Embracing AI with a People-First Approach: Insights from Dee C. Marshall

What does it really look like to adopt AI in a way that puts people first? In this episode, we sit down with Dee C. Marshall, CEO and Managing Partner of AI Training Plus, to talk about workforce transformation, human-first AI adoption, and the future of work in an increasingly AI-powered world.

With a background spanning leadership development, workplace culture, and equity, Dee brings a grounded and thoughtful perspective to one of the biggest shifts businesses are facing today. She shares why AI adoption is not just about technology, but about people, policy, trust, and long-term business impact.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

-What “human-first AI adoption” really means
-Why businesses need an AI ethics policy now
-How AI can support—not replace—human creativity and critical thinking
-Common concerns leaders have around AI implementation
-Why small businesses need to start their AI journey sooner rather than later

Tune in as we explore how businesses can approach AI responsibly, prepare their teams for change, and build a future where innovation and human value go hand in hand.

The Riveo Impact Lab is produced for you by Riveo Creative. For more Riveo Impact Lab content, including the video versions of all our episodes, please visit https://riveocreative.com/riveo-impact-lab/.

Transcript

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Welcome to the Riveo Impact Lab, the podcast in which we explore what it means for small businesses to have real impact in an evolving world. On this podcast, we engage our curiosity around topics like sustainability, diversity and inclusion, and the ethical outcomes of our decisions, all from a small business perspective. Hi, I'm Emily. And I’m Elin, and we have a great episode for you today. As a reminder, we release episodes once a month on the second Thursday. So make sure to follow us on YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can support us by listening, sharing, or leaving a review. So today we're going to be sharing our interview with Dee C. Marshall, the CEO and Managing Partner of AI Training Plus. Besides being a successful CEO, Dee is also on the Board of Directors of the Women's Business Enterprise National Council. Also known as WBENC, and on the Board of Directors of Women Impacting Public Policy, which is a bipartisan organization that advocates for 14 million women business owners on Capitol Hill. She is a LinkedIn Top Voice on equity, a WBE star, and was named a 2025 NBIC best of the best SME for impact, a World Woman Davos delegate and a policy advisor. And most recently, she served on the transition team for the New Jersey governor elect, Phil Murphy. Her leadership influence is incredibly expansive, and she's worked with people from Wall Street and Washington all the way to West Africa. She is leading the charge on human first AI adoption and is the founder of Global AI Adoption Day. I'm personally someone who has a lot of questions and a lot of concerns when it comes to widespread AI implementation. And I really enjoyed getting to speak with Dee about some of those things, and hearing her perspective on a tool that's already affected all of us in some way or another and will only continue to have greater influence no matter what you think of it. So I thought Dee had some really interesting insights that I'm excited for everyone to hear. And Elin, can you talk a little bit about how you originally connected with Dee? Yeah, absolutely. So Dee and I are both part of WBENC that women’s organization for certified businesses, women owned businesses, and we both serve on The Forum, which is a small group of about 200 people that are part of the larger group which I believe has a membership of about 20,000 so it’s a much smaller group, and she and I are on the same committee. She’s part of the leadership of that committee and so I’ve only started to really get to know her but I’m always impressed by her. I loved your conversation and really thought she had some very important points to bring to the table, so I’m excited to share this with our listeners. Yeah. Me too. It's a big topic. Everyone's talking about it. If you have thoughts, we'd love to hear them so you can reach out to us, at info@riveocreative.com. But please enjoy this episode of the Riveo Impact Lab with Dee C. Marshall. Alright well, Dee, welcome to the Riveo Impact Lab. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to talk with me today. Oh, I’m excited to be here, thank you for inviting me. So as I was looking into your background and your career, you have a vast career. You've done a lot of things and made a lot of impact. So I'm just kind of curious. And we'll narrow it in the scope of our conversation today to talk a lot about AI. But could you just talk about your career background a little bit, give our audience a sense of who you are and where you are today. Yeah, yeah, you know, so background, I would say I started my career on Wall Street training million dollar producers. And so I'm not series seven or 63 license. I am on the leadership side. So I've always had in my background leadership development from Wall Street days and then had a defining moment on Wall Street that really changed my life. And then of course I went out on my own and continued to do work in training and development after having worked for the top fortune 500 corporations early on in my career. So that was really the beginning of like finding my passion, finding what I really