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Are your team members resisting AI adoption? Here’s what to do

Written by Dave Waller Tuesday 23 June 2026

It’s natural to fear change, especially when it’s coming as thick and fast as AI adoption. Here’s how to get naysayers to embrace new tools

As organisations accelerate digital transformation, leaders face a non-technical challenge: managing resistance within their teams towards AI adoption. While senior leadership views the technology as an essential growth lever, employees often fear job losses, environmental impacts or a creeping surveillance culture.

Resistance creates a damaging divide: sceptics may become vocal or quietly ignore new tools, reverting to manual processes, slowing productivity and innovation just as competitors are boosting theirs.

We asked three Chartered members of CMI for their tips on overcoming resistance.

1. Understand where your team sits

Resistance comes in many shapes and sizes, from visceral opposition to stewing apathy. The first step is to get to know the level of AI understanding and acceptance within your team – and what’s troubling them.

Hannah Quasir CMgr MCMI, who studied AI as part of her degree in computer science and has since worked as a consultant with the likes of the NHS, recalls working with someone who felt AI agents were sentient, with thoughts and feelings.

“I had to explain to that person that, if they speak to it in a certain way, ask it for specific things from particular sources, they’ll get a completely different answer.”

Artificial Intelligence; Real Leadership

Our new report reveals that a striking 70% of managers seek advice from generative AI, rather than going to their managers for guidance. It reveals that the biggest barriers to successful AI adoption are not technical, but human, with a significant capability gap preventing many organisations from translating ambition into measurable business impact.

Find out more

People also have different ways of learning. The better you know them, the easier it will be to get the message of AI adoption across.

2. Stay clued in yourself

If you’re able to demonstrate the latest tools, show how they can benefit people’s work and reinforce the need for human ingenuity and critical thinking, the message is likely to land much better. Keep an eye on the limitations of the tools, as well as the potential benefits, so you’re not biased either way.

“AI can draft, summarise, analyse and suggest, but it does not carry the consequences of a poor decision,” says Nasser Zaman Chowdhury CMgr MCMI, a CEO working across e-learning and education services. “Accountability still sits with managers and leaders. That means managers must define where AI can help, where expert review is required and who owns the final output.”

3. Don’t punish AI errors

When people use AI in an unsanctioned way, a practice known as shadow AI, it can cause problems for the organisation. But be careful not to admonish them for doing so. Choosing to punish or make an example of people may simply make them resistant to the proper use of tools in future, creating a potentially deeper problem.

Keep reading – more ways to overcome AI resistance

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