About the Panel Discussion

Many organizations are treating AI as a technology rollout when the harder challenge is cultural. As AI changes how work is done, who makes decisions, what good performance looks like, and how managers lead, it also reshapes trust, effort, accountability, learning, and the unwritten rules of work. Recent research shows that a small group of organizations is pulling ahead on AI value not simply because they deploy more tools, but because they pair automation with stronger foundations around trust, governance, and workforce readiness. At the same time, broader workforce studies show many organizations are still underinvesting in the human side of adoption, leaving employees to navigate new norms without enough clarity, support, or skill-building.

This session explores how leaders can prevent AI from quietly accumulating cultural debt across the organization. The discussion will focus on how to build AI fluency into hiring, onboarding, manager expectations, workflow redesign, and performance standards so adoption does not become shallow, inconsistent, or hidden. It will also examine how organizations can reduce “shadow AI,” strengthen psychological safety, and create a culture where experimentation, accountability, and trust rise together rather than compete with one another.

Discussion points

How to Spot AI’s Cultural Debt Early: Identify where AI is beginning to distort trust, fairness, effort, ownership, and collaboration before those tensions become embedded in everyday work.
How to Build AI Fluency Into the Employee Lifecycle: Move beyond optional training and embed AI capability into hiring, onboarding, learning, performance expectations, and career growth so people can use the technology with more confidence and impact.
How to Make Managers the Culture Carriers of AI Adoption: Equip managers to create psychological safety, model better habits, redesign workflows, and help teams adopt AI in ways that strengthen engagement instead of undermining it.
How to Reduce Shadow AI and Raise Trust at Scale: Put in place practical guardrails, clearer norms, and better tools so employees are not pushed toward unofficial usage patterns that weaken trust and fragment adoption.
How to Turn Culture Into an AI Advantage: Shift from seeing culture as a soft concern to treating it as a lever of speed, innovation, adoption, and sustained AI performance across the business.

Speakers

Kenneth White, Senior Director of People Insights & Strategy at The National Basketball Association (NBA)
Andrew Weaver, Senior Director - Workforce Intelligence & AI Transformation at VF Corporation
Lauren Rebagliati, Director of People Analytics at McKinsey & Company
Ian Cook, Vice President Product Management at Visier
[Moderator] Sasha Arjannikova, Director of Analytics Business Partnering at Adobe
[Event Chair] Chris Rainey, CEO & Co-Founder at HR Leaders

This panel is part of the 2026 Global Workforce Transformation Summit built to help HR Leaders lead with clarity, confidence, and control so you can turn AI opportunity and complexity into a competitive advantage.

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