love. And that was human development, which is otherwise known as training and development. But that was the, you know, the beginning and then continued, like I said, in launching out and starting a company and the company also focused on coaching, training, and development at that time. And then the next evolution became training and development and then diversity, equity, and inclusion. So the thread throughout my career has really been about people. It's really been about human development and in a corporate sort of lens or from a corporate perspective, we've always been in workforce solutions. That's what we do, right? We provide a solution to major corporations. Well, that's what I did when I worked on Wall Street, right? Training and development, it's really about providing a solution. So my career has really been a thread through training and development, learning and development change management, whether on Wall Street, starting my own company, and then, you know, just getting to do a lot of other interesting things that while it seems like it's a lot and it's you know in many different spaces it's all in human development and human impact so yeah. That's great. I love that you're able to kind of look at all of these things and find, like you said, that thread and that it's really human centered because I think that can make the work feel so meaningful no matter what part of it you're doing. You mentioned having a defining moment. I'm curious if you could talk a little bit more about that. Yeah, so you're not ready for this, Emily. How about... My first job, how about I worked on Wall Street on September 11th. Oh wow. Yeah, it was a defining moment. That was my first job. I loved working for the company that I was with at the time. I loved the idea of being, you know, a young girl on Wall Street. I worked with amazing people at the time. And I worked on the 33rd floor of One New York Plaza. And on that day, found myself walking down 33 flights of stairs and to cut it short, the day after was when I had a defining moment. And that defining moment was really about if I died yesterday, would I have any regrets? And so that was the defining moment. It really helped me to look a little bit deeper about my life, the meaning of life, purpose, and so on and so forth. I didn't want to just go back to Wall Street and continue on about the routine and the three o'clock Starbucks and that whole thing and so that was the defining moment that has really then led me into you know, a lot of different spaces as you mentioned. After that, I went to volunteer for my church you know after I left Wall Street because it was so traumatic and then I got offered a job for the church, which was then working for the Secretary of State. This is where it takes a lot of twists and turns, if you can see. And because he was the Secretary of State, then that's kind of leaning into the politics, which I'm sure you can see that I've always been somewhat adjacent to. you know, policy, legislation, even though I'm, I like to say I'm not political or nor am I a politico, but I've always been sort of adjacent to that space. Yeah. Wow, that’s quite a story. I got chills when you were talking, just thinking about being there in that moment. And of course, that would be a moment to like think about, am I doing what I want to be doing with my life? Early on, you were able to take this moment and do something with it. So I want to know a little bit about your decision to invest in teaching others about AI usage as part of your career path, because that's sort of a turn in the last couple of years that's a little bit different, but you're still talking about human centering these things. So how did that happen? Yeah, yeah, and I'll say just before I get to that Emily, just for your listeners to make it real, that September 11th moment, I think a lot of people can identify with it because everybody doesn't have a September 11th experience, but they had the moment and I'll just say this. It's the crossroads. It's where you lose someone in your life. You have a health diagnosis. You lose a job, your business, maybe you lose a business so I just wanted to share that because I know people can better identify when something happens and you have the opportunity to make a definitive decision. And I say that because your podcast is about, you know, it's about impact and you, I know, appreciate the stories and the relevance for your audience. So there's that. Yeah. So then how then did the AI, you know, what are we doing now and how did that happen? So right, currently I'm the Chief Executive Officer for AI Training Plus We are workforce transformation partners and we provide non-technical AI training for the most part, but it's for the purpose of helping to increase adoption and really improve better business outcomes. And so how then did we get there? How did I get there? I'm gonna go back to again, training and development, solving data driven people problems in the workplace is really our value add. So because we started in learning and development and then evolved into respect in the workplace was really the inclusion, why and how do we get there? It was because whatever is impacting people at work, right, that is our, I would say sweet spot. We are here to help business owners, CEOs, corporations solve data-driven people challenges that either impact productivity, performance, burnout, engagement. That's how we ended up in pulling the thread to AI because in one season it was inclusion and respect in the workplace. And so that's our