AI has gone from existential threat to economic darling in record time. At this week’s AI Summit in Paris, the message from global leaders was clear: the era of fear is over—welcome to the era of FOMO. JD Vance declared that the U.S. is “all in” on AI, while Emmanuel Macron used a deepfake of himself to promote the event. The pivot from regulation to hype is official. But here’s the problem: the spin doesn’t match the reality.
Just last week, Workday laid off employees to “invest in AI.” So when Vance says AI won’t replace humans, it’s not just wishful—it’s false. What’s really happening is a cultural reckoning. We’ve seen it firsthand: clients who once wanted decision-making empowerment are now asking us how to get employees to adopt AI. But tech adoption isn’t a software rollout. It’s an organizational transformation. And without clarity, alignment, and accountability, it fails.
That’s what Culture Partners does—we make transformation stick. AI won’t drive results unless your people do. And if employees don’t trust it, they won’t use it. The leaders who win in this moment will treat AI not just as a tool, but as a catalyst for building trust, communication, and cultural adaptability.
We saw the opposite play out at Sony this week. A 24-hour PlayStation Network outage was made worse by poor communication. A vague tweet, no real acknowledgment of the problem, and radio silence from leadership. The lesson? Silence breaks trust faster than the outage itself. Crisis doesn’t require perfection—it requires accountability.
And on Culture Leaders, Jim McCann of 1-800-FLOWERS reminded us that leadership doesn’t stop when you hit your goals—it starts there. The same is true with AI. If you’re “successful” now but not building a culture ready for what’s coming, that success is fragile.
So ask yourself: Are you spinning stories, or building systems? Are you rolling out tech, or leading through transformation? Because AI isn’t waiting for you to catch up—and your people aren’t either.
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