What you'll learn
- Champions should reflect the organization, not just top performers.
- Early adoption must happen before formal rollout.
- Peer reinforcement beats top-down mandates every time.
Meet our guest
Those experiences became especially relevant when Ryan was asked to help roll out an internal AI-powered Customer Success Assistant. The tool was powerful—but power alone doesn’t drive adoption. What mattered was how people actually used it in their day-to-day work.
Adoption Doesn't Start at Launch. It Starts with Trust
Background context: When Ryan’s team first introduced the AI tool, they didn’t immediately form a champion network. Instead, they quietly placed it into the hands of early adopters—CSMs already experimenting with AI and new workflows.
There was no heavy structure. No rigid program. Just real work. “We told them: use it, break it, pressure test it—and tell us what doesn’t work.”
This early group surfaced practical use cases, prompt examples, and friction points long before the broader organization ever saw the tool.
By the time the official rollout happened, the tool already spoke the language of real users.
Seed Adoption
When it was time to build a formal champion network, Ryan made a deliberate choice: include skeptics.
Not everyone in the network loved AI. Some questioned its accuracy. Others worried about job displacement. Ryan wanted those voices represented.
“We wanted honest feedback, not cheerleaders.”
This created a champion group that:
- Reflected real concerns across the org
- Built credibility with peers
- Surfaced objections early, before they stalled adoption
Adoption spread because it felt authentic—not forced.
🎤 “We wanted honest feedback, not cheerleaders.” - Ryan Orner
Design Champions as Messengers
Champions weren’t asked to become enablement professionals. They weren’t running formal training sessions or building content libraries.
Their role was simpler—and more powerful:
- Share real examples in Slack
- Talk openly about wins and failures
- Normalize experimentation
Because champions were respected peers, their stories carried more weight than any official announcement.
Position as a Friction Reducer
At HubSpot’s in-person CS onsite, the rollout wasn’t framed as “Here’s a new AI capability.”
Instead, the message was: “We heard your friction—and this helps remove it.”
Ryan’s team connected the tool directly to:
- Call prep time
- Information overload
- Post-call follow-ups
Downloadable Resources
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