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AI Is Changing Your Company Culture Whether You Planned for It or Not. Here’s How to Shape What Happens Next.

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Published 10/14/2026 1:30:00 PM

How AI Is Changing Your Company Culture — and How to Respond

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Key Takeaways

Employees are finding ways to incorporate AI into their work faster than many organizations can create policies, norms or expectations around its use.
The leadership question is no longer simply, “Should our people use AI?” It’s: “Are the ways people are using AI strengthening the culture we say we want or unintentionally working against it?”

In the past few years, the use of AI has accelerated. An employee asks AI a question they once would have discussed with a colleague. A presentation that used to take all day is ready before lunch. Is this a good change? Or not?

It’s hard to know since we’re adopting this new technology so quickly that establishing policies and strategies for its use often lag behind.

Your AI culture is forming before your AI policy

The use of AI to research, draft, analyze, summarize and solve problems is rapidly reshaping how people work together. As new habits take hold, expectations about speed, collaboration and good work shift. That’s how AI starts changing a company’s culture. Too often, those changes take hold before leaders have considered how AI use can reinforce the company’s core values.

Gallup’s 2026 research gives us a glimpse of how differently employees are experiencing these changes. At workplaces that had implemented AI, 24% said their culture had improved over the past year, while 25% said it had worsened. These two extremes show that AI alone doesn’t determine the outcome. The choices that leaders make about how AI is used are what really matter.

AI is rewriting the unwritten rules of work

As AI becomes part of the workday, leaders face three key tradeoffs. How leaders handle these clearly signals to employees what the organization values — and what it doesn’t

Speed vs. critical thinking

A report that once took five hours now takes one. That’s helpful, but someone still needs to question the findings and decide what they mean. If the response is “produce more reports,” there may be little time left for thinking, only doing — and the quality of output might suffer.

Access to information vs. collaboration

An employee can ask AI a product question instead of calling someone in R&D. That saves both people time, but they lose a conversation. The employee may never learn why a decision was made, and R&D may never hear what customers are asking. If that keeps happening, it becomes harder for the teams to solve problems together.

Efficiency vs. workload

What happens to the time AI saves? It could give someone room to tackle a harder problem, build a skill or work with another team. Or it could simply mean more work is expected, and the risk of burnout increases.

AI doesn’t make those choices. Leaders do — and over time, their choices become the unwritten rules of work.

Use AI to reinforce the culture you actually want

It’s easy to focus on whether employees are using AI correctly and miss how it’s changing the way they work with one another. Deloitte calls the problems that build up when organizations focus on how people use AI but overlook its effect on how they work together “cultural debt.” Leaders can start to prevent it by taking the values their organizations already talk about and making clear what those values look like when people use AI.

Collaboration: Let AI handle straightforward questions. When a decision would benefit from a colleague’s experience, make time for that conversation.

Critical thinking: An AI-generated answer is a place to start. Check the facts, ask what might be missing, and decide for yourself what the information means.

Learning: Give people room to try AI tools and talk openly about what worked, what didn’t and what they discovered along the way.

Trust: Make sure everyone knows when to say they’ve used AI, who checks the work and who is responsible for the final result.

Strategic thinking: When AI saves time, leave room to tackle a harder question or think through a decision before adding more tasks.

This is how the values on the wall become part of the workday. Our executive coaches see a lot of scenarios where teams get it right and wrong. Here are a couple of examples that positively reinforced the company’s values.

A manager asked their team to use AI to prepare for a client meeting, then brought them together beforehand to test that preparation. What did the tool assume about the client? What questions were still unanswered? What did someone on the team know that isn’t in the summary? The team went into the meeting better prepared, and the process reinforced the habit of learning from one another — before relying on an AI-generated answer.

A team used AI to sketch out options for a new project, then gathered colleagues from other departments before choosing a final direction. Their colleagues spotted practical problems the team missed and had a chance to explain how a proposed change would affect their work. AI tools helped people get started, but the decision was better because they made it together.

