🚀 Leading the Charge: What CPOs Need to Know About AI Adoption

Earlier this month, we gathered our CPO community for a conversation that’s fast becoming unavoidable: AI in the People function.

From hype to reality, we explored how People leaders can go from AI-curious to AI-confident — and help their companies stay ahead.

We were joined by two brilliant voices:

Cecily Motley, CEO and co-founder of Harriet, an AI-powered employee support platform
Barbora Brasiunaite, VP of People at Cint, an 800-person global tech business operating across 12 countries

Here’s a digest of the most valuable insights — and why this isn’t just a tech transformation, it’s a People one.

💡 Why AI Is a People Team Opportunity

As Cecily put it: “This shift is unprecedented — but it’s also familiar.” AI may be a new toolset, but the challenge is timeless: driving behavioural change across an organisation.

People leaders know how to guide teams through transformation. That puts CPOs in pole position — not to follow, but to lead.

🧭 Crawl, Walk, Run: The AI Adoption Curve

Barbora shared Cint’s phased approach to AI adoption:

Crawl – Light experimentation with LLMs (like Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity) to improve workflows and build prompting confidence
Walk – Identify real business problems and explore tools that can embed into everyday systems
Run – Restructure teams, shift capacity, and fully integrate AI into how work gets done

Most companies today are somewhere between Crawl and Walk — and that’s okay. But the pressure to accelerate is growing - which means building an idea of what run could look like for your organisation is also important.

🛠️ Building an AI-Ready Culture at Cint

What does it take to embed AI across a global team?

Cint’s approach offers a practical blueprint:

AI Basics Campaign – Internal learning hub with articles, podcasts and training
CEO advocacy – Dedicated AI spotlight in all-hands meetings
Approved AI tools – Gemini named as the default enterprise tool to unify adoption
Slack channels & shared prompts – Teams exchange tips, prompts and hacks to build capability
Light metrics tracking – Cint monitors AI usage across seniority levels to identify engagement gaps

💬 “We want people to experiment — safely and confidently. That starts with awareness and support.”

🧼 AI Hygiene: Guardrails Without Killing Creativity

A key theme from the session was AI governance — how to stay compliant without shutting down innovation.

Best practices included:

Set clear boundaries – e.g., “Don’t share customer data” or “Use Gemini for all AI testing”
Empower content owners – At Cint, HR own the content uploaded into Harriet and validate it regularly
Start small – One team, one tool, one use case before scaling company-wide
Balance freedom with structure – Loose frameworks beat rigid rules when it comes to building a culture of curiosity. Don’t let great be the enemy of good.

💡 “AI is only as good as the data and workflows you give it. Clean inputs = useful outcomes.”

👥 AI ≠ Job Loss. It’s Job Evolution.

The worry about AI replacing jobs is real — but both speakers reframed it as an opportunity:

At Cint, support ticket volume dropped dramatically with Harriet — freeing up time for strategic work
In lean teams like Harriet’s, AI powers everything from outreach to engineering
New skills are unlocked – Instead of chasing admin, teams are focusing on documentation, collaboration, and innovation

💬 “You still use your brain. But now you have the time to use it for high-impact work.”

🧰 Tools We Rate (Beyond Harriet)

A few AI tools recommended by the panel:

Granola – Real-time meeting notes without storing sensitive data
Metaview – AI-powered interview notes (used by many HR teams)
Cursor – Boosts developer productivity
ChatGPT & Gemini – For general prompting and workflow help
Slack threads + shared docs – For sharing “what’s working” across teams

If you are looking for more tools or solutions to specific problems check out stakkd.tech: they literally list all the HR products on the market by category.🔁 “Copying great prompts into a shared doc can turn early adopters into team champions.”

🔮 Where AI Is Headed

Asked what the future holds, Cecily and Barbora offered this:

Agentic systems – AI tools will not just inform, but act (e.g., book your travel, update your CRM)
Lean, AI-native companies – The companies that are going to win over the next decade will be lean, agile and leverage technologyThey will be able to move as fast as big companies with a fraction of the headcount because technology (AI) fills the gaps
Transformation pressure – Leaders will be expected to be more than “AI curious”: they will need a POV on tools and a clear strategy to describe how AI will help them scale without lots of capital.

✅ Final Takeaways for People Leaders

You are not behind – If you’re reading this, you’re ahead of the curve. Most people at the moment are self taught.
Start now – Pick a tool, try a use case, and get your team exploring. Learn through play.
Invest in education – Not just for tech teams, company-wide
Define your AI stack – Tool proliferation is always a danger. Set out what you use and how. Don’t let chaos creep in

Treat this as transformation – And that’s your wheelhouse. Make sure you have upskilled yourself on what is out there so you can make informed decisions about the right products or solutions for your team. Do not get pulled along behind an initiative that doesn’t necessarily work for your use case.

🙌 Thanks to Our Speakers

Huge thanks to Cecily Motley (Harriet) and Barbora Brasiunaite (Cint) for their insights, honesty and energy.