expertise. And now in this season, it's AI is impacting and influencing the work. And so then that's how we really came into this space. So said differently, we are workforce transformation partners. Our core competency is training and development and our expertise is AI today. If it turns out that there's something else impacting people at work tomorrow, you'd say,“Dee, I thought you all were AI.” We were, but whatever is going to impact the people, we have the opportunity in learning and development to learn and then support people so that people can win at work and not just businesses in the business bottom line. That's really interesting that you're, you're just kind of having your finger on the pulse of, of what is it that's impacting businesses and you're able to pivot and develop and make sure that you're meeting whatever that need is at that time. I, you know, I really am interested in hearing your perspectives on AI specifically and how that is impacting businesses since that is such a big shift we're seeing today. And I don't have the opportunity to talk to a lot of people that seem to really know a lot about it and know how it's actually impacting individuals. So obviously, AI itself has been around for a long time, and people will make that point. But this generative AI, ChatGPT, these tools seem to have emerged kind of quickly. When did you first kind of become aware that this was the thing that you were going to need to help businesses shift to understanding? Yeah, it was 2023. So one of our advisors who's at a big four called me to a meeting and it was with such urgency. And he says, you've got to have everybody on the staff has to learn AI. He says, it's not going to be good enough to hire just somebody who leads AI, but everybody needs to know. And so I said, okay. And so that was in Q3 of 2023 and really started experimenting or exploring, I should say, and invited the entire staff to, I did this thing of learning one thing, one new thing about tech every day and then sharing with the rest of the staff. That was my immediate and easy way to introduce the team and let them opt in to learning before sort of making the shift. And then shortly thereafter, I just made a decision as a CEO that we, our business way forward for us was to go out and get a certification so that we could do the consulting for other companies and do the training for their staff because that was within our domain of expertise, which is basically change management, training and development. And so it was 2023 where we really started to see it bubble up. Which I think you know businesses today need to understand their client and their customer, for instance, if you have the Fortunes who are your customers it's always understanding what is it that's driving and impacting their business that then is going to impact our business or is going to be an expectation of their supply chain, right, if we're the supplier or it may not an expectation, an obvious one, but it will be a competitive advantage. And so that's what I did in 2023 is I started us on the ball of expanding our expertise so that we could be the go-to. And today we certify SMBs, so small and mid-sized businesses, the business, not the individuals, but we certify the businesses to become AI powered. Why? Because we learned that procurement and decision makers, particularly in the fortune space, were making decisions about who they were going to be working with based on whether or not the companies were AI powered. And they wouldn't say, they didn't say it initially. They don't have a requirement. It's not like ESG. They're expecting, you know, the EcoVadis or some sort of certification or rating just yet, but we learned that shortly after. So that is how we continue to really dig deeper in the space and then become the go-tos on AI adoption is really our space. Yeah, that's really interesting. I, you know, from the perspective, I'm actually really excited to get to talk to you because as a creative person in the creative industry, I've been one of those people that's like a little more nervous about the implementation and how that's going to affect like maybe specifically the creative industry and, you know, these types of things. So I'm curious, like, what are some of the common concerns around AI adoption that you're seeing from business owners and how do you respond to those? Yeah, I think the common concern around business owners is not understanding the opportunity. I think that's one. The biggest is like not understanding the opportunity, right? Because understanding the opportunity then helps business owners prioritize whether or not do I need to lean in now or when? So I think that's the biggest thing, just having the clarity around that. I think the second biggest concern is with a lot of the CEOs that we work with is their teams are maybe a little further ahead in exploring and leveraging the tools. but they don't have policy around and they really need to have policy because the customer requires it in a lot of ways. And if they don't, it is how you protect your customers and your brand. So I think that's a second big concern is about unauthorized use. And so we try to start with our clients. We say, “Look, if you're still hesitant, let's do an audit so that you can see what the potential opportunity is.” So that's one. But also, if you don't do anything else, you need an ethics policy so that your team is not subjecting you to risk for your client. And then you also need the policy for RFP purposes. So I would say that's the second. I think