AI is already changing the pace of work and the way people turn to one another for help. Leaders can shape those changes by making their values visible in everyday decisions: giving people time to think, encouraging them to seek a colleague’s perspective and recognizing care as well as speed. The question isn’t only how much work AI can take off people’s plates. It’s what you want people to do with the time and attention it gives back — and whether that brings your team closer to the culture you want.

Bringing AI into your organization deserves the same attention you’d give to a new hire or a new department. You need to think through how it fits and how it will affect the people already there. That care helps you build a culture by choice rather than by default.

Key Takeaways

Employees are finding ways to incorporate AI into their work faster than many organizations can create policies, norms or expectations around its use.
The leadership question is no longer simply, “Should our people use AI?” It’s: “Are the ways people are using AI strengthening the culture we say we want or unintentionally working against it?”

It’s hard to know since we’re adopting this new technology so quickly that establishing policies and strategies for its use often lag behind.

Your AI culture is forming before your AI policy

Effective product pages help online shoppers decide whether an item fits their needs and what buying it involves. A beautiful photograph gets attention. Product details such as dimensions, available sizes, delivery details, and a clear price help turn that attention into a purchase.

Even established retailers miss these basics. In its benchmark of leading U.S. and European retailers, updated in March 2026, Baymard Institute rated 52% of desktop sites and 62% of mobile sites “mediocre or worse” for product-page usability¹.

Product-page changes can affect revenue, too. In a 27-day test for Life Pro Fitness, agency Media Contour made product images, key details, and buying buttons visible without needing to scroll. Testing vendor Wingify reported that the revised page generated $0.67 more revenue per visitor than the original².

If you are building a new store, follow the five tips below as you create your product pages. Have those pages ready before running ads that send shoppers to them.

If you already have an online store, choose one product page to improve. Reference these steps to check whether it answers shoppers’ questions and lets them add the right item to their cart.

1. Answer shoppers’ questions in the product description

Identify the main question a shopper needs answered before buying. Look for questions customers ask repeatedly or misunderstandings behind returns. For a new product, start with fit, compatibility, or what is included. Confirm the answer against your product specifications, then put it near the start of the description.

For example, consider a pet-supply retailer selling a dog harness. Someone choosing their first harness needs measurements and adjustment details to judge the fit. Someone replacing a harness they already own needs to recognize the same model and size. The page should make both tasks straightforward.

Also, use consistent labels and units across similar products to make comparisons easier. Include limitations, such as incompatible models or items sold separately, so shoppers can rule out an unsuitable purchase.

In e-commerce platform BigCommerce, for instance, online sellers can use the product description and custom fields—additional facts such as material or compatibility—to present these details. Preview the product page to check that shoppers can find the information they need.

Then, use those same facts to help shoppers recognize the item in search results. In BigCommerce’s page title field, use the product name and a relevant detail, such as its model or material. Avoid repeating keywords or giving every product the same title.

2. Give every product image a question to answer

Plan your gallery around what someone needs to inspect. Show the whole product, a useful detail, and the product in use. For example, a lighting retailer could photograph a lamp beside a chair to show its scale and how it lights a reading space. A close-up of the switch shows how someone would operate it. Together, these images help shoppers picture using the lamp at home. Keep written dimensions available as well.

The same Baymard overview describes how shoppers use images to judge size and can struggle when photographs lack a familiar reference.

If you sell a bundle, make clear which pictured items are included. For products that need assembly or demonstration, you might even consider creating a short video. Add alt text: a short description of the useful information in an image. Screen-reader software can read that description aloud or present it in braille. Keep essential instructions available as text as well.

BigCommerce supports product images, images for variants such as different colors, and YouTube-hosted product videos. Check that your gallery presents the right item as shoppers change their selection.

3. Make choices, prices, and recurring charges clear

Keep size, color, quantity, and purchase options close to the buying button. Label them plainly, show the current selection, and make unavailable choices recognizable. If the size options fit on the screen, show them as labeled buttons, such as S, M, and L. This lets shoppers see which sizes are available without opening a menu, as the Baymard overview explains.

