Many organizations are investing heavily in AI tools, but the promised transformation is stalling. According to a new position statement from corporate AI training provider Teamland, the primary barrier is not the technology itself, but a critical gap in people's readiness and practical skills. The company is calling for an end to ineffective "training theater" and urging business leaders to shift their focus to practical upskilling that embeds AI into daily work habits to achieve measurable results.
Teamland warns that the corporate AI "gold rush" is stalling due to a lack of practical people readiness.
The company advocates for ending "training theater" like one-off workshops and slide decks.
Its solution focuses on building day-to-day AI habits through job-specific use cases and hands-on practice.
Leaders are urged to treat AI as a capability build, make it safe to practice, and measure adoption, not attendance.
Teamland's AI First® programs are designed to move teams from curiosity to confident, measurable use.
The company has trained over 25,000 professionals at companies like Amazon, Disney, and Google.
The core of Teamland's argument is that executives are facing a behavioral challenge, not a technological one. Traditional, theoretical training methods fail to change how work actually gets done. Teamland's approach is designed to bridge this gap by focusing on workflow-level adoption, using role-specific use cases and hands-on exercises to help employees build the confidence and habits needed to use AI effectively in their daily tasks.
"Executives don't have a tool problem, they have a behavior problem," said Najeeb Khan, CEO of Teamland. "Slide decks and one-off AI days don't change how work gets done. Habits do. Our AI First® programs move teams from curiosity to confident, measurable use."
Teamland's position statement outlines three critical actions for leaders who want to accelerate AI adoption and see fast results. First, they must treat AI as an ongoing capability build, directly tying training to real business processes and key performance indicators (KPIs). Second, leaders need to create psychological safety by providing sandboxes for practice and establishing "show your work" rituals to normalize learning and experimentation. Finally, measurement must focus on tangible adoption metrics like workflow usage and output quality, rather than simply tracking training attendance.
The urgency for this shift is high. Teamland posits that organizations which successfully operationalize AI now will compound their learning and build a significant competitive advantage over the next year. Conversely, companies that delay, waiting for perfect policies or more mature technology, risk being left behind by more agile competitors.
"Organizations that operationalize AI now will compound learning and competitive advantage over the next 12 months," added Khan. "Those that wait for perfect policies will watch faster competitors pass them."
Teamland delivers its AI First® programs—which include Fundamentals for literacy, Studio for role-based labs, and Strategy for leadership—virtually and on-site across North America and Europe.
Teamland is a global provider of corporate AI training and enterprise AI workshops, helping organizations operationalize AI and upskill employees fast. Through its trademarked AI First® programs (Fundamentals, Studio, and Strategy), Teamland delivers hands-on, outcomes-driven AI training for employees in virtual and in-person formats across North America and Europe. Trusted by teams at Amazon, Disney, Shopify, Google, and Spotify, Teamland has trained 25,000+ professionals worldwide.
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