企业软件巨头IgniteTech的首席执行官埃里克·沃恩，在回顾其数十年职业生涯中最为激进的决策时，态度依然坚定。2023年初，沃恩坚信生成式人工智能将引发“生死攸关”的变革，然而，当他审视团队时，却发现员工并未完全跟上步伐。《财富》杂志查阅的员工数量数据显示，他最终采取的应对措施堪称“彻底洗牌”：在一年内替换了近80%的员工。
沃恩表示，在2023年至2024年第一季度期间，IgniteTech替换了数百名员工，但拒绝透露具体数字。“这并非我们的初衷，”他在接受《财富》杂志采访时称，“过程极其艰难……但改变观念比培养新技能难得多。”无论从何种角度衡量，这都是一次残酷的清算，但沃恩坚称此举势在必行，且表示如果重来一次，他还会这么做。
对沃恩而言，彼时的“信号”清晰且紧迫。“2023年初，我们看到了变革的曙光，”他在接受《财富》杂志采访时说道，并补充称，在他看来，当时每家科技公司都站在是否采用人工智能这一关键抉择的十字路口。“如今，我的看法已然转变，我认为这场变革关乎所有企业——我是说，真正意义上的每一家企业——都面临着这场变革引发的生存危机。”
当其他人看到人工智能的前景时，沃恩感受到的却是“紧迫性”——他认为，若无法在人工智能领域抢占先机，即便是根基稳固的企业也可能遭遇灭顶之灾。他召集全球远程团队举行全体会议，摒弃了以往安逸闲适的日常流程与按部就班的季度目标，转而传递出直截了当的信号：公司所有业务都将围绕人工智能展开。“我们要给每位员工送上一份厚礼，这份厚礼便是在时间、工具、培训、项目上的巨额投入……助力大家掌握一项全新技能。”他解释道。此后，公司开始为员工报销人工智能工具费用以及提示词工程课程费用，甚至聘请外部专家宣传推广人工智能应用。
“我们将每周一定为‘人工智能周一’，”沃恩表示，他要求员工当天只能专注于人工智能相关工作。“不能接听客户来电，不得处理预算事宜，必须全身心投人工智能项目。”他强调，这一要求面向全体员工，不仅限于技术岗位，销售、市场营销等部门的IgniteTech员工均需遵守。“必须建立这样的文化，这是关键所在。”
沃恩补充称，这是一项巨额投入：公司将薪资的20%用于大规模学习计划，然而却因员工普遍抵制、甚至刻意阻挠而以失败告终。他意识到，信念是难以强行塑造的。“变革初期，我们确实遭遇了抵制，有人直言‘不，我不打算参加’。对于这类员工，我们只能选择告别。”
抵制背后：为何员工不愿接受人工智能？
沃恩惊讶地发现，坚决抵制人工智能的往往是技术岗位员工，而非市场或销售团队。他表示，技术人员是“抵制情绪最强烈的群体”，他们围绕人工智能无法做到的事情提出了种种担忧，而非关注人工智能能做到的事情。他补充说，市场营销和销售人员则对与这些新工具合作的可能性感到兴奋。
这种冲突也得到了更广泛研究的证实。据专注于助力企业客户整合人工智能技术的人工智能平台WRITER发布的《2025企业人工智能采用报告》，三分之一的员工承认曾“蓄意阻挠”公司的人工智能推广计划——在千禧一代与Z世代员工中，这一比例更是高达41%。这种抵触行为可能表现为拒绝使用人工智能工具、刻意生成低质量的输出结果，或完全抗拒接受培训。许多人出于对人工智能会取代自身工作的担忧而采取抵制行动，而另一些人则因人工智能工具性能欠佳或领导层缺乏明确战略而感到沮丧。
WRITER首席战略官凯文·钟（Kevin Chung）在接受《财富》杂志采访时表示，此次调查中“最令人震惊的发现”是人工智能抵制现象背后的人为因素。“员工刻意阻挠人工智能推广，并非源于对技术的恐惧……更多是因为人们面临着巨大压力，必须确保一切尽善尽美，而当他们所获取的工具无法正常运行时，便会陷入沮丧情绪。”他补充道，WRITER的研究表明，员工往往对企业的发展走向缺乏信任。“新获得的工具与预期相去甚远，挫败感会油然而生，进而出现‘阻挠’行为，因为人们会想，‘好吧，我还是运行自己的技术工具，自己琢磨解决方案吧。’”他补充道，企业绝对不希望出现“影子IT”（指员工私下使用未获企业授权的技术工具或系统）现象。
