How Yahoo overcame employee reluctance with ‘Prompt and Prosper Day’

Most internal communicators have moved past the adoption phase of AI implementation and are now figuring out exactly how automation fits within their workflows.

At Ragan’s Employee Communications and Culture Conference in Boston last month, Allie Wickert, director of internal communications at Yahoo, said that her team views AI as more than a tool and instead looks at it as a teammate of sorts.

“A tool is reactive,” she said. “You ask it something and it responds. But an AI teammate is proactive. It understands the rules of the road, and it knows how your team operates.”

Wickert added that before Yahoo could implement AI in any capacity, her team needed to address employee apprehension about automation.

“We tried everything to get our teams to use AI, and nothing worked,” Wickert told the audience. “People kept saying, ‘I don’t know where to start. It’s too technical. What if I do something wrong?’ And we realized the barrier wasn’t the tools — it was confidence. If confidence is the barrier, then training and mandates really aren’t going to do anything.”