A recent IMD business school article highlights the importance of psychological safety in organizational AI transformation, based on related experiences, from Kameshwari Rao, Global Chief People Officer at international digital consulting firm Publicis Sapient. This also provides useful notes for leaders who are thinking about or working through AI related transformations.

These are selected notes from the article.

* Organizations need a psychologically safe environment for their employees to innovate and experiment.
* Unless employees feel psychologically safe, it is unrealistic to expect them to engage with, let alone embrace, the technology. Inevitably, user hesitation will impede organizational efforts to explore AI.
* Important to remember that “People’s identities are at stake”.
* Human intelligence has been evolving for hundreds of thousands of years, developing characteristics such as empathy, resilience, and judgment to adapt to a changing environment. The role of leaders is to remind people that they possess those irreplaceable human qualities.
* Requires businesses to commit to increased communication and support that considers each employee’s personal reaction to the technology and allows them to adapt at their own pace.

* Publicis Sapient focused on three simultaneous strands of AI change:
1. the shift to a mindset of curiosity rather than anxiety about AI,
2. building confidence, and
3. integrating AI tools into everyday jobs.

* “We wanted to begin the conversation by getting everybody to have a bit of fun with AI. It was about building familiarity.”
* The town hall was followed with a dedicated campaign, AI Habits, where the goal was to pique curiosity, with initiatives based on psychological research into habit formation.
* At the same time, Publicis Sapient prioritized experimentation, getting people to think about the skills and training they might need to make the most of AI. One useful approach here was gamification. 
* Note that companies should not see these three AI initiatives as one-and-done exercises: “At any given point, you will have people at different stages in all three areas – everyone’s change cycle is different.”
* Leaders have framed AI as an ongoing learning journey.
* Listening, sharing – a range of listening tools that Publicis Sapient uses to understand whether employees are feeling confident in the workplace. Leaders, starting with the CEO, also serve as role models, share their own anxieties.
* No single initiative will create psychological safety around AI. Rather, it will take a spread of different, ongoing measures. 

Source: Publicis Sapient on AI: A three-step guide to psychological safety; IMD; June 8, 2026