沃恩则表示，他不想强迫任何人。“你无法强行迫使他人改变，尤其当对方不相信这件事时。”他补充道，信念才是他在招聘时最看重的品质。公司领导层最终意识到，必须启动大规模招聘活动，以招募被称为“人工智能创新专员”的人才——这一招聘需求覆盖公司各个部门，无论是销售、财务还是市场团队，均需补充此类角色。沃恩坦言，那段时期“异常艰难”，公司内部“乱作一团……我们甚至不清楚自己所处的位置，也不太清楚自身的定位”。
几位关键员工的加入发挥了举足轻重的作用，首先是出任IgniteTech首席人工智能官的蒂博·布里德尔-贝托梅乌（Thibault Bridel-Bertomeu）。这促使公司进行了全面重组，沃恩称其“颇具独特性”。实际上，如今公司所有部门——无论所属业务领域——均需向人工智能部门汇报工作。
沃恩表示，这种集中化管理模式规避了重复劳动，并最大限度实现了知识共享——而这正是企业在人工智能应用中普遍面临的难题。WRITER的调查显示，其他公司中，有71%的高管表示，人工智能的应用往往各自为政；近半数高管称，员工只能“独自摸索生成式人工智能的使用方法”。
没有付出，就没有收获？
作为这一艰难转型的回报，IgniteTech取得了非凡成果。截至2024年底，凭借全新重组的团队，该公司已推出两款处于专利申请阶段的人工智能解决方案，其中包括一款基于人工智能的邮件自动化平台（Eloquens AI）。
从财务角度来看，IgniteTech依旧展现出强劲态势。沃恩透露，公司年营收达九位数，2024年末的息税折旧摊销前利润（EBITDA）率接近75%——在此期间，公司还完成了对Khoros公司的重大收购。“我们让员工的能力‘倍增’……赋予他们高效突破、快速行动的能力，”他说道，并称赞如今公司能够在短短四天内开发出可供客户使用的新产品——这在以往的运营模式下，是完全无法想象的速度。
沃恩的故事对他人有何启示？从某一层面来看，这是关于激进变革管理中阵痛与回报并存的案例研究。他这种毫不留情的做法或许恰好解决了WRITER调查中指出的诸多挑战：缺乏战略与投资、信息技术与业务之间的脱节，以及未能培育出能够释放人工智能价值的倡导者。
“狼来了”的问题
诚然，IgniteTech并非唯一一家应对这些挑战的公司。约书亚·沃勒（Joshua Wöhle）是Mindstone的首席执行官，该公司与WRITER类似，专注于为企业提供人工智能技能提升服务，每月为包括汉莎航空（Lufthansa）、凯悦酒店（Hyatt）和NBA球队在内的客户培训数百名员工。他在英国广播公司（BBC）《今日商业》节目中，就沃恩提及的两种人工智能转型路径——员工技能提升与大规模人员替换展开了探讨。
沃勒将宜家（Ikea）与Klarna的近期案例进行了对比，指出宜家的案例表明，对现有员工开展“再培训”效果更好。瑞典“先买后付”平台Klarna此前因大幅削减人工客服并转向人工智能技术引发广泛关注，但随后又重新招聘了相同岗位的员工。沃勒在领英（LinkedIn）上写道：“我们正接近这样一个节点：人工智能的智能水平超越多数从事知识型工作的人类——但也正因如此，‘人机协作增强’比‘单纯自动化替代’更具价值。”
Klarna的一位代表向《财富》杂志表示，该公司并未进行裁员，而是通过多种举措来管理其客户服务业务。其客服工作由外包服务商负责，具体薪酬依据相应工作量来核算。据Klarna称，在推出人工智能客户服务助手后，相当于减少了700名全职客服人员的工作量，客服团队规模从约3000人减少至2300人，而第三方服务商将这700名员工重新调配至其他客户项目。如今，随着人工智能客服助手“能够处理比上线初期更复杂的咨询”，Klarna表示全职客服人员数量已降至2200人。Klarna称，其外包服务商在试点项目中仅重新雇佣了两名员工，该项目旨在将训练有素的人类客服人员与人工智能结合，以提供卓越的客户服务。
