AI Literacy Without the Hype: How Leaders Can Adopt AI the Right Way

In this episode, we sit down with Jamie Kimes, founder of The Idea Garden, to break down what AI literacy really means for leaders, teams, and organizations. This conversation cuts through the fear, hype, and jargon to focus on practical, responsible AI adoption that keeps humans at the center.

Main talking points:

• What AI actually is (and what it’s not)
• Why process and data matter before AI ever does
• How to use AI safely and responsibly in your organization
• Basic prompting skills anyone can learn
• Identifying real AI use cases vs. forcing AI where it doesn’t belong
• Addressing fear, ethics, and long-term human impact
• Why AI adoption must start with people, not technology

Whether you’re non-technical, highly technical, or leading AI adoption inside your organization, this episode will help you move from fear to clarity—and from curiosity to confidence.

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Transcript

Welcome And Topic Framing

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the IPX Tree North Podcast, where we connect people, processes, and tools.

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Hey, welcome back, everyone. Today we're talking about AI literacy. And joining me today is someone who's been at the forefront of building responsible, accessible, and confidence-building AI education, Miss Jamie Kimes. So the she's really the architect behind our new one-day training experience as well, called the AI Literacy Lab. So, Jamie, thank you so much for coming. I'm really excited to have you here today.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

Excited to be here too. And Brandy, I love that you use the word confidence in there because when we talk about tech confidence, it's all about that. We don't necessarily have to know everything, right? But all of us should be able to at least feel confident in conversation and our work when we're dealing with things like AI or any kind of technology.

Jamie’s Background And Mission

SPEAKER_01 0:54

Love it. I love it. And I think some people are still, you know, they're some people are excited, some people are dabbling, some people are terrified. And so um I accept all of the above answers. Exactly. It's all all is welcome. That's right. All of it. So um, and so those who did uh were fortunate enough to attend our Light X conference last year in October in 2025 had the pleasure of meeting you and hearing you on stage. Um, but for those who have not, uh, would you mind just taking a minute, introduce yourself and share anything about your background that you'd love to have people know about you? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 1:30

So, Jamie Kimes, I'm the founder of a company called the Idea Garden. And the mission for our company is to nurture creativity, nurture human creativity. And that might sound like it doesn't necessarily fit with tech, but we see technology and human creativity as just right there. And we got really involved in the AI space because of its impact on human creativity. And Brandy, you were all about process, right? And these things like human creativity, process, they're the timeless things that no matter what kind of technology comes, we have to stay focused on these timeless things and then learn how to integrate what's new into that. So that's how we got into AI. Um, we love humans, and AI is having a big impact on humans.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Yes, yes, it is. So I love that. So let's start with the big picture a little bit first. And you know, AI is everywhere, right? It's in our boardrooms, in our classrooms, and um, but there's still, like we said, a lot of confusion and even some fear around it. So that's why I, you know, I feel like it's important for us to help lead that discussion as well and make sure people get comfortable in this space. And um, and that's why we're really excited to offer the the one-day um course with you on this. Um, so tell me a little bit um when you planned this curriculum for the IPX audience, were there any specific gaps that you were trying to fill there or something different than you would from a standard audience?

SPEAKER_02 2:56

The IPX audience has a value for CM2, right? And there's this value for process and that we were saying about the timeless. And I think that makes them very well positioned to go into what we're calling the AI era for lack of a better word, because you're never going to get good AI without good process and good data. So we are focusing on the fact that we already have an audience that understands the value of process, which is not always the case everywhere else.

Process, Data, And The AI Era

SPEAKER_01 3:26

Yeah, I I like that because I I like to frame up AI as, you know, it's really no different than any of the other digital tools that we're using. Exactly. So, you know, it's um so having that good solid foundation first is always going to be be a really great approach uh to making any kind of digital tool more efficient and effective for you and and to to really get the benefits that they promise.

SPEAKER_02 3:49

The one thing that is maybe a little bit different, not about the technology itself, but about the impact of the technology, is that it is causing more of an existential or emotional reaction in humans. So it is something that for organizations to be aware of, even if you are great and you're moving ahead with the AI, are you taking the time to make sure that all of the humans are on board with that? And have we addressed the emotional and ethical component as well?

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Yes, very important. I think um it, I think people do have a little bit of a different reaction, right? We're we're talking to things being automated or machines, you know, doing some work that humans are doing. Um, in some ways, this is no different, but in some ways we're having a very different emotional reaction to that. And I think not addressing that is definitely a missed opportunity.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

Exactly. But not agree with you more on that.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

So walk us through a little bit for this one-day lab. What are the core takeaways that that students would receive?

