People adopt AI when they trust each other. Cultural intelligence is how that trust is built.
Belonging Intelligence partners with leaders to navigate the rise of AI, rooted in trust and cultural intelligence, operating at the intersection of innovation, trust, and talent. When trust is the foundation, both people and performance thrive.
Trust is what makes people try AI. Cultural intelligence is how trust is built across differences.
Employees are 2.5 times more likely to use AI when their leaders actively support it.
Source: Great Place To Work, "As Companies Clamor to Adopt AI, Culture and Trust Dictates Success," December 8, 2025.
studies with 44,155 participants show cultural intelligence predicts task, adaptive and leadership performance. Research also links it to interpersonal trust, idea sharing and cooperation.
Source: Cultural Intelligence Center, Cultural Intelligence (CQ): A Research Overview, v2.0, 2024, citing Rockstuhl and Van Dyne, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2018.
Leaders who build trust get people to try AI. People with cultural intelligence carry that trust across teams, functions and cultures. The AI Impact Network teaches both, side by side.
Cultural intelligence is the capability to read the room, adapt, and build trust across differences, especially in unfamiliar, high-stakes and ambiguous situations. AI is all three.
It is built into every AI Impact Network course, not added on.
Dr. Sandra Upton brings her teaching on cultural intelligence into every course. Founder of Upton Consulting Group, she is a globally recognized thought leader on cultural intelligence and the former Vice President of Global Diversity Practice at the Cultural Intelligence Center, and she has worked with hundreds of organizations and Ivy League institutions around the world.
"Dr. Upton is one of the market leaders in the inclusion and cultural intelligence work, and deserves such recognition given our experience at Harvard University."
"Dr. Upton's global expertise and research-oriented approach resulted in a masterfully delivered and impactful session. This will certainly influence our talent strategy."
"Leading the inclusion work for a health care system with over 32,000 employees is no small feat. Working with Dr. Upton made a significant impact on our efforts and outcomes."
Trust is an innovation advantage.
Great Place To Work proved trust could be measured. What no one built was the bridge from that measurement to a hard adoption problem: getting people to actually change how they work with AI.
Trust has to be built into the architecture, into the way things get done. That bridge is cultural intelligence.
of executives say their AI communications are clear.
of frontline workers agree.
Source: Great Place To Work, "As Companies Clamor to Adopt AI, Culture and Trust Dictates Success," December 8, 2025.
When trust is the foundation, both people and performance thrive.
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