沃勒在接受《财富》杂志采访时表示，他的一位客户对员工极为直率：要求员工每周五接受人工智能再培训，倘若员工没有反馈任何培训相关进展，就会被要求离开公司。他认为，对于那些抵制人工智能的员工，解雇他们可能“更为仁慈”：“技术变革速度如此之快，迫使人们接受变革可能是更仁慈的做法。”他补充道，自己过去认为，只要能让所有员工真正热爱学习，那便有助于Mindstone实现真正的变革，但在培训了成千上万的员工后，他发现“大多数人其实厌恶学习，只要能回避就会尽量回避”。
沃勒将员工对人工智能的抵制主要归因于科技行业长期存在的“狼来了”问题——他以非同质化代币（NFT）和区块链为例，指出这些技术曾被吹捧为“革命性”技术，最终并未产生科技领袖承诺的“实际成效”。“你很难责怪员工抵制人工智能，”他说道。多数人“之所以陷入这种抵触状态，是因为他们先是从固有工作流程出发考虑问题”，进而认为人工智能被过度炒作——因为他们期望人工智能能适配自己旧有的工作方式。“要让人们改变工作方式，需要更多思考和推动，”但一旦成功，效率提升会极为显著。他举例称：“人类在为客户撰写提案时，不可能同时记住五份通话记录，但人工智能却能做到。”
宜家在回应置评请求时也表达了与沃勒相同的观点，称其“以人为本的人工智能策略聚焦于‘人机协作增强’，而非‘单纯自动化替代’”。一位发言人表示，宜家正利用人工智能来实现任务自动化，而非岗位自动化，从而为员工腾出更多时间处理更具附加值、以人为本的工作。
WRITER报告指出，制定正式人工智能战略的公司，其成功几率要大得多，而那些在人工智能领域大力投入的公司，业绩表现也大幅领先同行。但正如沃恩的经历所示，缺乏信念和认同的投入，最终不过是徒劳。“必须建立与之适配的企业文化。最终，我们不得不招聘那些原本就认同这一理念的人才。改变观念比培养新技能难得多。”
对于沃恩而言，这毫无疑义。他会再次做出同样的决定吗？他毫不犹豫地表示：他宁愿忍受数月的阵痛，从零开始构建以人工智能为驱动的新根基，也不愿让企业沦为无足轻重的存在。“这并非一场单纯的技术变革，而是一场文化层面和业务层面的变革。”他表示不建议他人效仿“替换80%员工”的做法。“我绝不推荐如此行事。这绝非我们的目标，整个过程极其艰难。”但他补充道，归根结底，所有人都必须齐心协力、朝着同一方向努力。否则，“我们无法抵达目的地。”（*）
译者：中慧言-王芳
企业软件巨头IgniteTech的首席执行官埃里克·沃恩，在回顾其数十年职业生涯中最为激进的决策时，态度依然坚定。2023年初，沃恩坚信生成式人工智能将引发“生死攸关”的变革，然而，当他审视团队时，却发现员工并未完全跟上步伐。《财富》杂志查阅的员工数量数据显示，他最终采取的应对措施堪称“彻底洗牌”：在一年内替换了近80%的员工。
沃恩表示，在2023年至2024年第一季度期间，IgniteTech替换了数百名员工，但拒绝透露具体数字。“这并非我们的初衷，”他在接受《财富》杂志采访时称，“过程极其艰难……但改变观念比培养新技能难得多。”无论从何种角度衡量，这都是一次残酷的清算，但沃恩坚称此举势在必行，且表示如果重来一次，他还会这么做。
对沃恩而言，彼时的“信号”清晰且紧迫。“2023年初，我们看到了变革的曙光，”他在接受《财富》杂志采访时说道，并补充称，在他看来，当时每家科技公司都站在是否采用人工智能这一关键抉择的十字路口。“如今，我的看法已然转变，我认为这场变革关乎所有企业——我是说，真正意义上的每一家企业——都面临着这场变革引发的生存危机。”
当其他人看到人工智能的前景时，沃恩感受到的却是“紧迫性”——他认为，若无法在人工智能领域抢占先机，即便是根基稳固的企业也可能遭遇灭顶之灾。他召集全球远程团队举行全体会议，摒弃了以往安逸闲适的日常流程与按部就班的季度目标，转而传递出直截了当的信号：公司所有业务都将围绕人工智能展开。“我们要给每位员工送上一份厚礼，这份厚礼便是在时间、工具、培训、项目上的巨额投入……助力大家掌握一项全新技能。”他解释道。此后，公司开始为员工报销人工智能工具费用以及提示词工程课程费用，甚至聘请外部专家宣传推广人工智能应用。
