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IT OPERATIONS

Shannon May, Photos: Adobe Stock, Unsplash

When Intuit began encouraging employees to use generative AI, CTO Alex Balazs said there were “pockets” of resistance in a place he hadn’t expected: the top ranks of the engineering department.

“Some of our best engineers fought it because they were lifelong coders, and they’re like, ‘I can write better code than this agent can,’” Balazs said. “It’s not a question of if you can write better code, it’s a question of, can it write code faster? And is the faster code that it wrote good enough to solve the problem? The answer is yes.”

Balazs said he had to “continue to interact with them and get them over the hump.” The key, he said, has been setting clear and transparent expectations around AI use, establishing his own credibility as someone who uses these tools, and hearing concerns through “listening posts.”

IT and tech teams are expected to be the vanguard of AI tool rollouts, adopting new tech quickly while bringing the rest of the organization on board. But with some IT jobs at risk of automation themselves, how do leaders make sure that’s a charge these teams are willing to lead?

The key to getting everyone onboard.—PK

☕️ How can you persuade your workforce to embrace AI?