Your organisation has an AI plan. Have you planned for the humans?

It feels strange to say but Human One went human recently when I had the opportunity to put the concept in front of a room full of people. That was at #DifFest in Sheffield, UK on July 1^st.

It was a gathering of around 50 leaders from across multiple sectors, brought together to challenge thinking, have open and honest conversations and work through some of the questions organisations are facing right now regarding AI.

I went there to talk about something I have been thinking about for a long time: the human capacity to absorb the scale and pace of change that AI is creating. And to finally put some emphasis on the fact that AI affects humans as much as it does technology, and therefore demands an equal presence in the conversations, planning and implementation.

Without fail, almost everyone had something pressing to contribute about how their organisation is managing the human side of AI adoption and to be honest, in most cases, how it isn't.

There is plenty of activity around the technology. Tools are being introduced, experiments are happening, use cases are being explored and strategies are being developed. But alongside all of that there is very little conversation about the looming change on the horizon for the organisation and it's people.

And so, the examples came thick and fast.

People talked about colleagues trying to work out where their organisations are going, while every corner of the organisation  seems to be doing its own thing.

About people being encouraged to adopt AI without necessarily understanding what the organisation ultimately intends to do with it.

They talked about uncertainty around roles and jobs because people see the headlines and hear the predictions and have no idea when, or if, those changes are coming to their organisation. And it just isn’t being communicated.

Which means every communication starts being scrutinized for clues.

“My leadership is constantly telling us we need to be ready to pivot, we read that pivot as: be ready to reduce the workforce.”

And this confirmed exactly my thinking: when an organisation doesn't provide enough of the story, people don't simply wait for the rest of it, they start reading between the lines and writing the missing chapters themselves.

People don't wait for the strategy.

They watch what is happening in other organisations. They listen to the increasingly dramatic predictions about which jobs AI will replace. They notice changes around them. They compare notes with colleagues. They interpret what leadership says and what leadership doesn't say. And gradually, an unofficial version of the organisation's AI strategy begins to form in people's heads.

It may be completely wrong and in fact, it's likely to be, but that doesn't make its consequences any less real.

Part of my presentation at DifFest looked at how the opportunities and threats associated with AI translate into emotions and how those emotions then translate into many of the behaviours we see today: overwhelm, avoidance, silence, pretense, hyperactivity, false confidence, withdrawal, cynicism and disengagement.

Don't get me wrong, there is a percentage of the organisation that understands AI, is excited by it and isn't losing any sleep over what it might mean for them. But today that appears to be the much smaller part of the organisation.

The latest research from Henley Business School's World of Work Institute found that:

"61% of full-time UK workers still feel overwhelmed by the pace of AI development."

That is almost two-thirds of the workforce. So what if, alongside the technology strategy, we actually had a strategy for them?

A strategy for people change. For capability. For communication. For work. For leadership. For trust. For what happens to the organisation as humans and AI increasingly work alongside one another.

That requires us to plan and act differently in the first place.

AI doesn't belong to one function

Imagine an organisation where the operating model has become a genuine hybrid of humans and AI agents. What has to work differently for that organisation to operate cohesively?

Who designs the work? Who determines which decisions belong to humans and which can be delegated? Who redesigns the roles? Who develops the capabilities? Who calculates the economics? Who manages the risks? Who considers the legal implications? Who communicates what is changing? Who protects trust? Who looks at the consequences for culture, careers, leadership, customers and society? Who joins all of that together, and ultimately, who owns it?

The full AI strategy cannot be owned by IT, as equally it cannot be executed without IT. And the human implications cannot simply be handed to HR either. So in your organisation, who is actually driving the strategy, implementation, adoption and eventual redesign of the business?

These are some of the questions that have shaped the latest evolution of Human One.

Human One is taking shape

Over the last few months, I have reorganised the Human One Architecture around four connected chapters: Human. Organisation. Society. Futures.

Why? Because there is a natural progression between them. Change starts with humans. When enough humans change how they think, work and behave, organisations change. When enough organisations change, the effects begin to travel into society. And what we change in society ultimately shapes the futures we create.

Perhaps that sounds a little idealistic. But large-scale change has always been the accumulation of changes in people, organisations, institutions and systems. AI will be no different.

