The Challenge
UserTesting, a market-leading enterprise SaaS company, feared being disrupted by AI-native startups capable of matching their product at a fraction of the cost. Productivity was constrained by legacy workflows, and attempts to adopt AI tools were blocked by undeclared concerns from legal, security, and privacy teams — leaving the organization paralyzed before any meaningful change could begin.
What They Built
Kaj Van De Loo led a structured company-wide AI adoption program beginning with deliberate pre-alignment of legal, security, and privacy teams as advisors rather than gatekeepers — then rolling out enterprise ChatGPT licenses, custom GPTs integrated with internal data sources, an AI council, and employee-led hackathons.
Kaj Van De Loo began with a deliberate pre-alignment step, engaging legal, security, and privacy teams as advisors before any technology was introduced. The key move was clarifying that executive leadership — not compliance functions — owned the risk decisions. This repositioning removed the veto power these teams had been quietly exercising and surfaced undeclared concerns that could be addressed directly rather than allowed to quietly block progress. With organizational alignment secured, the program proceeded in structured phases. An AI council was formed with senior cross-functional representation to govern and champion adoption. Enterprise ChatGPT licenses were rolled out to all employees. Internal data sources were integrated into custom GPTs, giving employees AI tools grounded in the company's actual context. Employees were then invited to submit AI improvement ideas, which could be implemented directly. Hackathons held at OpenAI's San Francisco offices accelerated collaboration and built visible momentum across the organization. The full program unfolded over six to twelve months.
