Stage 2: Explorer

“Yeah, a few people are playing around with it.”

Overview:

AI has made it through the door — just barely. A couple of ICs are experimenting ChatGPT or AI writing assistants and call summarizers in their day-to-day work. The work is helpful at the individual level, but it’s fragmented, untracked, and invisible to the broader org. There’s no alignment across functions, and no measurement of value.

It’s exploration—but without direction or scale.

Cultural Signals:

• Experimentation is IC-led, not team-led or org-wide
• Usage driven by tool features or free software, rather than strategic needs
• No clear internal AI champions

Risks:

• No process for sharing learnings or best practices across the team
• Lack of ownership, which leads to low trust and adoption
• Fragmentation that makes scaling impossible

How to move forward:

• Identify high-impact use cases ICs are already experimenting with (e.g., outbound prep, note summarization, basic content creation)
• Create an internal forum or Slack channel for sharing examples and outcomes, and recognition for champions
• Assign ownership and begin tracking impact