Place helpful links beside the choice it explains. For the dog harness, for example, consider putting a measurement guide beside the size selector so shoppers can check the fit before choosing. Keep it visible or provide a clearly labeled link that works by touch and keyboard.

In BigCommerce, online sellers can configure choices such as size and color through product variants and options. Then check that the displayed price and availability match the shopper’s selection. For multipacks, show both the pack total and the unit price. Make the full pack price easy to find so shoppers know what they will be charged.

If you offer subscriptions, let shoppers explicitly choose between a one-time purchase and a recurring order. Put the recurring charge, delivery frequency, and change or cancellation terms beside that choice so shoppers can compare the commitments before selecting. Confirm that these terms match how your subscription service works. Select a subscription yourself and verify that checkout shows the plan, price, and frequency you chose.

4. Make sure delivery, returns, and reviews are easy to find

A shopper who needs an item by a particular date wants to know whether it will arrive in time. Show a delivery estimate for their destination. Put a short explanation of shipping and returns near add to cart, with links to the full policies.

Show shipping fees or explain how they will be calculated. Clearly describe return windows, fees, and exclusions that matter for the item. If pickup is offered, distinguish stock at the selected location from stock elsewhere. Avoid presenting an estimate as a confirmed promise.

Also consider making reassurances that are specific to the purchase. Using the dog harness as an example again, you’d want to explain whether a shopper can exchange it if the fit is wrong and which conditions apply. That answers the practical concerns that a badge saying “Shop with Confidence” leaves unresolved. Use only promises your business can honor.

Customer reviews provide another way to assess the product. Show the review rating, text, reviewer’s display name, and date on the relevant product page. If reviews come from another service, name that service. These details help shoppers understand whose experience they are reading and how recent it is.

5. Test the path from product page to cart

Shoppers need to know that the page has registered their choices and whether adding an item succeeded. Open your chosen product page on your phone. If a required option starts unselected, try adding the item before choosing it. The page should tell you what to select or explain why “Add to cart” is unavailable.

If the product has options, choose them, then change one selection. Check that the price, availability, and any option-specific images match. Add the item. While the request is processing, the page should make that clear. Once it succeeds, a confirmation or the cart itself should show what was added. If an error occurs, it should explain how to continue without losing other selections.

From there, make sure to check the item’s quantity, options, and price in the cart. If you chose a size or color, return to the product page and check whether it still shows that selection. These checks help catch a wrong selection or an uncertain result before a shopper encounters it.

Shoppers who cannot use a mouse need to select options and add products using a keyboard. To check that they can, repeat the steps above on a computer without the mouse. Use Tab to move forward between controls and Shift+Tab to move back. A visible outline or other marker should show which control you are about to use. Press Enter to activate links and Enter or Space for buttons. In a drop-down list, such as a size selector, use the arrow keys to move through the options.

Shoppers who need larger text must still be able to read product details and reach Add to cart. Use the browser’s Zoom control to enlarge the page to 200% and try the same steps again. Check for overlapping text or controls that disappear. Across all these checks, record anything that prevents choosing the product, adding it, or correcting a mistake.

Keep improving one page at a time

Clear facts and images help shoppers judge the product; clear choices, terms, and working controls help them act on that decision. Choose one issue from your review to fix first. Give priority to a problem that prevents adding the correct item to the cart. If shoppers can add the correct item, address an unanswered question that could lead someone to buy the wrong product.

Record what you changed and when. If you have sales reports, compare purchases and revenue for the product over equal periods before and after the change. Note any promotions or changes in visitor numbers that could also explain the results. Customer questions, order corrections, and return reasons can help you check whether the same misunderstanding persists.

For more examples, explore BigCommerce’s product-page guide, then apply the same review to the next product page.

¹^{Product Page UX 2026: 10 Pitfalls and Best Practices}^{(Baymard Institute)
2}^{Media Contour uses split URL testing to improve the revenue from product pages}^(Wingify)