“我们将每周一定为‘人工智能周一’，”沃恩表示，他要求员工当天只能专注于人工智能相关工作。“不能接听客户来电，不得处理预算事宜，必须全身心投人工智能项目。”他强调，这一要求面向全体员工，不仅限于技术岗位，销售、市场营销等部门的IgniteTech员工均需遵守。“必须建立这样的文化，这是关键所在。”
沃恩补充称，这是一项巨额投入：公司将薪资的20%用于大规模学习计划，然而却因员工普遍抵制、甚至刻意阻挠而以失败告终。他意识到，信念是难以强行塑造的。“变革初期，我们确实遭遇了抵制，有人直言‘不，我不打算参加’。对于这类员工，我们只能选择告别。”
抵制背后：为何员工不愿接受人工智能？
沃恩惊讶地发现，坚决抵制人工智能的往往是技术岗位员工，而非市场或销售团队。他表示，技术人员是“抵制情绪最强烈的群体”，他们围绕人工智能无法做到的事情提出了种种担忧，而非关注人工智能能做到的事情。他补充说，市场营销和销售人员则对与这些新工具合作的可能性感到兴奋。
这种冲突也得到了更广泛研究的证实。据专注于助力企业客户整合人工智能技术的人工智能平台WRITER发布的《2025企业人工智能采用报告》，三分之一的员工承认曾“蓄意阻挠”公司的人工智能推广计划——在千禧一代与Z世代员工中，这一比例更是高达41%。这种抵触行为可能表现为拒绝使用人工智能工具、刻意生成低质量的输出结果，或完全抗拒接受培训。许多人出于对人工智能会取代自身工作的担忧而采取抵制行动，而另一些人则因人工智能工具性能欠佳或领导层缺乏明确战略而感到沮丧。
WRITER首席战略官凯文·钟（Kevin Chung）在接受《财富》杂志采访时表示，此次调查中“最令人震惊的发现”是人工智能抵制现象背后的人为因素。“员工刻意阻挠人工智能推广，并非源于对技术的恐惧……更多是因为人们面临着巨大压力，必须确保一切尽善尽美，而当他们所获取的工具无法正常运行时，便会陷入沮丧情绪。”他补充道，WRITER的研究表明，员工往往对企业的发展走向缺乏信任。“新获得的工具与预期相去甚远，挫败感会油然而生，进而出现‘阻挠’行为，因为人们会想，‘好吧，我还是运行自己的技术工具，自己琢磨解决方案吧。’”他补充道，企业绝对不希望出现“影子IT”（指员工私下使用未获企业授权的技术工具或系统）现象。
沃恩则表示，他不想强迫任何人。“你无法强行迫使他人改变，尤其当对方不相信这件事时。”他补充道，信念才是他在招聘时最看重的品质。公司领导层最终意识到，必须启动大规模招聘活动，以招募被称为“人工智能创新专员”的人才——这一招聘需求覆盖公司各个部门，无论是销售、财务还是市场团队，均需补充此类角色。沃恩坦言，那段时期“异常艰难”，公司内部“乱作一团……我们甚至不清楚自己所处的位置，也不太清楚自身的定位”。
几位关键员工的加入发挥了举足轻重的作用，首先是出任IgniteTech首席人工智能官的蒂博·布里德尔-贝托梅乌（Thibault Bridel-Bertomeu）。这促使公司进行了全面重组，沃恩称其“颇具独特性”。实际上，如今公司所有部门——无论所属业务领域——均需向人工智能部门汇报工作。
沃恩表示，这种集中化管理模式规避了重复劳动，并最大限度实现了知识共享——而这正是企业在人工智能应用中普遍面临的难题。WRITER的调查显示，其他公司中，有71%的高管表示，人工智能的应用往往各自为政；近半数高管称，员工只能“独自摸索生成式人工智能的使用方法”。
没有付出，就没有收获？
作为这一艰难转型的回报，IgniteTech取得了非凡成果。截至2024年底，凭借全新重组的团队，该公司已推出两款处于专利申请阶段的人工智能解决方案，其中包括一款基于人工智能的邮件自动化平台（Eloquens AI）。
