CIOs tackle the AI change management challenge

Every Monday at 7 a.m., a cohort of Principal employees jump on a Teams call for a quick study group. Typically chaired by the chief digital and artificial intelligence officer (CDAIO) or someone else on the team, the 300-plus and growing learning community digs into the technology, cultural, and organizational impacts of generative AI. There are deep dives into the implications of new gen AI models, discussions of compliance and ethical risks, and knowledge sharing around emerging use cases and technical best practices.

The study group, which took root when ChatGPT was introduced in November 2022, is now a formalized effort intent on exposing all Principal employees — not just a select few — to what’s fast emerged as a business-defining technology. The study group, one piece of a broader change management and AI literacy campaign, is designed to bring Principal employees and leadership up to speed on generative AI’s ground-breaking potential while generating confidence and enthusiasm in the technology to improve long-standing work patterns.

“Through education and literacy initiatives, we’re cultivating an AI mindset that will drive adoption, innovation, and meaningful business impact across the organization,” says Kathy Kay, executive vice president and CIO at Principal Financial Group, a global financial investment and insurance company. “You’re doing a disservice if you don’t teach everyone how to leverage the technology because it’s going to be table stakes in the future.”

Principal, under Kay’s direction, understands what too few companies and IT executives still don’t fully grasp: that AI success is directly correlated to well-executed change management at both the leadership and grassroots levels. An effective AI change management campaign can help business leaders grasp the full potential of gen AI for productivity and innovation gains while encouraging employees to welcome the technology as a means to working faster and smarter. An effective change management effort also helps build trust in the fast-changing technology, addressing lingering fears surrounding job loss, inaccurate and unreliable results, and unchecked, unethical use cases.

A problem of alignment

For all the frenzied pace of gen AI pilots, companies are encountering headwinds as they try to parlay the gold rush of early experimentation into AI use at enterprise scale. One of the biggest barriers is change management — getting employees invested and committed to reimagining how they work.

In a Kyndryl survey of more than 1,000 senior business and technology executives, 95% of respondents reported investment in AI, but only 14% have aligned their workforce, technology, and growth goals. In fact, 45% of CEOs surveyed by Kyndryl said most of their employees are resistant or even openly hostile to AI.

What’s standing in the way? According to Kyndryl’s research, the top three hurdles are organizational change management, a lack of employee trust in AI, and workforce skills gaps. Those making headway on these issues — the 14% Kyndryl calls “AI pacesetters” — were three times more likely to report a fully implemented change management strategy for AI in the workplace. They were also 29% less likely to cite fears about AI affecting employee engagement.

Companies struggling with gen AI transformation share another common misstep: They put the burden of learning the technology and acclimating to new work patterns directly on individual employees without establishing any formal support. The Adecco Group’s 2025 Business Leaders research found that nearly two-thirds (60%) of organizations expect workers to proactively update skills and adapt to AI, but one-third (34%) have not instructed workers on how to use the technology.

As companies move beyond experimentation and ad hoc use cases to a strategic set of prioritized applications, Principal’s Kay believes in working all possible change management levers to foster a culture of AI-driven innovation. CIOs are in the right place to pick up that mantle. According to the 2025 State of the CIO research, 81% of respondents agree that CIOs are well positioned as changemakers to champion both business and technology initiatives, including successful transformation with AI.

“If you try to work the same way you’ve always worked while leveraging AI, you won’t see true benefits,” says Kay, underscoring the importance of strategies that shift culture and work patterns. “If you understand the implications of how you can do work differently with AI, you will have better outcomes.”

Understanding the art of the possible

Along with the study group, Principal is rolling out a multifaceted AI training and literacy program to promote the art of what’s possible with generative AI and engage its workforce in driving new work patterns. For senior leadership, Principal has created an executive track that delivers specific training and context for different personas. For example, product owners are oriented to the possibilities of how gen AI can advance product development, while software leaders are schooled in gen AI’s role in driving efficiencies for coding and application design teams.

Coaches have also been earmarked to help teams think specifically about how generative AI can be applied to collaborative workflows — not just individual tasks, which is critical for driving large-scale adoption and change.

“Before the focus was on individual productivity. Now it’s all about collaborative workflows,” Kay says. “You start to see benefits when you change the way you work as team.”

