How EY Trained 400,000 Employees on AI (Totally Voluntary)

In this episode, Alex Laurs shares EY’s ambitious AI learning journey: 400,000 employees trained on AI foundations, with a staggering 93% voluntary completion rate. But the real story? It's not about the tech. It’s about the tone.

Alex walks us through how EY:

✅ Made AI human-first by tackling fear and anxiety head-on
✅ Created “Future Hack” – a 5-week innovation sprint where employees build real AI agents
✅ Shifted from “education” to “experimentation,” where learning happens in the work
✅ Designed for scale by getting L&D out of the way and letting teams innovate at the edge

He also explains why the biggest skill gaps aren’t technical - they’re behavioral: curiosity, storytelling, and value identification.

What you will learn:

How EY trained 400,000+ employees on AI with 93% voluntary uptake
Why 60–70% completed updated training in just 2 months
How “Future Hack” led to 93 AI agents built in a 5-week sprint
Why celebrating failure became a key unlock for innovation
How AI is boosting human skills like EQ, empathy, and curiosity


📌 P.S. See how 45+ global companies are using AI coaching to boost performance, reduce churn, and raise EQ, starting with just one manager.
https://www.valence.co/blog/ai-coachi...

00:00 – Intro to Trailblazers & Alex Laurs
02:27 – Alex’s Career Background
05:32 – Becoming CLO at EY
05:52 – Why EY Started Its AI Journey
06:34 – High Training Adoption Without Mandates
07:16 – Cultural Mindset Shift to Enable AI
08:39 – What “Human Side of AI” Looks Like
09:45 – Learning from AI Failures & Successes
11:07 – Developing Power Skills with AI
11:27 – EY’s Future Hack Program
13:35 – Three-Part AI Transformation Strategy
14:33 – Rethinking the Role of L&D
20:31 – Advice for Getting Started with AI