by Howard Pyle

Over the last year, I’ve found myself in the same conversation again and again—with startup founders, with enterprise leaders, with individual contributors trying to keep up: AI is everywhere, but most people still don’t know how to place themselves in this moment.

Originally, I wrote a book about it. It’s coming out from Fast Company Press. But not yet. I paused the release because I realized the book wasn’t enough. People don’t need more content right now. They need space to think, language to use, and support in figuring out what AI means for them, at work, in their careers, and in the context of the organizations they’re a part of.

So instead of launching a book, I’m launching a training program.

It’s called Intentional Technology. And it’s built to help people and organizations adopt AI in ways that are actually grounded: grounded in real work, real decisions, and what people actually care about.

What I’ve Seen

In my work helping companies build AI products, advising mission-driven startups, and leading digital transformation inside large corporations, the pattern is clear: most AI adoption efforts start with tools and training, but they don’t give people a way to understand how any of it fits into their job, their values, or their responsibilities.

We’ve created a language gap.

We expect people to show up to “AI training” and translate it into career value, team decisions, or responsible use, without ever giving them the context to do it.

What I’ve learned is that unless you ground AI in what people already know—what matters to them in their role, what they care about in their work—it doesn’t stick. It creates confusion, burnout, or worse: misalignment that shows up as risk, resistance, or regret.

So we built a training model that does the opposite.

Why This Is Personal

My experience shaped how I think about this. 

I’m so crushingly dyslexic, I couldn’t finish college. Barely finished high school. But like a lot of neurodivergent people, I have superpowers that just need the right enablement to really shine. The only reason I was able to navigate executive roles at places like IBM and MetLife is because I had the right tools - and the right coaching.

Technology has always been how I close the gap. It’s what lets me operate at parity. I’ve built my entire career around learning how to use tools that let me think clearly, work faster, and not get lost in noise. That’s part of why I’m so passionate about this work.

If people aren’t equipped with a way to make AI useful to them, we’re just recreating the same gap over and over. That’s what I’m trying to fix.

What We’re Offering

Intentional Technology is a live, coach-led training experience—delivered in two half-day sessions, online or in-person.

It’s built for teams who are already being asked to “do more with AI,” but haven’t been given the tools, framing, or space to do it responsibly.

Every participant builds:

• A personal AI plan that maps to their actual role
  
• A set of simple, repeatable decision practices
  
• A shared understanding of where AI supports their goals, and where it shouldn’t be used
  

This isn’t a tool tutorial. It’s not prompt engineering. It’s not ethics theory. It’s a human-centered approach to AI enablement, focused on clarity, productivity, and trust.

Everyone who participates gets:

• A workbook based on the Intentional Technology book
  
• A decision-making blueprint and personalized AI toolkit they build in-session
  
• A visual system they can reference and reuse
  
• Optional follow-up coaching to embed it inside the org
  

We also built this to be flexible. We’ve used it with nonprofits, public-sector teams, global brands, and founders. It adapts to different roles and levels of technical comfort. The only requirement is that the people in the room are already thinking about the future of their work, and need a better way to get there.

The Team Behind It

I’m not doing this alone.

Intentional Technology is co-led by a group of facilitators with deep experience across leadership development, talent strategy, technology transformation, and career coaching. Some have helped scale high-growth companies. Others have spent their careers guiding nonprofit teams through change. Together, we’ve designed this program to serve real people, inside real systems.

Here are some of the amazing people who have signed on as collaborators: 

Adam Santos-Coy, PCC is an ICF-certified coach and Chief Performance Officer, Adam helps leaders and teams navigate complexity with clarity and integrity. His work bridges executive coaching, organizational performance, and transformational change across creative, corporate, and mission-driven sectors.

Freddie Helrich, PCC is an ICF-certified executive coach and former HR leader with 25+ years of experience guiding individuals and organizations through change. With a focus on identity, resilience, and career growth, Freddie works across media, technology, education, healthcare, supply chain, and social impact sectors to help leaders build clarity, confidence, and lasting connection.

Melissa Heebink, ACC is an  ICF-certified coach, senior recruiter, and talent advisor with over 25 years in executive search. She’s helped hundreds of organizations adapt their hiring and retention strategies and brings insight into how AI is reshaping the employee journey from both sides of the table.

Bruce Faulk has two decades of experience in global talent acquisition and executive search. He’s led recruiting functions at GroundTruth, built regional sales teams for Experian Marketing Services, and now runs GCN RPO, a minority-owned search firm. Bruce focuses on how hiring, upskilling, and retention all evolve as organizations adopt AI tools.

We’re also fortunate to have deep collaboration from our board members at Experience Futures, including Miye McCullough and Utibe Bassey. Both are helping shape the program and will be stepping in to help lead trainings and advise on our collaborations with partner organizations.

Miye is a nonprofit governance and communications strategist who helps mission-driven organizations embed ethical decision-making and stay aligned with their values. Utibe is a global customer experience executive and author of Love as a KPI, with a career spent aligning technology, operations, and leadership at scale.

I'll personally be leading our training work for the foreseeable future. I founded Experience Futures in 2021 with the goal of helping empower people with AI. I’ve led brand and digital transformation at IBM and MetLife, advised mission-driven startups, and built this platform to close the gap between innovation and human clarity.

Why This Matters

At its core, Intentional Technology is about integrity in everyday decision-making.
Not just the big, strategic kind that happens in boardrooms—but the small, constant choices that shape how people actually work:
What tool do I use?
What do I share with it?
How do I check if the output’s wrong?
How does using AI in this way affect my customers? My career? My day-to-day experience?
How do I stay aligned with my goals and my organization’s values?

We believe every person in an organization should be empowered to answer those questions—confidently, responsibly, and not just for themselves, but on behalf of the teams and missions they serve.

That’s what this is for.

If you’re interested in learning more or bringing this training to your team, click here to book an intro call or feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. Also, check out the overview at xfutures.org/training.

We're live. Let’s make AI something people feel confident using. For their work, their teams, and their future.

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