Vendasta used Lattice to build a people-led AI operating model that connects AI adoption to business priorities, employee sentiment, and psychological safety. Since launching their AI literacy journey, Vendasta has increased AI survey participation from 38% to 60%, raised AI literacy from 65% to 78%, certified almost 10% of employees as AI workflow builders, and reclaimed over 20,000 work hours. Vendasta is one of Lattice’s 2026 People + AI Pioneer Award winners.
Don’t underestimate mindset. It’ll be your biggest catalyst.
Mindset, Skills, and Structure: Vendasta’s Foundation for AI Adoption
Vendasta’s founding mission was to democratize technology for local businesses. Seventeen years ago, that meant helping small businesses show up online, market to customers, sell, bill, and fulfill through a platform built for their needs.
Today, the mission is the same, but the technology has changed. Vendasta now provides AI employees that execute the work of marketing, sales, and operations automatically, helping local businesses reclaim time and scale without the overhead of traditional hiring.
That external mission helped shape Vendasta’s internal approach. If the company was helping customers rethink work through AI, they also needed to help their own employees do the same.
Vendasta’s People Operations team stepped into the center of the transformation. Cal Cooper, Director of AI Business Enablement, says the team quickly understood that the shift was about more than tools.
“I don't think we've ever come across, at least in my professional career, a time when change management was this important. And the biggest part of our success has been focusing on mindset and measuring it early on, then coupling that with structure.”
Three pillars became the foundation of Vendasta’s AI operating model:
- Mindset: Are employees ready and willing to partner with AI?
- Skills: Do they have the learning systems and support to build new capabilities?
- Structure: Can they experiment and deploy safely, with the right guardrails in place?
That structure mattered because AI adoption could not depend on enthusiasm alone. People needed a safe way to experiment, clear expectations for what good looked like, and a way to connect AI work to business outcomes. Vendasta’s approach aligned with Lattice’s belief that People + AI is a new way to work: not replacing people, but helping them realize the potential of more meaningful work.
How Lattice Helped Vendasta Connect AI Adoption to Goals, Sentiment, and Impact
Lattice became part of the system for connecting AI work to company priorities, team-level accountability, and employee sentiment. As Vendasta scaled AI adoption, the People Operations team needed more than participation metrics. They needed visibility into whether employees understood the company’s AI vision, felt safe experimenting, and could connect AI-enabled work to measurable business outcomes.
Pulse surveys track the psychological safety required for AI adoption, including comfort with failure and willingness to experiment.
Since launching their AI literacy journey in 2024, participation in AI adoption surveys increased from 38% to 60%. Clarity of the company’s AI vision reached 87% agreement, and general AI literacy rose from 65% to 78%.
Employee sentiment has shifted from seeing AI as “a tool for my job” to seeing themselves as designers of AI systems.
Lattice Goals and OKRs help teams maintain accountability for AI-driven efficiency, with every team expected to automate four workflows per quarter. Vendasta has reclaimed 20,000 work hours and is on track to save 300,000 work hours annually by the end of 2026 as more workflows become standardized.
Turning AI Champions Into Citizen Developers
Vendasta’s people-led AI operating model is manifested in their Citizen Developer program.
The program does not rely on theoretical certification. To graduate, employees must deploy a production-ready AI workflow that solves a real business challenge. Today, almost 10% of Vendasta’s non-engineering workforce are certified builders.
The program's power comes from putting AI in the hands of the people closest to the problem. They own the workflow front to back, including maintenance.
In sales, for example, Vendasta has certified Citizen Developers working on AI-powered systems for enterprise sales. The work is tied to business priorities and baked into goals, so the employee is not only responsible for driving quota but also for making sure the systems continue to work.
Citizen development becomes part of the role itself. Employees use AI to replace parts of their work, then rebuild their roles around more valuable, strategic, and engaging work.
“We put the power in the hands of the people who know their problems best,” Cal said.
That meant giving employees the right APIs and connectors, and creating structures that let them experiment without breaking anything. It also meant investing in documentation and learning operations, including open-source docs-as-code practices.
Leaders in their functions now go to Citizen Developers to help build AI-powered applications for the work their teams need to get done.
Participants in the Citizen Developer program have reported having “the best time they have ever had at work,” reinforcing Vendasta’s belief that AI upskilling can be an engagement and retention lever when employees are given meaningful ownership over the future of their work.
Advice for People Leaders: Start With Mindset, Then Build the System
For organizations navigating AI adoption, Cal’s advice is simple: Do not underestimate mindset.
“Don’t underestimate mindset,” she said. “It’ll be your biggest catalyst.”
She points to identifying AI champions and turning them into Citizen Developers as one of the biggest drivers of Vendasta’s success. Employees need to believe they can build with AI, but belief alone is not enough. They also need safe systems, visible pathways, and clear business problems to solve.
Jean Parchewsky, Vice President, People Operations, offered a similar message for HR and People leaders. AI transformation is an opportunity for People teams to step into a strategic role because the work is fundamentally about workflows, change, and human capability.
Don't be afraid to jump in. You don’t need to know everything about it before you start to use it.
— Jean Parchewsky, Vice President, People Operations
Her perspective is that you will not and can not have all the answers because artificial intelligence moves so quickly. The best thing you can do is get comfortable with feeling uncomfortable, i.e., adopt a true growth mindset.
That kind of mindset was already part of Vendasta’s culture. Jean explained that the company has long hired for traits beyond technical skill, including curiosity, learning orientation, and comfort with ambiguity. Those competencies helped the company maintain a strong culture through change and “move fast with AI” because employees were open to learning and working in ambiguous environments.
Vendasta’s story shows what that can look like in practice. By combining mindset, structure, and skills — and by using Lattice to connect AI work to goals, sentiment, and business outcomes — Vendasta created more than an AI training program.
They created a people-led operating system for smarter, safer, and more efficient work.
Key Takeaways
- AI adoption starts with mindset: Vendasta’s People Operations team focused first on helping employees feel ready, safe, and capable of partnering with AI before scaling new workflows across the business.
- People teams can lead AI transformation: By treating AI as a work-design and human-capability challenge, Vendasta moved from traditional learning and development to a broader AI enablement model.
- Well-thought-out programs can turn AI learning into business impact: Vendasta’s Citizen Developer program requires employees to build production-ready AI workflows that solve real business challenges, with almost 10% of the workforce now certified as builders.
- Lattice connects AI work to accountability: Lattice Goals and OKRs help teams tie AI-driven efficiency to quarterly priorities, while pulse surveys measure psychological safety, comfort with failure, and willingness to experiment.
- AI upskilling can improve efficiency and engagement: Vendasta has reclaimed 20,000 work hours and is on track to save 300,000 work hours annually by the end of 2026, while Citizen Developer participants report having “the best time they have ever had at work.”