the third challenge that we see from CEOs is also the impact to their business. I think, meaning again, how competitive, you know, they are, whether or not they're gonna get lost, I would say, with AI. So that's a big concern about how it's going to impact their business specifically. And so those are probably the top three biggest when it comes to the CEO and the owners. Different from workforce, so I hope that makes sense. That does make sense. I think I love that you're saying, what I'm hearing is, well, with these concerns in mind, you still have to be aware this is coming, this is happening. Your team might be using it and you have to make sure that you have a policy and you have an ethics plan around this. Also because your stakeholders are interested in how you're using this. So that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. So, I mean, as far as for individuals, I'm kind of curious because I think for many people part of job satisfaction can be the ability to do this work themselves and derive meaning from the work that you're doing and sort of have to work things out. And if we start to like outsource much of that work to AI, what happens to that feeling of personal satisfaction or how can we maintain that feeling of personal satisfaction in our work from your perspective? Yeah, I think how you maintain the personal satisfaction is knowing how AI and where AI can be a partner, a collaborative partner, a tool for redundant, repetitive tasks that AI could perform. And then recognizing it frees you up to now do more critical thinking, creative thinking, innovative thinking that AI cannot do unless the human is in the lead. So it really is a positive lever when individuals lean in. I think you do find more meaning. I think you can also, I think there's a pleasant surprise that not only can you find more meaning because now you have more free time to be creative and to be a critical thinker and to be innovative, right? Versus the redundant things that well yeah, AI can do that. There's no reason that I should be doing these things now. But I think also the pleasant surprise is that AI can also enable you to do more, I'm going to say, innovative, creative, new things. And so the joy and the excitement of having an idea, having a concept, having a process, and really being able to sort that through with a tool, whatever it might be, and then go and do the thing, create the thing. Even from a creative perspective, I've been sharing this in some of our strategy is just really every industry, profession, company needs to look at what's the impact specifically on my industry and where can I get ahead of finding a nuance that becomes our unique serving proposition, our unique selling proposition even, but getting to that. So getting over the, I think, being tentative or fear and let's lean in and start to sort this out. Because the win is definitely going to be to be an AI powered company than to not. Last year we would have been early adopters or first movers. This year, you've got to go now. Because you don't want to get an RFP, you don't want to be in a bidding opportunity and be in a conversation about the company, the structure, what you're doing, or how AI, how you all see AI, how you're using it. So I hope that makes sense. Yeah, absolutely. That does make sense. And again, it comes back to this is happening, whether or not you do feel tentative about it. And so as a business, we have to make these decisions now and know what, like you said, what our unique value proposition is within the space of using AI. I'm curious just from you know, from you being a very early adopter of this to the point that you're able to teach others, do you have any concerns about the widespread implementation of AI across industries or anything that you think we need to figure out how to mitigate even as we use this technology? You know, for me, I have thoughts about the environmental impact and water usage and these kinds of things. So I'm curious if you have any and what you think we could do now to mitigate those things. Yeah, think everybody has, or I would say a lot of folks, and I'll speak for myself, I definitely have concerns about responsible AI. I think it is, and I've heard from other thought leaders and experts in the industry who are on the builder development tech side, and they are concerned. They're concerned about the speed. They are concerned about AI getting far ahead of humans. And so I do have a deep, deep concern about responsible AI. So much so one of our flagship initiatives is a global AI Adoption Day, which is coming up. It's much like World Earth Day or International Women's Day where it's a single day on the calendar for the sole purpose of bringing everyone along, which is the second concern about responsible use but also people being left out. And so that is how we're actually approaching it. You know, we've joined, you know, to really launch this and it's across North America, Africa, Europe, the Pacific region, it's across all sectors, it includes everybody. And so the concern is, you know, people being left out. We're saying we really need to be thinking about that because we're concerned with K to gray, right? You know, if you have seniors, seasoned people are like questioning, is this real or is this AI? And not understanding if you're on a call, are you speaking to a real person or I should say human person, or are you speaking to a digital, you know, worker? So those are, I think the two concerns about responsible AI and that goes on the back end and those leading