How to Communicate with AI Skeptics

There was a time when the idea of summoning a stranger on your phone to pick you up in their car was a bizarre—and potentially terrifying—concept. Many of us now do just that regularly without a second thought.

I remember my first Uber ride as feeling awkward and invasive. I was paying the driver a sinfully low price to drive me to the airport in a vehicle they owned, which was a distinctly unique experience from taking pricier company-owned cabs or airport shuttle rides of the not-too-distant past.

The more Uber and Lyft rides I took, the more comfortable I became with the concept. This is often how we experience new, disruptive technology: initial feelings of mistrust, discomfort upon first adoption, then acceptance with regular use.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is currently traveling a similar path in the minds of professionals worldwide.

Building a Permission Structure for AI Adoption

When you see the terms “artificial intelligence” or “generative AI,” you likely feel a visceral reaction based on what you’ve read, heard or personally experienced with AI. Because generative AI technology is the shiny, new innovation du jour, companies are building AI products assuming their customers want them. However, many organizations are not taking into account how challenging it is to overcome initial skepticism of any new technology that changes the way people work.

To tackle AI skepticism, it’s necessary to build a “permission structure” for an audience to increase adoption. According to ModelThinkers, “a permission structure provides an emotional and psychological justification that allows someone to change deeply held beliefs and/or [behaviors] while importantly retaining their pride and integrity.”

For some communicators, using AI to aid in their work flies in the face of their principles. They might consider utilizing AI to produce content to be lazy, immoral or a form of plagiarism. That is a tall hurdle for any organization to overcome in getting their audience to accept and use their newest AI tools.

So, how do you create a permission structure for generative AI adoption?

Acknowledge the Resistance

It’s well established that humans have an innate fear of the unknown. Minimizing, ignoring or disregarding that fear is not the best path to winning over an audience.

Over the past 50 years, we’ve witnessed automation technology shrink the blue-collar workforce as the white-collar workforce grew exponentially. With the advent of generative AI, white-collar professionals have an understandable fear that the past is prologue, with AI coming for their jobs next.

If someone is concerned that AI might one day make their job obsolete, they won’t be foolish enough to help train AI tools to potentially make themselves professionally irrelevant. The best thing your organization can do when rolling out new AI solutions is to acknowledge this resistance, if not externally, then at least internally. I don’t blame you if you don’t want to explicitly mention to your customers that you recognize they might find AI to be creepy and weird, but some of your audience is already thinking it, regardless of how awesome your tool may be.

So, while we are currently in the nascent stages of the AI revolution, the goal of the permission structure you build should be to make it okay to try your tool rather than to change how your audience views the efficacy of AI.

Try to Change Actions, Not Minds

Uber did not convince me to try Uber for the first time. A classroom full of classmates a decade younger than me did.

In the aforementioned classroom, our professor asked how many of us had taken a ride using Uber, and I was one of a few students who did not raise their hand. In that moment, I felt old and out of touch. Seeing that I was one of the last holdouts in that room to try the ridesharing app challenged my deeply held belief that I am an open-minded and curious person. Not wanting to continue to feel close-minded, incurious and ancient gave me the permission structure to overcome my previous concerns about using ridesharing services.

The best way a brand can provide a permission structure for their audience to adopt their AI solutions is to get them to try those tools. Keep in mind that your users likely have a deeply entrenched belief about the usefulness of AI, so don’t try to convince them otherwise. For those who are curious about AI, they will naturally test your tools to see how they work. Those who are on the fence or even opposed to the idea of AI can still hold that thought in their mind while noodling around with your tools to see how they function.

Getting your audience to dip their toe in the waters of your AI tools does not mean they need to swim in them. Some inherently will and others won’t. To combat the reluctance and intransigence AI evokes in some, you need to get them in the water.

Techniques for Increasing AI Adoption

Regardless of someone’s over-arching beliefs about AI, no one has the standing to criticize your tools if they haven’t used them. We’re sharing three strategies to help you get your users in the water and begin testing your AI offerings.

Social Proof: Whether we like it or not, we are influenced by the actions and opinions of those around us or those whose perspectives we value. Product or service recommendations from friends and family are a powerful example of this. Online reviews from strangers can also be very influential in helping us decide between options we are considering for which we have no frame of reference. The more information we can gather about something we are unsure of using, the more likely we are to consider it.

A way to use this technique for your AI solutions could be to commission case studies from current customers. By saying something like, “X Brand used our new AI tool to do Y and saw Z result,” you are helping to paint a picture for your audience of how your tool can help them achieve similar results for their organization.

Common Ground: In “Think Again,” author Adam Grant outlines that the most successful technique professional debaters and negotiators employ to persuade others to their argument is finding where they agree. To get AI skeptics to try your tool, you might say something like, “We know many are concerned that their inputs will be used to train AI tools to be leveraged and repurposed by others. That’s why we’ve implemented these security features in our solution to prevent that from happening.”

In this example, you’re essentially saying, ‘You’re concerned about security and privacy with AI, and we get it. We are too, so we’ve preemptively solved for that by doing X, Y and Z.’

Co-Creation: The best new products and services address an unmet need in the market. Right now, AI skeptics argue that AI is solving a problem that doesn’t exist, particularly when it comes to use cases of content creation. You can’t successfully argue with anyone who firmly believes AI can’t help them with their creative process. However, you can solicit their feedback on the challenges they face within their creative process that, unbeknownst to them, can be mitigated by using AI.

Present the introduction of your new AI solutions as an opportunity for your users to help improve the offering in a way that would be most beneficial to them. Tell them you need their assistance in making your AI tools relevant and most useful for them. As your customers, you want them to have skin in the game of what you’re creating for them, so invite them to be a part of it.

The Bottom Line

Don’t be discouraged if your audience expresses dismay upon hearing of your new AI solutions. It’s not you; it’s where we are with AI at the moment. As with any new technology, as more people adopt it and as it becomes apparent that it’s not as dreadful as it might seem, fewer people will push back against it. Don’t forget that it’s not your job to change their mind; you just have to get them in the water.

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