从财务角度来看，IgniteTech依旧展现出强劲态势。沃恩透露，公司年营收达九位数，2024年末的息税折旧摊销前利润（EBITDA）率接近75%——在此期间，公司还完成了对Khoros公司的重大收购。“我们让员工的能力‘倍增’……赋予他们高效突破、快速行动的能力，”他说道，并称赞如今公司能够在短短四天内开发出可供客户使用的新产品——这在以往的运营模式下，是完全无法想象的速度。
沃恩的故事对他人有何启示？从某一层面来看，这是关于激进变革管理中阵痛与回报并存的案例研究。他这种毫不留情的做法或许恰好解决了WRITER调查中指出的诸多挑战：缺乏战略与投资、信息技术与业务之间的脱节，以及未能培育出能够释放人工智能价值的倡导者。
“狼来了”的问题
诚然，IgniteTech并非唯一一家应对这些挑战的公司。约书亚·沃勒（Joshua Wöhle）是Mindstone的首席执行官，该公司与WRITER类似，专注于为企业提供人工智能技能提升服务，每月为包括汉莎航空（Lufthansa）、凯悦酒店（Hyatt）和NBA球队在内的客户培训数百名员工。他在英国广播公司（BBC）《今日商业》节目中，就沃恩提及的两种人工智能转型路径——员工技能提升与大规模人员替换展开了探讨。
沃勒将宜家（Ikea）与Klarna的近期案例进行了对比，指出宜家的案例表明，对现有员工开展“再培训”效果更好。瑞典“先买后付”平台Klarna此前因大幅削减人工客服并转向人工智能技术引发广泛关注，但随后又重新招聘了相同岗位的员工。沃勒在领英（LinkedIn）上写道：“我们正接近这样一个节点：人工智能的智能水平超越多数从事知识型工作的人类——但也正因如此，‘人机协作增强’比‘单纯自动化替代’更具价值。”
Klarna的一位代表向《财富》杂志表示，该公司并未进行裁员，而是通过多种举措来管理其客户服务业务。其客服工作由外包服务商负责，具体薪酬依据相应工作量来核算。据Klarna称，在推出人工智能客户服务助手后，相当于减少了700名全职客服人员的工作量，客服团队规模从约3000人减少至2300人，而第三方服务商将这700名员工重新调配至其他客户项目。如今，随着人工智能客服助手“能够处理比上线初期更复杂的咨询”，Klarna表示全职客服人员数量已降至2200人。Klarna称，其外包服务商在试点项目中仅重新雇佣了两名员工，该项目旨在将训练有素的人类客服人员与人工智能结合，以提供卓越的客户服务。
沃勒在接受《财富》杂志采访时表示，他的一位客户对员工极为直率：要求员工每周五接受人工智能再培训，倘若员工没有反馈任何培训相关进展，就会被要求离开公司。他认为，对于那些抵制人工智能的员工，解雇他们可能“更为仁慈”：“技术变革速度如此之快，迫使人们接受变革可能是更仁慈的做法。”他补充道，自己过去认为，只要能让所有员工真正热爱学习，那便有助于Mindstone实现真正的变革，但在培训了成千上万的员工后，他发现“大多数人其实厌恶学习，只要能回避就会尽量回避”。
沃勒将员工对人工智能的抵制主要归因于科技行业长期存在的“狼来了”问题——他以非同质化代币（NFT）和区块链为例，指出这些技术曾被吹捧为“革命性”技术，最终并未产生科技领袖承诺的“实际成效”。“你很难责怪员工抵制人工智能，”他说道。多数人“之所以陷入这种抵触状态，是因为他们先是从固有工作流程出发考虑问题”，进而认为人工智能被过度炒作——因为他们期望人工智能能适配自己旧有的工作方式。“要让人们改变工作方式，需要更多思考和推动，”但一旦成功，效率提升会极为显著。他举例称：“人类在为客户撰写提案时，不可能同时记住五份通话记录，但人工智能却能做到。”
宜家在回应置评请求时也表达了与沃勒相同的观点，称其“以人为本的人工智能策略聚焦于‘人机协作增强’，而非‘单纯自动化替代’”。一位发言人表示，宜家正利用人工智能来实现任务自动化，而非岗位自动化，从而为员工腾出更多时间处理更具附加值、以人为本的工作。
