For the first time in corporate history, employees are adopting new technology faster than the companies they work for. Generative AI is spreading not through sanctioned pilots and IT rollouts, but through personal accounts and unofficial workflows. Nearly three-quarters of workplace ChatGPT accounts are tied to employees’ personal emails, not company domains. Between March 2023 and March 2024, corporate data flowing into unsanctioned tools grew by almost 500 percent, a figure that would trigger a heart event in any self-respecting security executive.

This “Shadow AI” phenomenon changes everything about how companies manage transformation. In the past, technology adoption started at the top, with executives approving budgets and rolling out training. Today, it’s the opposite: experimentation bubbles up from the bottom, while leaders scramble to catch up.

Only 28 percent of companies report having a comprehensive AI change management plan. The rest are in draft form or “in progress.” That gap—between employee-led adoption and organizational readiness—is where both the risks and opportunities of AI live.

The question is simple: how do you lead change when you’re no longer the first mover?

The first shift is personal. Leaders can’t delegate AI literacy. You can’t lead from a deck or rely on quarterly updates from your tech team. You have to use the tools yourself.

“This is a seismic shift. If you don’t take the time to understand the implications of a technology, you aren’t in a position to guide adoption of it”, says Bilal Zaidi, senior director at Publicis Sapient.

CEOs, COOs and other senior leaders must stop thinking of change management as something bolted on at the end of a project. It has to be built in from the start. That means designing transformation as an ongoing process: quarterly pivots, fast feedback loops and cross-functional teams with real authority to adjust course. Product-enhanced services like Sapient Slingshot are built specifically for this purpose: to help leaders and their teams move swiftly from experimentation to strategy and then scale.

Delegation is dead. Immersion is the only way to lead in the AI era.

If you’re responsible for technology and operations, you’re standing on decades of digital archaeology. Most organizations still run critical processes on a mix of mainframes, legacy apps and modern cloud systems. Employees are already layering AI tools on top, creating both value and risk.

The job of CIOs, CTOs and CDOs isn’t to chase perfect data or block experimentation. It’s to strike a balance: creating guardrails that make AI safe and scalable while enabling teams to experiment responsibly.

That means:

• Using AI to bridge old and new systems, extending the life of legacy platforms while preparing for future replacements.
• Redefining technical teams as AI trainers and supervisors, not just fixers of broken systems.
• Treating AI as a team member, not just a tool—with responsibilities, oversight and transparency.
• Modernizing core systems through digital engineering, so new capabilities don’t collapse under the weight of outdated infrastructure.
• Extending into functions like supply chain, where AI can improve decision-making and efficiency.

Leaders will be the ones who orchestrate a framework where safe experimentation happens everywhere, without creating digital anarchy.

If you’re in a customer-facing role, AI raises a different set of questions. Shadow AI doesn’t just live in back-office and workflow experiments. It often leaks into the customer experience itself, whether through unvetted chatbots, inconsistent personalization or content generated without proper oversight.

In marketing, AI can personalize at scale, but without parameters and oversight it risks going off brand or eroding trust. As John Ayers, global lead of strategic partnerships at Publicis Sapient puts it: “Data is no longer the currency. Trust is.” Marketers who rely too heavily on automated content risk flooding their audiences with noise instead of building loyalty. The goal isn’t just personalization—it’s customer lifetime value through trusted, connected experiences.

For experience leaders, the stakes are immediate. A chatbot that frustrates customers can damage trust more quickly than any human agent. AI-driven experiences must feel cohesive across every channel, not like isolated experiments. That requires aligning incentives across teams, not just adding another dashboard.

And in commerce and sales, employees are experimenting with generative tools to draft proposals, automate outreach and even spin up new product ideas. That creates risk, but also shows the opportunity: outcome-based pricing models, subscription services and entirely new categories of digital products. The challenge for leaders isn’t just inventing the next sales model—it’s catching up to the grassroots innovation already happening inside their own teams.

The through-line is clear: AI adoption is as much about culture and trust as it is about technology.

The C-suite has never faced a challenge quite like this. You’re not initiating the revolution—you’re trying to lead one already in progress. Employees are moving faster than corporate structures. Customers expect seamless, AI-powered experiences. Competitors are experimenting in ways you may not see until it’s too late.

The companies that win won’t be the ones with the most advanced algorithms. They’ll be the ones that build organizations capable of adapting continuously, learning from employees as well as guiding them.

The AI revolution won’t wait for your carefully orchestrated change management plan. It’s already happening—with or without your permission. The choice is whether you lead it intentionally, or let it reshape your business from the bottom up.