The AI Trust Gap Inside Your Organisation Is a Strategy Problem
- Samuel
- Aug 13, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: Jul 28
Walk into most companies right now and you’ll hear the same story:
"Leadership is bullish on AI", "The board sees the upside, but we can't complete the ideas they have", “The leaders are scaling our AI. But our teams are sidestepping it.”
These people in the teams, those people that are doing the work, and the people who need the confidence in their jobs and in their AI tools are either skeptical, confused, or quietly opting out.
This isn’t a tech issue — it’s a trust issue.
Executive enthusiasm for AI isn’t translating to frontline confidence, and that disconnect is becoming a strategic liability.
Axois has done hours of research on problems just like this. Just last month they published a survey that proved "43% of executives report using AI daily, only 11% of junior staff say the same.”
That gap isn’t about access. It’s about belief — in the value, the safety, and the usefulness of these tools. For many employees, AI still feels like a threat or a gimmick.
Without trust, there’s no adoption. And without adoption, even the most powerful systems won’t move the needle. We have seen this time and again. The priority is to have teams and individuals that can properly turn around and adopt and trust in the new AI that you've bought and that you're trying for. Book a call and we can get you to this stage — even if you're only a your first bot
This is where strategy matters. Pushing tools top-down doesn’t build confidence — it builds resistance. What works is transparency. People don’t need AI evangelism; they need to see how and why decisions are being made. That means explaining what the AI does, what it doesn’t, and how it supports the work — not replaces it. It also means building fluency into roles, not generic training. A product manager doesn’t need the same AI understanding as a copywriter or support analyst. And above all, it means giving people space to explore. Safe experimentation beats forced adoption every time.
The AI trust gap isn’t just an HR issue — it’s a business risk. Closing it requires a strategy that treats people like partners, not obstacles. The organisations that figure this out will build more than capability — they’ll build alignment.
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