WRITER报告指出，制定正式人工智能战略的公司，其成功几率要大得多，而那些在人工智能领域大力投入的公司，业绩表现也大幅领先同行。但正如沃恩的经历所示，缺乏信念和认同的投入，最终不过是徒劳。“必须建立与之适配的企业文化。最终，我们不得不招聘那些原本就认同这一理念的人才。改变观念比培养新技能难得多。”
对于沃恩而言，这毫无疑义。他会再次做出同样的决定吗？他毫不犹豫地表示：他宁愿忍受数月的阵痛，从零开始构建以人工智能为驱动的新根基，也不愿让企业沦为无足轻重的存在。“这并非一场单纯的技术变革，而是一场文化层面和业务层面的变革。”他表示不建议他人效仿“替换80%员工”的做法。“我绝不推荐如此行事。这绝非我们的目标，整个过程极其艰难。”但他补充道，归根结底，所有人都必须齐心协力、朝着同一方向努力。否则，“我们无法抵达目的地。”（*）
译者：中慧言-王芳
Eric Vaughan, CEO of enterprise-software powerhouse IgniteTech, is unwavering as he reflects on the most radical decision of his decades-long career. In early 2023, convinced that generative AI was an “existential” transformation, Vaughan looked at his team and saw a workforce not fully on board. His ultimate response: He ripped the company down to the studs, replacing nearly 80% of staff within a year, according to headcount figures reviewed by Fortune.
Over the course of 2023 and into the first quarter of 2024, Vaughan said IgniteTech replaced hundreds of employees, declining to disclose a specific number. “That was not our goal,” he told Fortune. “It was extremely difficult … But changing minds was harder than adding skills.” It was, by any measure, a brutal reckoning—but Vaughan insists it was necessary, and says he’d do it again.
For Vaughan, the writing on the wall was clear and dramatic. “In early 2023, we saw the light,” he told Fortune in an interview, adding that he believed every tech company was facing a crucial inflection point around adoption of artificial intelligence. “Now I’ve certainly morphed to believe that this is every company, and I mean that literally every company, is facing an existential threat by this transformation.”