and then on the receiving it's will folks be left behind because they see it as and I'll say this Emily you know in the private sector AI in a lot of spaces is it looks like or some people, I'll just say they're rolling it out like it's new software. Right. And then some people even perceive it to be, is that like coding or like STEM? When you think about coding and you think about STEM, that's for a specific group of people. Coding was for coders. STEM is for people in STEAM. That's not what we're talking about. AI is about, it touches everything that we do. So it's for all. It's like, you know, when we transition from the analog phone to smart devices. Right. If you had a smart device, you have access to, you know, to the world, to things that you did not have before. And so we really look at how it's being introduced in private sector and it helps us to inform our SMB clients. It helps us in our global initiative to say, this is not software. It's not, you know, coding. It's not STEM. It's for all people. And you have it right now. It's accessible in your home and on the job. So, And then the last concern, I'll say this, is my SMB community being left behind. So let me say this, for the SMB community, small and mid-sized businesses, mid-market, this is the greatest equalizer. The opportunity now is significant for SMBs where never before have I think the community of mid-market and small businesses had a resource that can solve things like whether it's competency gaps, operation issues, sales, creative development. I think that is the biggest or greatest, I think, opportunity for SMBs, but it's also a concern of businesses taking too long in 2026. It's you've got to be starting the AI journey right now if you haven't already. Right, yeah, and I think I love to hear that, you know, someone like you and your company who is, you're the ones that are teaching people about this, that you have these ethical concerns and thoughts in mind and that you are taking steps to mitigate those and that it's not just like a no worries, we're just going to, you know move forward with AI. It's like, “no, we know that these are the things that can be trouble spots and we're making sure that we're ethically integrating AI into our society.” So I love hearing that. How can people take part of the global AI Adoption Day? Yeah, you know, thanks for asking. So I'll share the website, but I'll share this. It's AIAdoptionDay.com. But what I will say is we are inviting host partners across all sectors. So for anybody listening within an organization, they can literally go and onto the website and either register an event or they can register to become a partner. And all that means is that you're saying on May 6th, we're going to do something for our staff, our team, or the community, whether it is a one hour session, a, you know, it could be a half day session, but it has to be something that helps individuals learn one thing and one way. We say “one thing and one way” AI can benefit the individual, whether it's in their work or in their life. So that is what we are inviting all to do. So whether it’s the private sector, Fortune, SMBs, we're inviting NGOs, we're inviting K through 12, because we believe in inclusion across the globe and across the region. So for anybody listening, we love to have more partners to say, raise your hand. I mean, it doesn't cost anything because we are serving civil society. We are concerned about people. If AI is for good, then AI should be for all. And so on that day, we'd love to have more. It raises the visibility also of folks who say, you know what, we're going to do something for our staff. We're going to do an AI Adoption Day activation. And then they get a toolkit and all that good stuff. So AIAdoptionDay.com. And we'd love to have you all and have anybody who's listening who's saying, “Yep, I really want to be a part of it.” And it will also help you learn, right? We are really solving the question that you raised, Emily. It's if you have a concern, you know, what can you do in your space? So, yeah. Yeah, that's great. And I love that you said if AI is good, then AI is for all. I love that. I think that's a framework that we can use for anything. Anything that's good should be for all. So that's wonderful. It should be And you know why we're doing that Emily, it was it was really to raise awareness, reduce the fear, and increase understanding right it was if this is going to impact everybody's lives what are we doing, right, together? So it really is to reduce the fear and increase the understanding even from the perspective of what you're saying and what you're asking but helping people to understand what's in it for them because for businesses, that's going to help your teams and your staff with adoption if they understand what's in it for me versus here's the AI, here's what we're doing. Right, right, absolutely. I completely agree. When you talk about people first AI adoption, if you could give our listeners a general framework of what it means to have a people first approach to AI adoption, what does that mean? And what is its opposite? What are we trying to avoid? Yeah, what we're trying to avoid is AI first. What we're trying to avoid is this idea or a fear that human workers are going to be replaced by digital workers and that the world will somehow run on digital AI and then people, the value of people will no longer be. So that's part of what this really is about in terms of responsible AI, because there is a theory of AI first. From a business perspective, it says that