When organizations talk about their AI strategy for HR, the conversation usually starts with technology. The problem is it stops there too.
“Transformation has always been about people, not the technology,” says Charlene Li, New York Times bestselling author of six books, including “The Disruption Mindset” and the upcoming “Winning with AI.” “As leaders, we need to show up and demonstrate how to use it in the right way, to show the way forward.”We spoke with Charlene ahead of her upcoming People Fundamentals webinar, “The AI-Enabled HR Leader,” about how HR leaders can strategically leverage AI, foster psychological safety for innovation, and cultivate curiosity to reshape the future of work.
Stop chasing ‘use cases’
Charlene emphasizes that merely collecting AI use cases without clear alignment to business objectives isn’t a strategy—it’s a roadmap for confusion.
“The biggest mistake people make is thinking, ‘I have all these use cases for AI—I have my strategy,’” said Charlene. “It’s not a strategy. A strategy is a set of integrated choices that you put in place, that you make in order to achieve an objective, or a number of objectives.”
Instead, Charlene encourages HR leaders to start asking critical questions about the real business strategy: “Where’s the future that you’re trying to build? What’s our strategy to get there? And what is your personal responsibility in making that strategy a success? Every single employee should be able to answer that.”
When you frame the questions this way, AI isn’t a separate agenda item; it becomes a powerful tool for achieving the priorities you’ve already set. “Think about your top three priorities, whatever they are, and ask your team: ‘How can AI help us accomplish these things?’ And you just start thinking about it from a very different perspective.”
Create a safe space for AI innovation
Even the best AI strategy will stall if employees don’t feel safe to experiment and innovate. Charlene stresses that HR leaders must actively nurture psychological safety to fully realize AI’s potential.
“Confidence isn’t the fact that you think you’re going to be successful. Confidence is knowing that no matter what the outcome is going to be, you’re going to be okay,” Charlene says. “HR’s responsibility is ensuring that safe environment for experimentation.”
She suggests hands-on experiences as the best remedy for that fear. The people who are most afraid of AI are usually the people who use it least, she says. “My first reaction to them is like, ‘I get it. There are a lot of things around AI that are scary. Let’s sit down and use it together.’”
When your team experiences AI firsthand, within clearly defined boundaries, they begin to see its value, building trust through direct interaction rather than theory alone.
Dare your team to think bigger
Charlene believes that AI’s greatest potential is unlocked through critical thinking, curiosity, and imagination, which are essential skills for navigating disruptive innovation of any kind.
She recommends an exercise called “walking the plank”: Start with an idea and ask yourself ‘Well, if you could do that, what else could you do? And if that was true, then what else could you do? And you keep going until it gets to the point where, well, this is a little bit too insane, and you take one step back from that. And you set that as your objective.”
Charlene offers a compelling example of this mindset at work in a call center. Rather than using AI simply to cut costs, the company leveraged AI-driven training to dramatically elevate their teams’ performance. “The whole entire call center just increased their quality and productivity,” Charlene says. “Their error rates were reduced by 85%. Tremendous difference.”
But they didn’t stop there. Employees began innovating on the front lines, transforming their services and creating entirely new business opportunities — something only achievable through fostering a culture that embraced curiosity and imaginative thinking.
Your team can achieve the same benefits. Invite them to imagine without boundaries, experiment without fear, and align deeply with purpose. You’ll watch your AI strategy evolve from mere technology into meaningful transformation.
To hear more from Charlene on how to embed AI into your HR strategy in a way that drives real transformation, register for the June 11, 2025 webinar.
Don’t miss this session with Charlene!
