Organizations are still in the very early stages of scaling AI across their workplaces. A 2025 report by McKinsey & Company found that roughly two-thirds of companies are still just experimenting with AI and have yet to implement it more widely.
The answer doesn’t lie in tech, say industry experts, but in people. To effectively integrate AI in the workplace, companies need to take a human-centric approach to its buildout, which means investing not just in tech, but also in upskilling employees.
“If you have a tool and people don’t know how to use it, it’s going to be suboptimal. To expose organizations to what AI can do, AI literacy is fundamental,” said Rowena Yeo, the CTO and VP of technology services at Johnson & Johnson, at a Nov. 13 Fortune dialogue on generative AI at work.
“There is definitely an appetite for people to learn, but what we are not seeing a lot is companies investing in going from AI fluency to adoption,” said Gastón Carrión, the managing director and APAC lead of talent and organization for Accenture, which sponsored the dialogue.
“For every dollar that we spend on technology, we should spend three more on people, to help them to transition into the future,” Carrión added.
