Definition. A Champions Network is a group of employees who help colleagues use AI responsibly in the work their teams already do.
Buying tools and running a workshop do not tell a colleague when to use AI on a difficult request or what to do when its answer is wrong. A champion can help with those questions because they understand the local process and can see where the new way of working fits or fails. The role is a bridge between the team, the process owner and the people building or governing the system.
What a champion does
A champion helps colleagues practise on real tasks, explains the approved workflow and gathers questions or failures that need a decision. They may show how to check an AI draft, identify a recurring exception or help a team use a new tool. They do not invent policy, approve a higher autonomy level or act as informal technical support for every problem.
The role works best when the person knows the process and has colleagues' trust. Enthusiasm for AI is helpful, but it cannot replace domain knowledge or the willingness to say that a tool is unsuitable for a particular task. Ask candidates to describe both a useful application and a case they would escalate.
Give the role support
Agree with each champion's manager what work they will set aside and how much time the role needs. Put that commitment in the normal work plan. Without space to help others and follow up on problems, the title becomes another task added to a full workload.
Give champions a contact for questions they cannot answer, access to the current Rulebook, and a simple way to report failures. The process owner should decide which issues change the workflow or instructions. Technical and control teams should handle matters within their responsibilities. A champion should not have to settle an unresolved business rule alone.
A short, regular exchange between champions can reveal problems seen in several teams. Share concrete cases: what the colleague tried, what happened, what was corrected and who owns the next step. Keep these exchanges brief enough to support work rather than becoming a reporting exercise.
Know whether it helps
Training attendance and consultation hours show activity. They do not show whether work became better. For each team, choose a relevant measure: use of an approved workflow, time to a usable result, correction rate, or feedback from the people doing the work. Pair adoption with quality. More use is not success if errors or frustration rise.
Start with the functions where people have a real task and a process owner ready to respond to feedback. The network can grow as those teams learn. It need not follow a fixed ratio of champions to employees; coverage depends on the work, the location of teams and how much help they need.
If champions keep reporting the same blocker without a decision, adding more champions will not solve it. Escalate the blocker to the person who owns the process, change the workflow or stop pushing the tool until the issue is addressed. A network is valuable when it makes daily work easier and lets the organisation learn from what its people see.