At Liberty Mutual, creating a culture of experimentation is central to getting employees on board with modifying work habits — especially given the accelerated evolution of gen AI, which creates risk of getting left behind. It starts with developing a shared baseline understanding of the technology and its potential so everyone — not just technical staff — has shared context, according to Monica Caldas, executive vice president and global CIO at Liberty Mutual.

To help orchestrate, Liberty Mutual provided controlled access to Liberty GPT, a private version of the popular large language model (LLM), two weeks after ChatGPT was available to enterprises so employees could freely get acquainted with the technology and start building skills. Employees also completed introductory training before they were given access to Liberty GPT.

In the next leg of the journey, the focus is all about fostering experimentation in a deeper way, encouraging users to think about how they perform their jobs, not specifically about gen AI as a technology tool. The IT organization, process-oriented teams, and domain experts across different functional areas work together as a “team of teams” to foster experimentation and help manage expectations around AI use.

“We look at processes and workflow, not just use cases,” Caldas explains. “There are no pre-set expectations. To create a flywheel of experimentation, you have to create space and flexibility to move through cycles without pressure for people to try [AI] and achieve specific outcomes.”

A readiness assessment is another component of Liberty Mutual’s experimentation framework and crucial to orchestrating change, Caldas says. Teams explore what is required to make progress with generative AI initiatives, identify potential gaps, and devise strategies to increase the probability of success. Regular employee roundtables, surveys, and feedback loops round out the framework, helping to elicit lessons learned and best practices that can be shared while working through ongoing concerns and hesitations.

“Hosting roundtables and conversations show people what’s possible and helps with buy-in,” she explains.

Majoring in change

Kenneth Spangler, retired executive vice president and CIO of global operations technology at FedEx, believes adaptability is critical to this fast-paced era of digital and AI transformation. To that end, he’s built a business framework to help companies thrive during disruption and accelerated change. The new venture, AdaptiveION, contends that in the era of AI, the path to achieving true business value requires enterprises to major in change, which in turn demands that people and processes become more adaptive.

Adaptive enterprises, Spangler says, achieve greater industry growth, have a higher probability of long-term success, are more likely to foster an innovation culture, and are best situated for change initiative success. AdaptiveION’s framework encompasses a five-point foundation that ensures the organization is aligned on shared goals; strategies for helping individuals and teams execute more effectively in a world of constant change; and a playbook for execution.

“Processes inside large enterprises are like concrete in a building — they don’t change easily,” Spangler says. “You need a strong adaptive foundation to move at the speed and scale of change today, especially in the AI era.”

To ensure enterprises can move forward, CIOs need to be the champion for untethering from the past — whether it’s moving away from outdated data management structures, legacy infrastructure, or inefficient business processes. Being tightly aligned with the business, ensuring a real-time data delivery capacity, educating relentlessly, and speaking the hard truths are what’s required for CIOs to drive real business value with AI.

“It is irresponsible for us as technology leaders not to be talking about AI,” Spangler adds. “But fatigue is real, and in some organizations, that is limiting the ability to get the accelerating value that is right in front of us.”

Beyond C-level change management efforts, Osh Kosh Corp. is enlisting the power of the people to promote digital savviness and awareness of AI. Leaders have identified employees within different functional areas of the business — for example, sales, supply chain, and the manufacturing floor — to help identify problems and potential solutions and serve as influencers to promote change.

“We look for people in the business who don’t know IT, but know how to apply technology,” says Anupam Khare, the company’s CIO. “If IT says something, it’s interpreted as one thing. If business users say the same thing, there’s a different meaning. When they communicate a message across the organization, there’s a contagious effect.”

Of course, CIOs need to remain front and center, continuously engaging to ensure business and technology priorities are aligned. That tight coupling means leaning into transparency and making the business part of the solution, even when proactively presenting AI solutions that might not be fully vetted but show promise for efficiency and productivity growth.

Instead of communicating about change through status meetings and PowerPoint decks, create a space that is conducive to back and forth dialog and engagement, notes Zach Hicks, chief digital and technology officer for Kimberly Clark.

“Engage the business in ways that are more than transactional,” Hicks says. “Make them part of the process as much as possible. It’s sounds easy, but it takes a lot of work.”