Turning enterprise AI investment into measurable behavior change.
Overview.
When Inizio Engage XD invested in enterprise AI, adoption lagged behind ambition. Confidence was uneven, usage inconsistent and more than half of employees weren’t embedding GenAI into their day-to-day roles.
We applied behavioural science to diagnose the real barriers and design an activation journey that drove measurable behaviour change across the business.
Find out how our expertise in Behavioral Science, Listening and Communications turns strategy into sustained action.
The challenge.
Inizio Engage XD had invested significantly in rolling out enterprise AI platforms, including ChatGPT and Copilot, across the business.
But technology alone doesn’t change behaviour.
More than half of employees were not yet using GenAI tools in their day-to-day roles, despite strong appetite to do so. Confidence was uneven. Usage was inconsistent. Many were self-teaching – widening capability gaps across teams.
At the same time, client expectations were accelerating. AI needed to be visible, credible and embedded in workflows, not experimental or siloed.
The risk was clear: without activation, a major technology investment would remain underutilised.
This wasn’t simply a training need. It was a behaviour change and mindset challenge.
The insight.
Forty1 led with behavioral science.
We designed and deployed an AI maturity survey to benchmark capability, motivation and opportunity at a functional and team level. This allowed us to diagnose the real barriers to adoption, not just knowledge gaps, but confidence, perceived relevance, time pressure and a lack of understanding about what is expected when using AI at work.
The data revealed:
- A wide variation in AI confidence and usage across service lines
- A strong motivation to learn – if the experience felt relevant and safe
- A need for clearer leadership signalling and visible role modelling
Further insight.
Using these insights, we segmented employees into five distinct audience groups based on AI capability and behaviour – from early-stage users to confident adopters.
This segmentation became the foundation for the entire experience: differentiated learning pathways, tailored communications, and targeted engagement strategies.
Adoption would depend not just on what was taught, but on how it was activated.
Our approach.
We partnered with our sister agency Nazaré, award-winning learning specialists, to co-create ‘The AI Academy’ – a nine-week experience designed to move people from awareness to confident application.
Three targeted pathways
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1. Learn
Accessible, self-directed modules building foundational knowledge in promptcraft, responsible use and workflow integration.
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2. Explore
A community-of-practice, bringing together confident users to experiment, build real use cases and learn by doing.
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3. Speak
Leadership workshops and AI-powered simulations enabling senior talent to articulate AI’s value and role-model adoption.
The engagement approach.
Forty1 designed the behavioral activation layer that sat around the learning experience.
- Audience-led communications: Communications were personalised by segment and journey stage, using behavioral science principles to reduce friction and encourage participation. Tone of voice, format and cadence were deliberately differentiated to cut through organisational noise. Communications for the AI Academy were rated very highly, with all five measures scoring 4.3-4.4 out of 5.
- Co-created user journey: We mapped a structured experience across the nine weeks – designing anticipation, social reinforcement, accountability and celebration into the journey.
- Rapid iteration: We monitored participation patterns in real time and adapted communications accordingly, re-engaging busy audiences, addressing adoption barriers, and amplifying peer success stories.
- Leadership endorsement: We supported senior leaders with targeted communications and role-modelling tools to ensure visible, top-down advocacy. The result was not a static programme, but a responsive behaviour-change system.
Innovation in practice.
The Academy didn’t just teach AI – it used AI.
- AI-generated avatars and narration enhanced accessibility
- Simulation platforms provided safe environments for leadership practice
- Enterprise AI tools were embedded into the content creation and workflow design process
- Participants built real, business-relevant AI use cases during the programme
Learning was social by design, built around communities of practice that normalised experimentation and shared language.
The results.
Clear success measures were defined from the outset, aligned to the behavioural insights captured pre-programme.
1. Behaviour Shift
- Confidence using GenAI increased from 60% to 88%
- Perceived capability increased from 62% to 88%
- Employees identifying as “Active/Activated” or “Advocate/Enabler” increased from 35% to 82%
The Academy successfully moved people from awareness into action.
2. Platform Activation
Participants in the Explore pathway demonstrated significantly higher engagement with enterprise AI platforms compared to non-participants:
- 2.7x more messages sent
- 3x more agents engaged
- 3.6x more AI tools employed
Technology adoption accelerated significantly when structured, guided group learning accompanied platform access.
3. Tangible Business Outputs
- 44 real-world AI business use cases created across service lines
- 50 employees built and showcased new AI-enabled workflows
- Cross-functional cohorts strengthened collaboration across departments
AI was embedded into day-to-day operations – not treated as theoretical learning.
4. Leadership Readiness
- Leaders agreed they better understand (87%) how AI creates value
- Leaders agreed they feel equipped (73%) to lead AI-related conversations
- Leaders reported strong motivation (84%) to role-model AI adoption
AI fluency became part of leadership capability.
The impact.
The AI Academy didn’t just deliver training. It:
- Protected and activated a significant enterprise technology investment
- Shifted AI from uncertainty to shared momentum
- Built confidence, motivation and practical capability across the organisation
- Created a scalable, repeatable model for AI adoption
By combining behavioural science, segmentation and experience-led engagement, Forty1 helped turn AI from a tool people were curious about – into a capability they confidently use.
The live learning sessions were brilliant, followed up with clear prompts and reminders. The end showcase was fantastic, to see the diversity of uses.
I really appreciated learning within a community, it really was a shared learning experience.
I liked the focus on real-world application, structure/accountability to develop an AI solution to a current problem – tangible, useful outputs.
The interactions with my peers in our cohort was outstanding and opened up my confidence as we all went through it together.
Our expertise on this project.
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Listening
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Communications