SPEAKER_02 4:49

Um, so there's pretty much three core takeaways that you're gonna have, or maybe let's say four. You're gonna understand what it is and how it works. You're going to understand how to be safe with it, how to be safe with your data in it, et cetera. You're gonna understand basic prompting or prompt engineering at a basic level, maybe kind of up to intermediate. I'd say basic though. Don't expect it to be advanced. Um, and but if you are advanced, don't worry about that because you'll be given language to help communicate it to people who maybe don't know it as well as you do. So feel free to come even if you're advanced. Um, one thing that we do find in terms of a learning outcome is people leave it being much more curious instead of afraid. We get that all the time of I came in and I was scared, I left and I was curious. And now I want to kind of go and try it out and figure out how it does or does not work for me in my role.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Okay. All right. I think that helps a lot. And another thing that I do like about this specific training is, you know, again, like sometimes people think that, you know, especially coming from IPX, that it's for engineers or data scientists, but it's not just for those technical folks. And so who is the course designed for and what kind of participants can can really get some good things out of it?

SPEAKER_02 6:06

It's too general, right? To say everyone, we actually have had almost everyone in the sessions, but I would say the content is great if you're non-technical. And it's great if you're highly technical and want to learn how to communicate this content to non-technical people. So those are the two sides. Um, if you're an absolute beginner, you're going to be okay. And if you're advanced, you're, you're not going to probably learn something new about how the how to actually use AI, but you are going to have language to communicate with.

Emotional And Ethical Stakes Of AI

SPEAKER_01 6:39

And one thing about your teaching approach that that I really love is is the simple language, right? The real life examples and and like you're saying, the hands-on prompting that help people, you know, come, you know, from any angle and and not feel like they're worried about jargon, et cetera. So how how do you approach making AI feel really accessible for those who may be a little bit intimidated by the technology?

SPEAKER_02 7:07

I think of the things that everyone understands. And how can we relate something new like AI to something we already understand? And so we use a lot of metaphors, we use a lot of non-technical language and introduce some technical language, but not until we really understand that concept. That's why we get a lot of feedback back where people say, Thank you so much for meeting me where I'm at. Thank you so much for using non-technical language, thank you so much for making it so that now I can be curious and excited about this instead of afraid. Um, and we do that by saying, where is something that we can find common ground that we all understand and then go into the unfamiliar from there?

SPEAKER_01 7:46

Okay. All right. And thinking again about maybe the outcomes now and the changes you often see in the participants, maybe by the end of the day, like what does confidence look like in practice?

SPEAKER_02 8:01

The biggest thing I think is that they come in and even if they've never touched anything like generative AI, they want to go and try it. I think that's one of the big things. And what I said about they're not afraid anymore. That's a big thing. Definitely feeling much more comfort comfortable in conversation about it, not afraid to talk about it because they have an understanding of what it is. Um, the word demystification is very overused, I think, sometimes, but I do think that they leave with it very demystified. And it doesn't feel like this big thing that you have to have 10 years of schooling to understand. It's like, oh no, we can we can figure this out. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Understanding what's happening behind the scenes, yeah. Um, feeling a little more confident about how it works and, you know, how to use it. And, you know, I think the one of the chapters that that you have is titled, you know, we can, but should we? Which is really an important question. And I know, you know, in our personal lives, maybe this is not something that that we care too much about when we're just diving in and, you know, messing around and having a good time and enjoying this this little R2D2 friend of ours, you know, that we're car now starting to, you know, carry around too long in our pocket. But I think for work, I think it's really important. I think we need to make sure that we think before we act. And so how do you help students think about the ethics piece, you know, that transparency and responsible use without kind of overwhelming them or making them scared?

What The One-Day Lab Teaches

SPEAKER_02 9:33

What's interesting, Brandy, is that a lot of people are thinking about those things on their own already. And just the fact that we bring it up and allow us to talk about it. Let's talk about those things. We say that we look at ethics and we're not afraid of it. We stare it right in the face, say, okay, what about artists and copyright? What about the effects on the environment? What about our humans getting dumber? What's going to happen not in five years, but 10 years and 20 and 50 years? And what can we do today to influence the impact of this technology tomorrow? It's something that we're all thinking about anyway, and we want to have places to talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

Yeah. Yes, definitely. And I know, you know, as we're browsing and scrolling, we see a ton of people trying to teach and learn um about AI. There's workshops out there. There's a lot of training, self-training, and paid training. What makes the AI Literacy Lab unique in the market from your vantage point?

SPEAKER_02 10:33

That we start and end with humans. I think we're not trying to force humans to keep up with technology. We're trying to meet humans where humans are and say, this is your decision, your organization's decision. Do you want to do something with AI? Do you not want to do something with AI? Now you have the information to make a decision that no one else can make for you. A lot of the other trainings are very focused on the technical aspects of the technology. And we take a holistic approach of yes, there is this technology aspect for sure, but there's an organizational, a human aspect, an environmental aspect, and all of these things need to be considered with something as groundbreaking as AI is.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

Okay. I like that. And I'm thinking about, you know, people coming in and trying to identify things that will work for them, how to make their lives more efficient, more effective. What are some of those things? Um, and also from a bigger picture perspective of how do they identify opportunities and things within their organization, of maybe where that they could change the system level, not where it's just the things they're working on, but from a bigger picture from a system. Um, tell me a little bit about how you teach people how to identify opportunities.

