Most organisations have asked people to learn AI on their own. The result is uneven. Some people build real fluency. Others pick up habits that look productive but break easily.
Building fluency across a team does not need a large budget. It needs a different kind of leadership attention.
Two common traps
The one-off training event. A workshop or a set of online modules builds familiarity. Fluency needs practice on real work, feedback and room to fail safely.
Usage targets. Setting quotas for AI use produces compliance data and resentment. People use the tools in ways that satisfy the measure, and real skill stalls.
What the 2026 evidence shows
Gallup's 2026 report found manager support is a major driver. In US data, 79% used AI frequently when their manager actively supported it. Otherwise the figure was 46%.
Anthropic's March 2026 Economic Index found experience matters. Experienced users attempted higher-value tasks and succeeded more often. Fluency grows through use.
Microsoft's 2026 Work Trend Index found only 13% of AI users are rewarded for reinventing their work. Most organisations ask for new skills without making room to practise them.
Build this capability in your organisation
Growth Performance designs bespoke programmes that turn insight into measurable behaviour change.
Three practices that build fluency
Protect time to experiment. Set aside time to explore what tools can and cannot do, away from deadlines. In a packed week, this time only appears if a leader creates it.
Learn from each other. Pair a confident user with a sceptical expert on a real task. The confident user shows the workflow. The expert spots what the AI gets wrong.
Run a short weekly review. Spend fifteen minutes on three questions. What worked with AI this week? What did not? What should we try next?
Use the tools yourself
Many leaders approve AI work they have never done themselves. An hour a week using the same tools as your team sharpens your questions quickly.
Heifetz and colleagues describe a "holding environment", where people can learn without having to be expert straight away. Leaders who need that space themselves understand how to create it.
Build human skills alongside AI skills
PwC's 2026 Global AI Jobs Barometer found demand rising for judgement, creativity and leadership in AI-exposed roles. AI fluency alone has a limited shelf life.
Develop both together. Spreading what one person learns to the whole team within weeks keeps you ready for the next change. That is Acceleration.
Try this
Pick one recurring task. Ask two colleagues with different confidence levels to do it together with AI, then share what they learned.
Plan it as a two-week trial with the Experiment Planner, with a clear measure and a decision date.