Ep 279 – Driving AI Adoption Without Overwhelming Your Team | Jani Sanguino, VIVA

1. AI adoption is a leadership problem, not a tech problem

When VIVA started their AI journey, they didn’t lead with tools or mandates. They started with manager ownership.

"Your CEO can say AI is a priority, but if they're not making it their priority, then who's going to follow?"

VIVA made AI a manager-led effort. Each function leader was responsible for driving adoption in their own org. That created accountability, relevance, and focus.

2. The AI learning path was treated like a product launch

VIVA built a 13-week learning journey with one clear challenge per week, built around three skills: prompting, automation, and business acumen.

Each team blocked weekly time to co-work on challenges together. They even built a custom GPT (nicknamed "ABBA") to help teams prioritize high-ROI use cases.

"You had one challenge to complete a week. And you had peers around you doing the same thing. If you got stuck, you had another human to help you get unstuck."

3. Start with easy wins to build momentum

The first goal was 100% completion of one small workflow (using Zapier). This built confidence, created quick wins, and made AI feel accessible.

From there, teams tackled more complex use cases. But they kept a simple rule: prioritize use cases that saved time, reduced friction, or improved clarity.

4. Build AI systems that scale, not break

Early on, some automation builds broke repeatedly because backend processes weren’t stable.

"We were so proud of our builds. But every time our database changed, the automation broke. We had to rebuild them over and over."

Lesson learned: automation only works when the underlying systems are mature. VIVA now focuses on clean, stable processes before investing in automation.

5. Let your people become the AI experts your customers need

As their EAs upskilled, some started helping client orgs apply the same AI models internally.

"They started small — 'I'm not an expert, but want to try A and B?' — and suddenly they were the AI experts for the org."

VIVA didn’t plan this. But their culture of proactiveness and experimentation made it possible.

6. Keep evolving your learning path (but pick the right time to do it)

VIVA structured their AI learning journey in levels: Explorer → Builder → Multiplier. Everyone goes through onboarding to become a Builder. Only some roles require the Multiplier path.

They also learned the hard way not to launch big initiatives in Q4.

"We made it excessively hard by choosing that quarter. Next time, we’d run this in Q2 or Q3."

Their next move: run live demos for customers and community members to show how simple AI adoption can be in practice.

"Communicating is how we build bridges between each other. Use your voice — for your team, your org, and yourself."

‍

‍