The Next AI Breakthrough is Human

ByCarrie Snyder Updated on
GAIL

“This profit calculation used to take me 9 hours to complete, compiling and massaging data from disparate store locations. With Paleotech’s Generative AI reporting system, it now takes 3 minutes.”

– A satisfied Paleotech AI customer

This kind of productivity transformation is becoming increasingly common as generative AI tools meet company-specific data. Yet for every story of satisfaction like our customer’s, there’s someone else quietly wondering, “Does this mean my job is next?” A recent Microsoft × LinkedIn Work Trend Index found 75% of workers fear AI could replace them, with 65% experiencing anxiety about its rise in the workplace.

At Paleotech, we’ve discovered that sustainable AI success isn’t driven by technology alone—it emerges from people who genuinely trust and understand that technology. The next AI breakthrough is human, and this insight led us to develop Generative AI Literacy (GAIL): a comprehensive program designed to transform both AI enthusiasts and skeptics into confident digital collaborators.

The Human Challenge of AI Adoption

“Using AI does save me a lot of time, but sometimes I get impatient with the planning required to get good responses to my more complex tasks, and I just default back to doing the work myself.”

AI adoption

This common experience reveals what researchers call the “knowing-doing gap”—the space between recognizing that AI could save hours of work and actually changing one’s workflow to realize those savings.

In a December 2024 study, while 73% of executives believed their AI rollout was “well-controlled,” only 47% of employees shared that confidence. This disconnect illustrates a critical truth: leaders see strategic opportunity while frontline teams navigate day-to-day uncertainty.

Meanwhile, AI technology has accelerated dramatically. Advanced models like GPT-4 can pass the bar exam, and Gemini 1.5 can process 2000-page documents in a single pass. These systems don’t just autocomplete—they plan and iterate. The stakes for closing the human readiness gap for AI have never been higher.

GAIL addresses this challenge through three fundamental principles:

  • Real-work integration – Employees bring real tasks from their workday and leave with practical, job-relevant prompts they can immediately apply.
  • Guided experimentation – Mentors help employees navigate the early learning curve, building confidence through structured quick wins rather than random exploration.
  • Cognitive reframing – Targeted exercises help teams reconceptualize AI as a collaborator rather than a competitor, transforming how they approach planning, drafting, and decision-making.

With this approach, employees quickly experience how previously hours-long workflows can compress to minutes—tangible evidence that dissolves resistance more effectively than any presentation ever could.

Creating an AI-Fluent Organization

AI Workforce

Imagine every employee—regardless of role or technical background—approaching AI with the same confidence they bring to other workplace tools. GAIL makes this vision achievable through workshops, on-the-job practice, and continuous learning that converts scattered experimental projects into organization-wide AI capabilities that compound over time.

Paleotech’s GAIL framework unfolds across six interconnected phases:

  • Phase 1: AI Introduction & Leadership Alignment – Executives and employees develop a shared vision with clear boundaries and expectations
  • Phase 2: Foundational AI Training – Department-specific labs build baseline skills while identifying potential AI champions
  • Phase 3: Advanced AI Training & AI Council Creation – Power-users develop deeper expertise while a cross-functional AI Council establishes governance and strategic direction
  • Phase 4: AI Discovery & Innovation – Structured ideation identifies high-ROI use cases while continuously gathering employee feedback
  • Phase 5: Early-Adopter Pilots & Organizational Rollout – Prototypes demonstrate value before scaling across the organization
  • Phase 6: Ongoing Monitoring & Continuous Support – Dashboards track impact while refresher training and AI Council oversight sustain momentum as capabilities evolve

The Human Side of AI: Prompt Engineering

Prompt Engineering

An AI system’s value depends entirely on the quality of instructions it receives. A powerful model paired with poor prompting produces mediocre results at best. At the heart of every good prompt is a human being.  GAIL’s prompt-engineering curriculum transforms employees into effective AI collaborators by teaching them to:

  • Clarify Requests: Convert ambiguous needs into crystal-clear
  • prompts that generate targeted, actionable responses
  • Deploy Strategic Approaches: Apply specialized prompting techniques tailored to specific business challenges and objectives
  • Develop Critical Evaluation: Build the discernment needed to assess AI outputs and iterate toward optimal solutions
  • Control Conversational Flow: Learn practical methods for maintaining context and guiding AI interactions toward business goals
  • Build Reusable Frameworks: Create Prompt Libraries by transforming refined prompts into templates that standardize quality and accelerate workflows
  • Integrate AI Seamlessly: Create automated processes that incorporate AI capabilities directly into existing business systems and workflows

Each step delivers visible improvements, strengthens employees’ prompt crafting abilities, and naturally embeds governance into daily practice.

Transforming Anxiety into Advantage

AI Relief

What tangible changes can organizations expect from GAIL over a typical six month rollout? The evolution happens remarkably quickly:

Month 1 – Clarity & Confidence
After executive kickoff and all-hands discussions, employees understand fundamental AI concepts, identify personal use cases, and access secure workspaces. The prevailing mindset shifts from “Will this take my job?” to “My organization has a thoughtful plan—and I’m part of it.”

Month 2 – Practical Proficiency
Department workshops guide teams through initial prompt-engineering techniques. By day 60, AI-trained staff experience the time savings that research shows 90% of AI users report. Paleotech helps measure and share these “minutes returned to the business,” quality improvements, and confidence gains, creating peer-to-peer momentum.

Month 3 – Deepening Expertise & Shared Ownership
Power users explore advanced techniques like Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) while the AI Council launches with representation across departments. By day 90, the organization shares a common AI vocabulary, and a governed prototype pipeline prepares for larger discovery initiatives.

This represents just the first quarter of transformation with GAIL. In the subsequent 90 days, cross-functional workshops uncover fresh applications, early-adopter projects evolve into enterprise solutions, and the Council scales successful approaches through shared resource libraries. By the six-month mark, AI becomes seamlessly integrated into everyday workflows, productivity shows measurable gains, and employees who once felt uncertain become co-creators of their organization’s AI journey.

Becoming an AI-Empowered Workforce

The path to meaningful AI integration isn’t primarily technical—it’s human. Organizations that recognize this fundamental truth are positioning themselves for sustainable competitive advantage in an increasingly AI-driven business landscape.

Visit our GAIL webpage to learn more about how a human-centered approach to AI literacy can transform your organization’s relationship with these powerful tools. Join our community of forward-thinking leaders who are creating workplaces where technology and human talent amplify each other rather than compete.

To learn more about GAIL and how it can help your organization develop an AI-empowered workforce, please see the details of GAIL on this page, where you can download a detailed GAIL presentation and request a discovery call with a Paleotech specialist.

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