For CHROs and Chief People Officers

What CHROs can do when AI training hasn't changed the work

Training raises usage. It rarely raises the return, because the return depends on skill applied inside each person's own job and on people trusting the tools enough to go past the obvious. Both sit with the people leader. Build skill on real work in protected time, and treat pushback as information about the program.

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The question, in the CHRO's words

“We've run the training and a champions program. People are polite about AI, some are anxious, and the work looks the same. What am I missing?”

What completion rates can't show you

A completion rate tells you who attended. It says nothing about whether anyone works differently. In BCG's 2026 survey, 72% of workers said the skills expected of them have shifted, while only 36% felt they had received adequate upskilling (BCG, June 2026).

How the training happens matters as much as whether it happens. BCG's 2025 survey found that people who receive five or more hours of training, especially in person and with coaching, are significantly more likely to become regular users (BCG, June 2025). An hour spent on a real piece of someone's work, with a colleague who already does it well, tends to stay with them longer than a tool demo.

Anxiety is information

Most of the hesitation you are seeing has a reason behind it. About half of U.S. workers (52%) told Pew they are worried about the future impact of AI in the workplace (Pew Research Center, survey fielded October 2024). In BCG's 2025 survey, 41% worried their roles could disappear within the next decade (BCG, June 2025).

When an experienced person holds back from a tool, they are usually protecting something real: their expertise or the quality of the work. Listen to what the pushback is pointing at before deciding it is a problem to overcome.

The Skill condition belongs to you

The AI Profitability Gap™ is the distance between what a company expected AI to deliver and what it is delivering. It comes down to three conditions that standard reporting misses: Direction, Skill and Reinvestment. Skill is the people condition. Your teams already have the tools. What they need is training in their own jobs and permission to use the tools for more than the first obvious thing. At Average Robot we call that the Empowered People work.

You cannot close Skill alone. People need Direction from the CEO on what AI is for, and they need the COO or function head to decide what saved time is now for. People leaders often see the problem first, which makes you the natural person to bring those seats together.

What to do first

1. Replace one generic AI course with a session on a real piece of work, led by the person on the team who does it best.
2. Ask managers what their teams have stopped doing since AI arrived. If the answer is nothing, the saved time is being absorbed.
3. Take the free AI Profit Readiness Assessment and share the read with your CEO. It is eight questions and about two minutes.
4. If you want the team in the room, the AI Profit Workshop is a founder-led half-day for up to six people, $2,999, credited in full toward the AI Profit Sprint if you start one within six months.

Questions people leaders ask

Why hasn't AI training changed how people work?

Most AI training teaches the tool. The job asks for judgment about when and how to use it on real work, and for time to practice. Without both, people finish the course and go back to the way they worked before.

How do I reduce employee anxiety about AI?

Say plainly what AI is meant to improve in each team and what happens to people's roles as it does. Then let people see colleagues using it well in work they recognize. Vague reassurance leaves people to fill in the rest themselves.

Should we tie AI use to performance reviews?

It will raise logins. It is unlikely to raise the return, because a usage target measures whether someone opened the tool, and people learn to meet the target.

What is the CHRO's role in AI return?

The CHRO owns the Skill condition and much of the trust that decides whether people use the tools past the basics. The CEO owns Direction, and the leaders who own the work own Reinvestment.

Next step

A two-minute read on where your team's AI use stands, which condition is costing you most, and the first move to make.