you should be thinking about AI for everything immediately first. And while in some ways as a business, you should be thinking about efficiencies, effectiveness, the business bottom line, but we're saying the opposite is think about your people first. It's all gonna work out, but can you first think about the people? What it also means in terms of responsible and people first, it's also equipping your people, training your people, thinking about even if there's going to be some job changes, which they are. But if you're people first, you'd even reimagine if you have new, if you are going, no longer going to have some of the jobs as they appear right now, that you're thinking and you're reimagining and then how some of your people can be equipped, empowered and trained to really even fulfill some of the new jobs because that is gonna happen. And so that would be a people first approach. And then the last thing I would say about this people first versus AI first is in a lot of the enterprise companies, AI first means they've invested significantly in AI integration, but that's the tech and not as much in AI adoption, which is the people. So if you're people first, you are investing as much in AI adoption as you are in AI integration. And if you're smart, you'd invest in adoption to realize the ROI on integration. So again, I'll go back to the corporate example, what we're seeing is invested heavily in AI integration, but usage of AI is low. Why? Because they didn't invest as much on the people side. So if you really want to realize, you know, get to better business outcomes and higher ROI, invest in the people side. And that just means it's the change management. It's the training and development, but not just training. It's literally, it's change. It’s how is the organization's culture going to change? And so that's the work that we do in the strategy with the CEO. We start with CEOs first in the SMB spaces. In the Fortune spaces, we start with staff, but it's starting with the CEO, then it's strategy. How is this going to impact the business? And then it's, let's look at the organization. And that's really the approach to what we say and see in terms of people first. It's the balance and equalizing. Here's the thing I caution folks from is absolutely do not integrate AI without a strategy because people are wasting money and they're not seeing the gains. It's because it's as if AI is looking for, is a solution to a problem they haven't identified. That's how a lot, like when we come in, we say, what's the problem we're solving with AI? This is not just about AI. It's what is the problem we're solving? And we say, and why we get the ROI is because we solve data-driven people problems that, you know, businesses care about. They care about productivity, engagement, burnout, and performance. That's already, that already exists in a human resources. Why is that not connected to AI? Don't just train the people. And so I'll stop there. I hope that's helpful. Thank you, Dee. I really appreciate how you explain that because I think it is so important to, you know, I know for Riveo Creative, like we are a people first organization. We want everything we do to benefit our team, our stakeholders and our community. And I think that we can, you know, if we're going to be integrating AI, it needs to come with that as the center with, with making sure that's going to be a benefit to people. And I can see that that is what your organization is seeking to do. And I think regardless of what comes next, so it was diversity and inclusion, now it's AI, whatever's next, I think that your organization would be a great one for people to get in touch with, because it sounds like you have this value system that is steady across the whole changing landscape. Thank you, thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you so much for being here with us today. I have one more question for you and then I'll ask where people can find you. But this is a question we ask for all of our guests and it is, what does the word impact mean to you? Wow, it means, impact means to me that people somewhere are better off because I was there. Impact to me means places and spaces are better off because I was there. And so that's how I, my personal measure or metric of impact is wherever I am and wherever it is that I can do or give or serve, my intention is always to leave people and places and things better. That's impact. Beautiful, beautifully said. I love that. I agree. Leave it better than you found it. Well, where can people find you, Dee? Yeah, so I'm on LinkedIn. I am Dee C. Marshall and for business inquiries, aitrainingplus.com. So again, AI, www.aitrainingplus.com for business. And I'm also on LinkedIn and yeah, it's such a delight to be here. Wonderful. Thank you so much. This was a great conversation. I think people are going to be able to take a lot out of it. And I hope we get to chat with you again soon. Awesome, thank you so much. Our make an impact tip of the month is start by identifying the problems you believe could be solved by implementing AI. Then draft an AI ethics policy that ensures you're using this tool in alignment with your company values to solve real problems from a people first perspective. Thanks for listening and make sure to do good in the world this month. If you have questions you'd like us to address on the podcast, you can reach us at info@riveocreative.com. Subscribe wherever you listen so you don't miss out on any of our incredible upcoming guests. We'll see you soon at the Riveo Impact Lab.