How One Team Shaped AI Before It Shaped Their Jobs
24 Jun 2026
Most teams are told how AI will change their work. This one wrote that story themselves.
Yesterday I spent the (hot) afternoon with the legal and operations team of Implico Group, who chose to shape AI before it shaped them. And they did it with curiosity and a lot of courage.
This was our second workshop together. Here is what we built.
→ We hunted for use cases. The everyday work that quietly eats hours. By session two they were building their own agents to take work off their hands.
→ We unbundled the job. A role is not one thing. It is a basket of tasks. So we took the basket apart and asked one question for each: in two years, is this you, AI, or both?
→ We found the line. When you strip out everything AI will do, what stays is striking. Responsibility. Judgment. Accountability. The human connection you cannot delegate. Your job title may change. That part will not.
→ We drew an AI target picture for 2028. Not the tools. The why. What a normal day looks like in two years, and just as important, the boundaries. What AI will never do here.
The best moment was watching them build it together. Out loud. Disagreeing, then deciding. A team moves at the speed of the team, not the speed of one manager. This one is moving.
Enrico Bille thank you for trusting me and The Change Republic and your hospitality in Hamburg. And Legal and Operations team, you rock 💛
Could your team use a session like this?
How teams shape AI instead of bracing for it
Most teams meet AI as something happening to them. A tool arrives. A policy lands. Someone announces a target. The people doing the actual work are the last to be asked. I think that order is backwards, and this workshop was proof of the alternative.
We started by taking a job apart. A role is never one thing. It is a basket of tasks stacked on top of each other. So we emptied the basket and held up each task on its own, and asked one question. In two years, is this you, AI, or both? When you strip out everything a machine will do, what is left is sharper than people expect. Responsibility. Judgment. Accountability. The human connection you cannot hand to anyone, human or machine.
Then we drew a picture of 2028. Not the tools. The why. What a normal day looks like in two years, and just as important, the lines the team will not cross. What AI will never do here. A boundary is not a limit. It is a decision made on purpose, before the pressure arrives.
The best part was watching them build it out loud. Disagreeing, then deciding. A team moves at the speed of the team, not the speed of one manager. That only happens when the trust is already there. I wrote about that in how leaders build high-trust teams in times of change.
If you want to run a version of this conversation with your own team, I have a free What AI Can't Hear pack. It gives you the seven listening behaviours from my TEDx talk plus ten practical questions you can use to talk about AI without fear or confusion. Leave your email here and I will send it over: https://www.thechangerepublic.com/free-resources