When Gisele Hasman, CEO of GQ & Company, talks about AI adoption, she doesn't start with technology. She starts with a single person and a single task. In a recent interview, Hasman outlined a pragmatic, people-centered approach to bringing AI into the workforce—one that avoids the common trap of buying licenses before building understanding.
Start Small, Start Human
For businesses just getting started, Hasman advises focusing on one person and one task that eats their week. "Pick the task that eats their week. Reporting, proposals, follow-up emails, moving data between two systems." She emphasizes building the first workflow together on real work, that same day. The goal is to trigger a moment of recognition: "Once someone has that reaction, she teaches the person next to her, and you rarely have to sell anyone on it after that."
Hasman also stresses honesty about AI's role: "AI won't replace you. It makes you superhuman. You still make the decisions. It just clears the busywork so you have time to make them."
The License-First Mistake
Many companies go wrong by purchasing AI tools before considering their people. "They buy the licenses first and think about the people second," Hasman observes. She notes that leadership often sends a login email and finds months later that few are using the tools. The fix isn't another tool; it's in the rollout. Hasman admits making this mistake herself: "When I started advising clients on AI tools, I would show them the tool and not much about how to use it for their specific use cases. It would get scrapped."
Her course-correction strategy: find the quiet early adopters, build training around their workflows, and let results spread adoption sideways. "Adoption spreads sideways through a company a lot faster than it spreads down from a memo."
Practical Training That Sticks
To keep training from becoming a one-off event, Hasman ensures everyone leaves with something built on their own work. "If someone walks out with a prompt they wrote for their own weekly report, they will use it Monday morning, because it already saved them an hour in the room." She avoids single sessions, spaces out series over weeks, and assigns real homework. "Bring me the email you dread writing. Bring me the spreadsheet you rebuild every month."
Crucially, someone inside the company must own the follow-through: "One person who checks in, collects the wins, and shares them. Without that it fades."
Build In-House, Even with Outside Help
On the build-versus-buy question, Hasman says it's usually both, with order mattering. Bring in outside help if no one internally owns AI yet, but build internal capability from day one. "The goal of anyone you hire should be to make themselves unnecessary." She advises asking two questions: who owns this internally by name, and does the outside person have a handoff plan?
The Future: From Tools to Workflows
Hasman sees AI training shifting from tool features to work processes. She describes a conversation with a Fortune Global 500 pharmaceutical company's internal AI enablement team, which outlined three levels: point solutions, workflow redesign, and agentic systems. "Most people already have the skill it takes. If you have ever handed a project to a great new hire and reviewed their work, you already know how to do this."
She now spends less time on prompting and more on mapping processes: "Less about the tool, more about the job."
For more on AI workforce training trends, see this overview and industry guidance. Hasman's approach offers a blueprint for leaders who want AI adoption to feel intentional, not disruptive—a philosophy central to GQ & Company's work.