Three Ways to Turn ERG Insights into AI Adoption

While employees may use the same AI tools, no two employees experience them the same way. Only 46 percent of people globally are willing to trust AI systems, and differences in experience, recognition, and skills can compound distrust and slow adoption, especially when rollouts don’t account for the needs of specific employee populations.

ERGs can surface those overlooked barriers, examine solutions, and help organizations design AI strategies that encourage everyone to use AI responsibly. Keep reading for three ways ERGs can harness their insights to move the needle on AI adoption. 

1. Assess AI accessibility with disability ERGs

Although more than 42.5 million people in the U.S. have a disability, only 5 percent of U.S. employees voluntarily report one, suggesting that many employees feel uncomfortable disclosing their disability status due to fear of discrimination. If employees are hesitant to discuss their disabilities, it’s unlikely that they’ll communicate that an AI tool is difficult for them to use. As a result, accessibility barriers may quietly exclude people from using AI tools effectively.

Disability-focused ERGs can remedy these problems by evaluating AI for accessibility. AI teams can invite interested group members to participate in a formally recognized usability testing program. They can test AI tools, such as screen readers, voice controls, captions, keyboard navigation, and other assistive technologies, and provide anonymous feedback.

Armed with this knowledge, AI teams can work with ERG leaders to correct accessibility oversights. By providing feedback on how to improve functionality, disability ERGs can demonstrate business value by ensuring everyone can adopt AI.

2. Uncover adoption and advancement barriers with women’s ERGs

Lean In reports that women are 29 percent more likely to scrutinize AI’s accuracy. However, compared to male colleagues, women are also 23 percent less likely to be encouraged to use AI and less likely to be praised or promoted when they do.

Although women are facing an uphill AI battle, recent Seramount research suggests that a healthy degree of caution is worth rewarding. To deliver long-term results, people must be prudent when deciding what AI should and should not own and when to trust, refine, or question outputs. Yet many women go unrecognized for demonstrating the very skills effective AI use requires. Left unaddressed, this could negatively affect women’s career paths and the business’s long-term performance. 

Insights from women’s ERGs can help leaders understand how gender influences AI adoption at a cultural level. Consider having the group conduct a survey measuring how members perceive and use AI tools. In addition to assessing how frequently they use them, pose questions around how they review responses, what training they’ve received, and how leaders communicate AI-based opportunities to them. Capturing these insights will help the entire enterprise understand where and why adoption is stalling, how to address misconceptions and biases, and how to encourage and reward thoughtful AI use.

3. Offer reverse-mentoring programs with generational ERGs

With the current workforce spanning as many as five generations, employees are bound to have different comfort levels with AI. According to the Pew Research Center, Americans under 50 are far more likely than those 50 and older to use AI. However, while most adults under 30 use chatbots, this group is the most cynical about their future impact.

Rather than allowing these differences to widen the AI knowledge gap, HR leaders can use them to encourage knowledge sharing. Age- or generation-focused ERGs can help employees adopt AI through reverse-mentoring programs. These programs can task pairs of early- and late-career employees with creating new AI use cases. ERG leaders, AI teams, and executive sponsors can then evaluate ideas and even offer a prize for the strongest submission, such as an extra PTO day. This creates a low-risk, structured opportunity to share skills and promote cross-generational collaboration.

For example, a Millennial employee may help a Gen X colleague use agents or plug-ins. Meanwhile, a Baby Boomer could help a Gen Zer strengthen the critical-thinking skills needed to refine AI outputs. Along with supporting adoption, an ERG-sponsored reverse-mentoring program may uncover new AI applications that could benefit the whole workforce.

ERGs can become AI powerhouses

AI adoption poses a plethora of workforce culture challenges because different employee populations have varying experiences with AI. Luckily, ERGs can help teams overcome these barriers by showing how accessibility, recognition, and learning shape employees’ willingness and ability to use AI.

But for ERGs to be strategic partners, they must have clear roles, capable leaders, and the right resources. The Seramount Employee Group Maturity Assessment (SEGMA) helps organizations identify where those foundations are strong, where gaps remain, and what support ERGs need to contribute to AI adoption and other transformation efforts.