AI adoption isn't really a tech challenge - it's a behavioural change challenge. Rebecca Trigg borrows the Spice Girls (of course) to explain the different responses to AI adoption in organisations, and takes a playful look at why understanding people is the key to achieving lasting change.
Understanding the human responses to AI adoption in your organisation (with help from the Spice Girls)
I’ll be honest with you: my feelings about AI change almost daily. Some days I love it. Some days it worries me. And some days I look at how people are using it and think we might be quietly deskilling a whole generation without even noticing. I work in a creative industry - we make films, campaigns, learning experiences, even songs, all designed to change behaviour. So the question of what AI does to human creativity feels pretty personal. I suspect I’m not alone in this. Most people I speak to aren’t firmly in the “AI is brilliant” or “AI is terrifying” camp. They’re somewhere in between, and that somewhere shifts depending on what they read, what they tried that week, and frankly, what kind of day they’re having. That spectrum is real, it matters, and - with apologies to no one - I’ve been making sense of it through the Spice Girls.
Yes, I know. But stay with me.
1. Scary – “We are doomed”
I’ve been Scary Spice. Not just about potential massive job losses (well, not only about that), but about something subtler - the worry that outsourcing thinking to AI might quietly hollow out the creative muscles that took years to build. That the friction I used to curse when staring at a blank page was actually doing something useful. Fear like this doesn’t make people awkward obstructors; it makes them human. And if organisations treat it as a communication problem to be managed rather than a real concern to be heard, they’ll lose people before they’ve even started.
2. Posh – The corporate hero
Then there’s the version that lives for strategy decks and keynote speeches. AI as the great accelerator. The competitive edge. The efficiency multiplier. There’s nothing wrong with that story - it’s often true - but it can float quite some distance above the actual experience of the people being asked to change how they work. Optimism from the top is essential. But if it’s the only story being told, people feel like props in someone else’s transformation narrative.
3. Baby – Blissfully unaware
A significant chunk of people aren’t scared of AI. They’re just… not sure what the fuss is about. It hasn’t landed in their day-to-day yet, so they watch from the sidelines without really engaging. This isn’t cynicism - it’s disconnection. And the risk is that “I’ll get to it eventually” quietly becomes never, while the world moves on around them. The opportunity here is to link the right tools to the right tasks for the right people – build their skills and awareness to see ‘what’s in it for me’ right now.
4. Ginger – Using AI…. gingerly
Honestly, this is where I spend most of my time. Curious enough to try things, anxious enough to second-guess them. I use AI to plan trips, handle admin, process the kind of reading that used to take up hours of mental energy. And I love it for that. But I’m more careful about where I let it into creative work, because I’ve noticed that a plausible first draft has a way of killing my appetite for the better thing I might have written if I’d started from nothing. Instant noodles, basically. Fine. But not nourishing. The Gingers in your organisation are your biggest opportunity - they just need to feel safe enough to experiment.
5. Sporty – Using AI like a pro
Every organisation has them: the person who has already built three custom AI workflows before the official guidance came out. They’re genuinely exciting to be around. The risk is that their energy stays in a bubble - impressive demos that don’t translate into shared practice. Great organisations find ways to channel this rather than just admire it.
Say you’ll be there – for your employees
Here’s what I keep coming back to: AI adoption isn’t really an AI challenge. It’s a behaviour change challenge.
At Acteon, we help individuals and organisations work out which actions, choices, and habits will have the biggest impact against a real objective. When it comes to AI, that means thinking clearly about motivation (do people actually want to change?), capability (do they have the skills and confidence?), and opportunity (does the environment support new behaviours?).
The organisations that get this right aren’t the ones with the biggest AI budgets. They’re the ones that treat adoption as a human challenge. Because the technology is rarely the bottleneck - people are. And organisations that take that seriously - that invest in understanding where their people actually are, not where the strategy deck assumes they are - are the ones that turn pilots into lasting change.
We’ve built a diagnostic activity that helps organisations see where their people sit on the Spice Girls scale - yes, I am committing to the metaphor - and put practical plans in place to make sure everyone has the support they need to move forward. Whether that means addressing fear, building confidence, or giving your Sportys a bigger stage.
If any of this resonates - if you’ve recognised yourself or your team in one of these characters - we’d love to talk. Book a ‘Smart Moves’ diagnostic call and we’ll help you work out where to start.
