How to get your whole team excited about AI (and actually using it) | Brian Greenbaum (product designer at Pendo)

What It Covers

Brian Greenbaum shares his framework for driving AI adoption across Pendo's product organization through biweekly sessions, async Slack channels, and OKR-based measurement, transforming team sentiment and establishing clear usage policies.

Key Questions Answered

• •Inception strategy: Message leadership during paternity leave after building a working prototype with Cursor in hours, demonstrating concrete value and proposing cross-functional AI initiative with two goals: team productivity and thought leadership positioning.
• •Two-pronged adoption approach: Run biweekly hands-on sessions where entire team builds same app simultaneously (like to-do lists in Bolt) to experience AI variability, plus maintain public Slack channel for radical many-to-many sharing to prevent information hoarding.
• •Golden path framework: Create documented AI knowledge center listing approved tools alphabetically with security status, allowed data types, and license request process. Work with legal, IT, and security to enable rapid tool experimentation within one week approval cycles.
• •Measurement through sentiment surveys: Track five metrics quarterly including AI sentiment, policy awareness, and tool familiarity. Biggest gains came from clarifying usage policies and available tools, with positive employee impact sentiment increasing significantly after establishing clear guidelines.