Within the four chapters sit the dimensions where the consequences of AI begin to appear.

1. Identity and purpose. Capability and learning. Psychology and wellbeing.

2. Work and jobs. Operating models. Culture and leadership.

3. Governance and power. Trust and truth. Adoption and resistance.

4. Emerging intelligence. Future humanity. And what I've coined as The Open Edge: what we don't yet know.

   
   

Around all of it sits The Shadow: the hidden costs that can accompany the opportunity.

And this is where reorganising the wheel has made its purpose much clearer.

Rather than treating the human implications of AI as a separate workstream, we can use it to see where one decision starts to travel across the organisation, and who needs to be part of that conversation.

Human One on the executive table

So let's put Human One in the middle of an executive conversation and see what happens.

Technology: What technology foundations do we need for the organisation we are becoming?

Is our architecture ready for AI at scale? Do we have the data, infrastructure, integrations, security and agent architecture to move beyond isolated tools and experiments?

This reaches into: operating models, capability, adoption, governance and future organisational design.

HR: What does AI mean for our people, roles and capabilities?

Which roles change, emerge or disappear? If AI takes over entry-level tasks, how will people build the experience needed for more senior roles?

This reaches into: work and jobs, identity and purpose, capability and learning, wellbeing and culture.

Operations: How does work need to be redesigned when humans and AI work together?

Which processes fundamentally change rather than simply becoming faster? Where do agents sit within workflows, hand-offs and service delivery?

This reaches into: operating models, work and jobs, adoption, capability and governance.

Finance: Where is the value from AI actually expected to come from?

Does productivity become reduced headcount, increased capacity, growth or margin? Could AI change pricing, cost structures or the economics of the business itself?

This reaches into: work and jobs, operating models, business models, strategy and the Shadow.

Legal, Risk & Compliance: What changes when AI becomes part of how the organisation operates and makes decisions?

Who is accountable for an AI-supported decision? Where do privacy, bias, intellectual property, regulation and liability create new exposure?

This reaches into: governance and power, trust and truth, adoption, work and the Shadow.

Strategy: What could AI fundamentally change about our business?

Where might value move in our industry? What becomes possible that wasn't possible before, and which parts of today's business model could become less relevant?

This reaches into: operating models, work and jobs, emerging intelligence, society and possible futures.

Communications & Change: What do our people need to understand about where we are going?

If we tell people to "get AI ready" or "prepare to pivot" without explaining what that means, what story will they create themselves about jobs, restructuring and their future?

This reaches into: trust and truth, adoption and resistance, psychology and wellbeing, identity and culture.

Leadership: Who is joining all of this together?

If Technology is building, HR is workforce planning, Finance is chasing value and Operations is redesigning work, who ensures those decisions add up to one coherent organisation?

This reaches into: the whole wheel.

This is the point. None of these conversations stays neatly within one function.

A Finance decision about productivity can become a Work & Jobs question, which becomes a Capability question, an Identity question, a Trust question and ultimately an Adoption question. Somewhere along that chain, a Shadow may emerge.

AI doesn't respect functional boundaries and neither can the plan for what it does to the organisation.

That brings us to the Shadow, the hidden cost of AI. For every opportunity around that table, Human One asks another question: What is the Shadow?

What cost or consequence might we create alongside the opportunity? Loss of agency. Dependency. Mental overload. Displacement. Inequality. Loss of trust. Knowledge erosion. Implementation failure. Privacy and surveillance. Environmental and infrastructure costs.

None of this means we stop pursuing the opportunity. It means we become much better at seeing the whole system before making decisions about one part of it.

Your AI plan needs a Human AI plan

This is where I think the next AI conversation needs to go and not as another workstream alongside the AI strategy, but as part of the strategy itself.

That is what we are now developing at Oliver Kate: facilitated Human One executive sessions designed to help leadership teams have this conversation together and turn it into something tangible.

A map of the human and organisational implications of your AI strategy. The gaps you haven't yet planned for. The decisions that need to be made across functions. The shadows that need to be considered. And clear ownership of what happens next.

Because your organisation probably already has an AI plan. The question is whether you have planned for the humans who have to live, work and lead through it.

When you are ready to put Human One in the middle of your executive table, talk to us.