Where others saw promise, Vaughan saw urgency—believing that failing to get ahead on AI could doom even the most robust business. He called an all-hands meeting with his global, remote team. Gone were the comfortable routines and quarterly goals. Instead, his message was direct: Everything would now revolve around AI. “We’re going to give a gift to each of you. And that gift is tremendous investment of time, tools, education, projects … to give you a new skill,” he explained. The company began reimbursing for AI tools and prompt engineering classes, and even brought in outside experts to evangelize.
“Every single Monday was called ‘AI Monday,'” Vaughan said, with his mandate for staff that they could only work on AI. “You couldn’t have customer calls, you couldn’t work on budgets, you had to only work on AI projects.” He said this happened across the board, not just for tech workers, but also for sales, marketing, and everybody at IgniteTech. “That culture needed to be built. That was… that was the key.”
This was a major investment, he added: 20% of payroll was dedicated to a mass-learning initiative, and it failed because of mass resistance, even sabotage. Belief, Vaughan discovered, is a hard thing to manufacture. “In those early days, we did get resistance, we got flat-out, ‘Yeah, I’m not going to do this’ resistance. And so we said goodbye to those people.”
The pushback: Why didn’t they get on board?
Vaughan was surprised to find it was often the technical staff, not marketing or sales, who dug in their heels. They were the “most resistant,” he said, voicing various concerns about what the AI couldn’t do, rather than focusing on what it could. The marketing and salespeople were enthused by the possibilities of working with these new tools, he added.
This friction is borne out by broader research. According to the 2025 enterprise AI adoption report by WRITER, an AI platform that specifically helps enterprise clients with AI integration, one in three workers say they’ve “actively sabotaged” their company’s AI rollout—a number that jumps to 41% of millennial and Gen Z employees. This can take the form of refusing to use AI tools, intentionally generating low-quality outputs, or avoiding training altogether. Many act out due to fears that AI will replace their jobs, while others are frustrated by lackluster AI tools or unclear strategy from leadership.
WRITER’s Chief Strategy Officer Kevin Chung told Fortune the “big eye-opening thing” from this survey was the human element of AI resistance. “This sabotage isn’t because they’re afraid of the technology … It’s more like there’s so much pressure to get it right, and then when you’re handed something that doesn’t work, you get frustrated.” He added that WRITER’s research shows that workers often don’t trust where their organizations are headed. “When you’re handed something that isn’t quite what you want, it’s very frustrating, so the sabotage kicks in, because then people are like, ‘Okay, I’m going to run my own thing. I’m going to go figure it out myself.'” You definitely don’t want this kind of “shadow IT” in an organization, he added.
Vaughan says he didn’t want to force anyone. “You can’t compel people to change, especially if they don’t believe.” He added that belief was really the thing he needed to recruit for. Company leadership ultimately realized they’d have to launch a massive recruiting effort for what became known as “AI Innovation Specialists.” This applied across the board, to sales, finance. marketing, everywhere. Vaughan said this time was “really difficult” as things inside the company were “upside down … We didn’t really quite know where we were or who we were yet.”
A couple key hires helped, starting with the person who became IgniteTech’s chief AI officer, Thibault Bridel-Bertomeu. That led to a full reorganization of the company that Vaughan called “somewhat unusual.” Essentially, every division now reports into the AI organization, regardless of domain.
This centralization, Vaughan says, prevented duplication of efforts and maximized knowledge sharing—a common struggle in AI adoption, where WRITER’s survey shows 71% of the C-suite at other companies say AI applications are being created in silos and nearly half report their employees left to “figure generative AI out on their own.”
No pain, no gain?
In exchange for this difficult transformation, IgniteTech reaped extraordinary results. By the end of 2024, the company had launched two patent-pending AI solutions, including a platform for AI-based email automation (Eloquens AI), with a radically rebuilt team.
Financially, IgniteTech remained strong. Vaughan disclosed that the company, which he said is in the nine-figure revenue range, finished 2024 at “near 75% EBITDA”—all while completing a major acquisition, Khoros. “You multiply people … give people the ability to multiply themselves and do things at a pace,” he said, touting the company’s ability to build new customer-ready products in as little as four days—an unthinkable timeline in the old regime.
