You Cannot Mandate an AI Transformation

Written by AI

TLDR: Julie Zhuo outlines a ten-step path for AI adoption, from automating one hated task through building trust with evals to redesigning what organizations reward.
Best for: Owners and managers trying to get a team to use AI.
The tip: Point AI at a task people hate before anything they're proud of. "A leader cannot mandate enthusiasm. A leader can arrange for relief."
Time: Julie Zhuo says to aim for a first team win "in days, not months".
The prompt: I hate doing [task]. Give me a step-by-step plan to automate it.
Start here: Automate one thing you hate this week.
Give one curious person time to rebuild a low-stakes weekly task, like a status update.
Write down the old baseline first, so you can prove what changed.
Filed note: Julie Zhuo maps AI adoption from personal relief to shared wins, reliable systems, and organizational redesign without stripping people of agency.

Highlights: Build personal belief. Turn belief into shared wins. Turn wins into reliable systems. Then redesign the organization around what has become possible.
the overall path
A leader cannot mandate enthusiasm. A leader can arrange for relief.
on Step 1, automate something you hate
You earn trust in an agent through evaluations, usually shortened to evals. An eval is a repeatable test of whether the AI did the job right.
Step 6
A win is a result, not a good performance of transformation.
Step 3
Excerpt: We have heard it so often that it now occupies the space between meme and cult mantra: AI is going to change everything!
From lg.substack.com