team groan on Monday morning. The report no one wants to compile. The inbox no one wants to sort.
Put AI on that one task and nothing else.
Show them the single thing that kills the job they hate, not twenty things they might use someday.
People don’t adopt tools (opens in a new tab). They adopt solutions to problems they already have.