What does Vaughan’s story say for others? On one level, it’s a case study in the pain and payoff of radical change management. But his ruthless approach arguably addresses many challenges identified in the WRITER survey: lack of strategy and investment, misalignment between IT and business, and the failure to engage champions who can unlock AI’s benefits.
The ‘boy who cried wolf’ problem
To be sure, IgniteTech is far from alone in wrestling with these challenges. Joshua Wöhle is the CEO of Mindstone, a firm similar to WRITER that provides AI upskilling services to workforces, training hundreds of employees monthly at companies including Lufthansa, Hyatt, and NBA teams. He recently discussed the two approaches described by Vaughan—upskilling and mass replacement—in an appearance on BBC Business Today.
Wöhle contrasted the recent examples of Ikea and Klarna, arguing the former’s example shows why it’s better to “reskill” existing employees. Klarna, a Swedish buy-now pay-later firm, drew considerable publicity for a decision to reduce members of its customer support staff in a pivot to AI, only to rehire for the same roles. “We’re near the point where [AI is] more intelligent than most people doing knowledge work. But that’s precisely why augmentation beats automation,” Wöhle wrote on LinkedIn.
A representative for Klarna told Fortune the company did not lay off employees, but has instead adopted several approaches to its customer service, which is managed by outsourced customer-service providers who are paid according to the volume of work required. The launch of an AI customer-service assistant reduced the workload by the equivalent of 700 full-time agents—from roughly 3,000 to 2,300—and the third-party providers redeployed those 700 workers to other clients, according to Klarna. Now that the AI customer service agent is “handling more complex queries than when we launched,” Klarna says, that number has fallen to 2,200. Klarna says its contractor has rehired just two people in a pilot program designed to combine highly trained human support staff with AI to deliver outstanding customer service.
In an interview with Fortune, Wöhle said one client of his has been very blunt with his workers, ordering them to dedicate all Fridays to AI retraining, and if they didn’t report back on any of their work, they were invited to leave the company. He said it can be “kinder” to dismiss workers who are resistant to AI: “The pace of change is so fast that it’s the kinder thing to force people through it.” He added that he used to think that if he got all workers to really love learning, then that could help Mindstone make a real difference, but he discovered after training literally thousands of people that “most people hate learning. They’d avoid it if they can.”
Wöhle attributed much of the AI resistance in the workforce to a “boy who cried wolf” problem from the tech sector, citing NFTs and blockchain as technologies that were billed as revolutionary but “didn’t have the real effect” that tech leaders promised. “You can’t really blame them” for resisting, he said. Most people “get stuck because they think from their work flow first,” he added, and they conclude AI is overhyped because they want AI to fit into their old way of working. “It takes a lot more thinking and a lot more kind of prodding for you to change the way that you work,” but once you do, you see dramatic increases. A human can’t possibly keep five call transcripts in their head while you’re trying to write a proposal to a client, he offers, but AI can.
Ikea echoed Wöhle when reached for comment, saying that its “people-first AI approach focuses on augmentation, not automation.” A spokesperson said Ikea is using AI to automate tasks, not jobs, freeing up time for value-added, human-centric work.
The WRITER report notes that companies with formal AI strategies are far more likely to succeed, and those who heavily invest in AI outperform their peers by a large margin. But, as Vaughan’s experience shows, investment without belief and buy-in can be wasted energy. “The culture needed to be built. Ultimately, we ended up having to go out and recruit and hire people that were already of the same mind. Changing minds was harder than adding skills.”
For Vaughan, there’s no ambiguity. Would he do it again? He doesn’t hesitate: He’d rather endure months of pain and build a new, AI-driven foundation from scratch than let an organization drift into irrelevance. “This is not a tech change. It is a cultural change, and it is a business change.” He said he doesn’t recommend that others follow his lead and swap out 80% of their staff. “I do not recommend that at all. That was not our goal. It was extremely difficult.” But at the end of the day, he added, everybody’s got to be in the same boat, rowing in the same direction. Otherwise, “we don’t get where we’re going.”