Smartsheet takes a people approach with AI adoption

While many organizations view AI adoption as simply rolling out new tools and technologies, the vendor opted to focus on the human side of the technology rather than on the technology itself.

“Smartsheet decided we needed somebody to put their hands around all this work that’s happening with AI and drive adoption appropriately,” said Markus McKay-Fleisch, describing his job, which involves promoting AI adoption inside the company. “We quickly realized this wasn’t just about the use of the tool; it was about how that tool is impacting your daily work, and then more broadly how it’s impacting the company goals.”

Early adoption of generative AI technology at Smartsheet involved simple usage tracking, McKay-Fleisch, professional services enablement director at Smartsheet, said on the Targeting AI podcast from TechTarget. Later, it changed into what employees are getting out of the tools.

However, one caveat to adoption is shadow AI, he said, adding that shadow AI -- the unauthorized use of AI -- is a signal that employees want tools not available within the organization.

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“There's a lot of risk incorporated with it, but pay attention to it because people are asking for tooling inside of those shadow AI use cases,” McKay-Fleisch said.

He added, though, that another aspect of adoption involves relying on the IT department.

“They hold the keys in our organization,” he said. “For Smartsheet, if we want to enable tooling, we have a change management process to turn on different features.”

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