Future-proofing your business in the age of artificial intelligence can’t be simply about the technology. The true power of AI emerges only when people are empowered to experiment with it and learn from it. That requires a strategic commitment to building a culture of trust, transparency and collaboration.

It’s been said that fear is a great motivator. We believe that confidence is a more powerful catalyst. While technology is a critical component, AI is unlocked through culture — and not just from those with AI expertise or technical ambition. We’ve found that great ideas often come from the edges, from the people with real-world problems to solve.  At our company, we emphasize that through the Mastercard Way, built on behaviors such as “learn and pivot” and “help each other be great.” These principles create a safe environment for innovation and responsible experimentation.

We are also transparent and proactive in educating our employees on the responsible use of AI, how to augment their capabilities with AI, and helping them understand AI implications for the workforce and their jobs in particular.

We’ve developed a tiered strategy to make sure our employees feel prepared regardless of where they are in their AI journey or the role they have. Our first, most foundational level of education for employees starts with building AI literacy for all and demystifying enterprise-level AI tools through online AI learning resources, in-person and virtual learning sessions led by in-house experts, and speaker events with industry leaders and hands-on workshops.

For a recent meeting-free day, we launched an AI Takeover, with a slate of learning opportunities resulting in a huge uptick in engagement with our AI tools. At our annual Own Your Career program, thousands attended bespoke sessions for AI for their respective roles, from software engineering to data science to product managers to consultants. And our Discovery Days, where employees around the globe can immerse themselves in the technology at our Mastercard Experience Centers, help them better understand how we’re applying AI to make commerce smarter, safer and more personalized, and where we expect to make an impact.    

And we learn from each other: Our AI & Data Science Guild fosters collaboration and knowledge-sharing among those employees, and as a complement, we evolved another AI group into the AI Enthusiast Collective, where any interested employee can share the latest AI developments, explore new applications and surface opportunities to pilot the latest tech.

Make no mistake — there are roles that might be changed by AI, but we are committed to helping employees understand the impact and prepare them to be ready for the future. The technology is also creating new jobs and increasing demand for others — all to harness the very human qualities it lacks, from ethical oversight to adding contextual insights shaped by empathy.

As automated chatbots become more adept at handling employee questions, our People & Capabilities team can use their cognitive skills to offer more strategic guidance to their business unit partners. In other parts of the company, many junior employees might spend much of their time compiling reporting, a responsibility that is likely to be disrupted by AI. But it’s also a job family that is likely well-suited for entry-level data science or other data-related roles, and they will bring experience with that type of process and products.

At Mastercard, we’re helping employees be future ready by focusing on skills over titles or degrees. Through our Unlocked platform, a talent marketplace (powered by, of course AI) our employees are gaining access to learning, mentoring, open jobs and real projects that build confidence, competence and proficiency in the most in-demand and emerging roles and skills like AI. This quarter, the platform reached 1 million project hours. To date, 93% of our employees are registered, and an average of 42% engage with the platform on a monthly basis — and a third of those who engaged saw a career move.

Quickly pivoting based on data is also critical: For example, we use regular employee surveys to help monitor sentiment and adapt our strategies as needed. We are taking a measured approach to deploying coding assistants. We gathered feedback during the phased rollout to refine training and found that engineers with prompt training were much more effective at using these assistants than those who weren’t trained. So we started incorporating that kind of training for subsequent users to maximize impact and set people up for success.

Many people are worried about AI replacing human jobs. The reality is that AI serves as an amplifier to human capabilities: humility, compassion, judgement, agility and curiosity among them. These cognitive skills reinforce the truth that humans will always be in the loop and in the driver’s seat. 

We encourage our employees to use AI in support of their personal effectiveness, such as time management, and to automate administrative and repetitive tasks, which will help free up time to focus on their growth and development, and their well-being — which in turn also fuels their performance and growth.

One standout use case is in the hiring process. We’re harnessing AI for interactions with prospective job candidates, so our talent acquisition team can spend more time building relationships with strong candidates and consulting with the business on their needs instead of administrative tasks. This improves the experience for both Mastercard and potential hires — with AI, our interviews are now scheduled within 24 hours, making the hiring experience move faster.

As AI helps with productivity, we’re also prioritizing internal use cases that scale and create capacity with projects. Take our Product Onboarding Assistant — a generative AI-powered support tool designed to help customer-facing employees quickly retrieve accurate answers to product and implementation questions, reducing complexity and accelerating time to revenue. It synthesizes information from verified documentation and stakeholder feedback, improving customer experience, driving an 11% year-over-year increase in closed projects. The tool helps a multitude of roles at Mastercard work smarter and more collaboratively, including project managers, product managers and business operations teams.

Our leaders are also encouraged to use AI to augment their impact, reducing burnout and increasing effectiveness. Again, Unlocked acts as a partner to those leaders in developing their team and planning their workforce to meet the needs of their business. We have also launched an AI coach with which they can role play different scenarios, such as having a difficult conversation with an employee, and receive real-time feedback. Employees from all levels have used the tool and have reported it to be more realistic than they anticipated, often forgetting they were interacting with an AI at all. 

Future-proofing your business for an AI world can’t happen without the people to build with AI and use it. Inspiring employees to embrace AI doesn’t happen in a silo and it won’t happen overnight. It takes collaboration with a shared purpose across functions, regions and businesses, and leaders who balance speed and rigor.

At Mastercard, we encourage teams to act, not wait for permission. We empower everyone to think critically and responsibly about how AI can improve what they do. That means being open to testing, learning and pivoting — and not letting perfection get in the way of progress.