What 400+ workshop participants taught us about AI resistance.

The pushback is the same in every organization. Someone arrives convinced this is hype. Someone worries their job is on the line. Someone tried ChatGPT once in 2023, got a bad answer, and filed the whole thing under noise.

We've now trained more than 400 people across pharma, medical communications, consulting, and professional services. The resistance patterns repeat so reliably you can name the people before the session starts.

The sceptic does the homework

Before a session with a global IP team, one contracts specialist kept sending us articles on why AI wasn't ready for legal work. He had once mapped dependencies across 70 interrelated contracts on a single project, and he knew exactly how much precision that takes.

He was also, quietly, already using AI. The scepticism wasn't ignorance. It was standards.

What shifts the room

Arguments don't. Statistics don't. What shifts the room is a working prototype built on the sceptic's own workflow, in the room, on the day. Contract summarisation on their contracts. A reporting agent on their calendar. When the output lands at 80% and they catch the missing 20%, the tool stops being a threat and becomes a draft.

16 minutes after that IP session ended, a participant sent a LinkedIn message: "your workshop was amazing, a whole new world opened up to me."

The fear under the resistance

People are rarely afraid of the technology. They're afraid of looking stupid in front of colleagues, of being replaced, of a manager discovering how they already work. A single room can hold someone building agents and someone who doesn't know how to open the tool, and both are nervous.

The framing that works came from a client, a head of function with 14 reports: the job evolves, it doesn't disappear. Say it early, mean it, then prove it on their own tasks.