Mitch Joel

Future Strategy, AI Transformation, and Modern Marketing Expert

AI may be the worst-marketed transformative technology we’ve ever seen. The main message to the mass population has essentially been: if you don’t learn how to use AI, you’ll lose your job (i.e., you’re screwed); if you do use it, it may weaken your cognition (i.e., the more it does the less you grow); and (if that wasn’t bad enough) your kids will face an even more uncertain future. And we’re surprised there’s backlash?

Underneath that fear though is something even deeper. AI is becoming capable of doing smart work; work that people have spent years (decades!) mastering, which made them valuable. Work (along with money) gives us identity and status. So, the AI transformation is becoming deeply personal — who are you if AI can do a lot of what you do?

Here’s how leaders can fix it. AI adoption isn’t just about teaching people how to use AI. That’s only half of the equation. The other half is about helping them see where their value is. Is it creativity? Relationships? Judgement?

The best technology adoption happens when people believe the future being built includes them.

Mitch Joel is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, the author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking with Mitch Joel. As a keynote speaker, he shows leaders how to move past AI hype and build real momentum — using it to sharpen strategy, spark creativity, and turn complexity into clarity.

Jay Kiew

Innovation and Change Navigation Strategist

For a lot of young employees, the backlash isn’t about fear of AI — it’s about what AI is taking from them. Junior roles used to be where you learned by doing the grunt work. Now AI does the grunt work. So the question isn’t “will entry-level jobs survive,” it’s “what replaces the reps young talent used to get for free.”

In response, leaders need to shift how they train. Leaders who get this right are redesigning the on-ramp rather than defending the old one. KPMG just put 1,000 audit interns through critical-thinking simulations, scavenger hunts, even a fraud whodunit, instead of the usual technical grind. The bet is that judgment, ambiguity, and drawing conclusions matter more now than knowing the mechanics AI already handles. Other firms are running AI-powered simulations to compress years of pattern recognition into weeks.

Your competitive edge lies where experience meets experimentation. If you’re leading people, ask yourself how you can accelerate their experience curve with AI. If you’re just starting out, accelerate your own experimentation curve. Do both — and the world is yours.

Jay Kiew is an innovation strategist and the world’s leading expert on change fluency with more than 15 years of transformation experience. He helps leaders turn AI-driven disruption into a repeatable playbook for growth.

Farah Nasser

Authentic Intelligence Expert | Trust Builder | Award-Winning Journalist

One big mistake leaders can make with AI is confusing silence with buy-in. Employees nod, then revert to old workflows. Resistance goes underground into Teams chats and hallway meetings after the real meeting.

Fear loves a vacuum. When companies fill it with AI hype and change-management metrics, they accelerate the erosion of trust.

I spent 25 years as a journalist. Millions trusted me not because I was perfect, but because I was real, even when that meant admitting what I didn’t know, correcting what I got wrong, or asking the uncomfortable question.

In the artificial age, polish isn’t what wins the room. Authenticity is.

Manufacturing certainty is an outdated management instinct. In a world where people can spot spin and scripted reassurance a mile away, they see right through it. Say what you don’t know and remind them what you do: your people are the asset. Technology is the tool.

Farah Nasser is an award-winning journalist, national news anchor, and two-time TEDx speaker who spent 25 years earning trust nightly, live and under pressure. She now helps leaders build the empathy and authenticity that AI can’t replace.

Dr. Shimi Kang

Leading Expert in Change, Leadership, Innovation, and Wellness

Why is AI backlash peaking now? Employees are losing cognitive capital and paying a heavy “health tax” suffering from constant tool overload, onboarding fatigue, bloated task lists and AI job displacement fears. To counter negative sentiment and successfully master the AI revolution, leaders should implement these concrete healthy tech strategies:

• Reduce the Health Tax: Enforce strict “AI-Quiet Hours” (after 6 PM) and disable non-urgent automated task alerts so teams aren’t perpetually tethered to machine-generated demands.
• Reclaim Cognitive Capital: Train managers to use AI to automate routine meeting summaries and report generation, giving hours back each week for high-touch client strategy and creative problem-solving.
• Foster Psychological Safety: Host monthly “Healthy Tech” sessions where staff freely discuss AI related concerns, experiment with new ideas or automation tools without performance tracking.

By embedding these concrete practices, leaders protect human bandwidth while building a resilient, AI-empowered workforce through healthy tech use.

An award-winning medical doctor and researcher, Dr. Shimi Kang draws on 25 years of clinical experience, and extensive research into the science behind optimizing human intelligence, to show audiences how to cultivate key 21^st century skills, including resilience, connection, adaptability, creativity, and more.

Anna Baird

Former Chief Customer Officer, Generative AI at Google Cloud

One fundamental shift that has changed my leadership over the last two years is the idea that participation is not consultation when it comes to human and AI partnerships

Too many leaders measure AI adoption by usage, not by the depth of that partnership. Just because your team is using AI doesn’t mean you understand where it can truly unlock opportunity for them (or is possibly slowing them down).

To understand potential negative AI sentiment in the workplace, leaders must address both the psychological and structural anxieties that this level of tech transformation can create. I recommend leaders focus on three strategic moves:

1. Re-establish Psychological Safety in the AI Era: Unseen fears cause employees to hide AI usage or resist adoption. Cultivate an environment where experimenting, revealing automated workflows, and flagging errors are rewarded rather than penalized.
2. Bridge Generational Mindsets: Balance the experimentation of first-mover employees with the governance, security, and privacy oversight of experienced team members to foster a faster-moving yet more accurate and balanced, inclusive culture.
3. Redefine Value Around Human Strengths: Shift focus from routine task automation to high-impact human capabilities like strategy, judgment, and ethics. When roles are explicitly restructured around human and AI partnerships, teams view automation as bandwidth liberation rather than job replacement.

The former Chief Customer Officer for Gen AI at Google Cloud, Anna Baird helps organizations navigate the human side of AI adoption. Her keynotes help break down silos between teams so leaders can see what’s actually working — connecting how people use AI day-to-day to whether it’s really moving their business forward.