How we increased AI Adoption in our company to 90%
28 May, 2025
6 months ago, in December 2024 we took on a target - “Make everyone AI native at Grey Chain AI”. This is a story about how we reached 90% AI Adoption across the organization in ~6 months!
In April 2025, CEO of Fiverr, Micha Kaufman & CEO of Shopify, Tobi Lütke very clearly said in their internal memos that “AI is now the fundamental expectation of everyone at the company”. This did create a lot of industry wide chatter but what they said had a lot of practical implications. We had been trying to do this at Grey Chain which is just 80 people for a while now and realized the challenges in making this happen.
Cultural change especially related to new technology adoption is always a challenge irrespective of the company size.
Challenges We Faced
Prisoner’s Dilemma
Developers were showing resistance in trying out the tools on a day to day basis assuming that they would be replaced by these tools. They were considering them not as peers but as competition.
Lack of quality & accuracy
Between 2024 and 2025, there has been a huge jump in the quality & accuracy of output of AI tools, for e.g. Github Co-pilot was not a great peer programmer and even now it's not the best, but advanced versions of Cursor really changed the game.
Cold Start Problem
One of the key friction points for anyone using AI is where to start i.e. where to use AI to get started. If you are in advanced stages of a development project then developers need to figure out how to use it with the current codebase, if they are starting a new project they need to ensure that these tools are creating the right template else it can have an architectural impact later.
Too many tools
For every use case there are now at least 5 tools, some are good at one thing and some are good at the other. It's not easy to get licensing for everything and also it requires a lot of time and effort to try everything even if first use is free.
Late Adopters
Not everyone in your company is an early adopter of new technology, some people have to be pushed hard to get started. Late adopters want to be told how to go about it, they want training, they want hand holding and it’s takes a huge amount of investment to get that done.
Lack of incentives
There is no core incentive to switch to using AI for employees, they only see that you would expect more work from them because of AI.
Despite these challenges, it was feasible to turn around the company culture at Grey Chain to adopt AI for everything.
How We Drove Adoption
Change comes from the top
A big change in culture can only come if the leaders believe in the change and communicate the hell out of it. We chose our quarterly townhalls to be very clear on the use of AI - we showed them examples of how we are using it as founders and how they can start using it too at all levels.
Increase Output, not just productivity
One of the things we have noticed is that employees use AI tools but only to save their time. We were clear in our goals, each employee has to show increased output and we built methods to incentivize around it.
Clear Recognition
Early adopters are the ones that really kickstart the cultural change, it is imperative that you reward them for using these tools. Reward comes in many forms for e.g. get them to showcase their outcomes in company events / meetings, post about their achievements on social media channels of the company, ask them to write a small article about it and publish it on your blog and yes sometimes monetary rewards like Amazon vouchers also help.
Find the first follower
In a very famous TED Talk - Derek Sivers talked about how the first follower is the real innovator and leader. You really need to find those people who are keen, who ask you about AI - give them the tools, give them access, give them licenses, give them the creative freedom and see them change the company culture. We saw that we found the First follower in each domain in our company like Development, Design, etc. and promoted them like anything in the organization - we became their cheerleaders!
Sponsorship
Believe me, some people are using AI tools without your knowledge. Start by creating a sponsorship program where they can apply to get their licenses sponsored. A simple Google form is good enough, they need to submit a quick proof of concept or idea they implemented using the free tools and then ask for the relevant license sponsorship. Some folks in our company also have 3-4 licenses sponsored as they are able to really show the value.
Ideathons / Hackathons
Cliched but they still work! Hosting ideathons or hackathons where they will POCs in a few hours (now very much possible using AI) is the fastest way to identify people who have the creative acumen to adopt these tools in their workflow.
Consistent Example Sharing
Culture Change is not a one time activity, you need to keep sharing and communicating examples with everyone across the firm to ensure people are seeing that others are doing it. It's like using social proof and creating FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) amongst others. Herd mentality works if you want adoption to grow from the early adopters to everyone in the organization.
Updated Goals & Appraisals
You need to be clear that someone who is using AI will be given extra consideration in year end appraisals as compared to someone who is not. People care about their growth and appraisals, it does help to gain that extra 10% in the appraisal cycle!
The Result
Thanks to these efforts, 90% of our workforce at Grey Chain is now AI native.
It’s taken six months, but it’s completely transformed how we work. AI is now part of our culture—the new norm for anyone joining the team.
If you're struggling with adoption, feel free to reach out—we’re happy to share notes.
Final Tip for Large Enterprises
Start small. Roll this out in teams of 50 before scaling company-wide.
Do not attempt a firm-wide rollout in one go—it’s a long, hard, and often inefficient journey if done that way.