SPEAKER_02 11:51

That is, I forgot to say that on the learning outcomes. That is one of them is that we teach you how to identify an AI use case or a place where AI will fit. Um, that's actually a whole lesson, a whole section of this AI literacy lab is all about identifying AI use cases. Um, what you'll find is that AI is not always the right tool, but when it is the right tool, it's going to be very effective. It can get you, you can have really strong quick wins today. And then you can start thinking about okay, long-term, five year, three year, what are those operational things that we want to do where we can really leverage this technology? So quick wins in both future use cases.

Who The Course Is For

SPEAKER_01 12:32

And the way I think about it too, it is along similar lines is, you know, we're right now everybody's looking for ways to find, you know, some things that take a lot of time in their life for their job. And let's just try to automate some of those things, get those personal efficiencies just to make us more effect efficient and effective on a daily basis. Uh, but for me, when I think about as every individual does that, then you're starting to slowly change the way that you work, your own process of what you do. You're changing that. You're changing what data is accessible to you, you're changing the way you make decisions. And so starting to think about that and scaling that up within your businesses and with the people that you work with and the interfaces that you have, it's going to start doing that for everyone. So thinking about it from that systems level of now our workflow is changing, the way we do work, the way we make decisions, and all that is starting to evolve over time. And I think just being aware that that's happening will help us identify some of those bigger opportunities of where because we we certainly just don't want to help help individual functions work more efficiently and effectively. And I think that's those are positives, those are near-term positives. But how do we think about the way we work together? And sometimes so much of what we do has to be standardized data or you know, just formatted data, um, structured data per se. And AI opens that up for us that we don't necessarily have to have those consistencies. It can, it can, it can do a lot of that, that work for us. So I think that there's just some different opportunities than what we typically have with our standardized data. Um, and thinking about an unstructured data opportunity is is really cool.

SPEAKER_02 14:25

So and something for our organizations to think about is gamification can really help in identifying those as well. I mean, if you have something, probably the best AI use cases are going to be found from boots on the ground people who are communicating back what they're doing. And if they can have a gamified place where it's tell us when you find something that just benefits you. Now it's somebody who benefits you and your team. Now it benefits you, your team, and another team. Right. And then we start getting into that system thinking after everyone has the foundations.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

Yes. It's it's reinforcing that behavior, right? Making it fun. And I know gamification kind of sounds like you know you're you're you're making something, you know, more of a game out of it, but but really that is what what people think is fun. And if we can do that in general, is highlight those opportunities and be able to showcase those, share those, and bring that visibility. I think it's it's just a fun opportunity in a fun environment and culture of change and people bringing ideas to the table. And you never know where those those ideas can go. I think that that has kind of I just don't see that a lot in organizations today. So I think bringing that back of that culture of change and ideas, and there's, you know, is is really important uh from a leadership perspective.

SPEAKER_02 15:44

Especially as AI is coming in, and one of the things is how will that impact human creativity? How will it impact critical thinking, etc.? It's really important to keep people engaged as we're going into this future at the best of what humans are, and at our best, we're very, very creative.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

Oh yeah. And and I love the ability to share with others, right? It your ideas, you can talk with someone else and you can learn together and capitalize on on some of those things together as with shared knowledge as opposed to to just just isolated siloed knowledge. So, well, Jamie, before we wrap up, I guess if someone is still on the fence about joining this one-day course, it's only one day. So I mean, that's low risk, and I guess it it could really have a lot of huge benefits. What would you say to them?

Making AI Accessible And Clear

SPEAKER_02 16:32

I would say, what made you curious to get on the fence at all? You know, what is the thing that, what's the question that you have in your mind that makes you even consider taking this course? If you want to understand AI a little bit better, understand what it is, how it works, so it's not mysterious to you. If you want to understand prompting, whether or not you use it or not, if you want to understand that, if you want to know how to look into your organization or into your own workflows and say, this is where AI would fit. Um, and if you want to even have an ethical understanding of how this is impacting the world, then just come and just try. Just try it out. And we'd love to have you be curious.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

Be curious is absolutely right. And just be open and have fun and and uh and you never know what you might walk away with. So um, and you know, to our listeners, I I guess, you know, if if anyone is interested in this course, we've had a couple public courses that are offered already on the table for us. So please feel free to reach out and ask more and uh in and you can register online or or just give us an email or a call, and we're happy to help and answer any questions. Um, we also do have tailored and custom courses that can also be available. So we're open to creating something specific, um, time-wise or uh content-wise as well that may uh suit your specific needs or or your teams, your organizations. So thank you so much, Jamie, for joining us and for leading this really important work with us. And uh, we look forward to seeing people in class. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 18:06

Thank you, Brandy. See you again soon. Bye. Bye.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

Thank you for tuning in today. Don't forget to subscribe and review the show. And for more information on IPX, visit ipshq.com.