AI adoption isn’t just skyrocketing—it’s outpacing trust. Employees don’t trust the tools you give them, and they’re not waiting around. When they don’t trust your sanctioned AI, they simply turn to personal systems (Shadow AI), dragging critical data and knowledge with them.
The result is data risk, inconsistent answers, and a dangerous condition we call “institutional amnesia,” where your organization stops learning from itself.
Senior Strategic Advisor, Intranet at Staffbase and founder of Intranet Advisors, LLC.
For a decade, most digital workplaces skipped the one thing they needed: a simple, one-page charter (Purpose, Vision, Success Standards). In the AI era, skipping this foundation is non-negotiable negligence.
This article introduces six new success standards—trust, transparency, augmentation, agency, equity, and source integrity—designed to ensure that AI assistants enhance work, not undermine it. We also give you a practical 60-day ratification process to adopt them, without falling into workshop gridlock.
You can mandate usage. You can never mandate trust. The organizations that build trust by design will attract top talent and strengthen institutional knowledge; those that don’t will simply push employees further into the shadows.
The new silent killer in your digital workplace
What if the most-used feature of your digital workplace is also the least trusted?
In 2025, you don’t need to ask “what if.” It’s happening now.
Your people are using Copilot and Gemini to write emails, AI scribes to summarize meetings, and enterprise bots to ask everything from “How do I get promoted?” to benefits questions.
The usage numbers on your dashboard look fantastic. Everyone’s adopting! But listen to the hallway chatter and the private Slack channels. The same three gut-level questions are resurfacing everywhere:
- Who can see what I’m asking the AI?
- Will this be used against me in a performance review?
- Is my job on the chopping block next?
Slow adoption without trust is the new silent killer of digital workplace programs.
The real challenge is simple: You cannot build trusted AI on top of a foundation that was shaky long before AI ever arrived.
For decades, the best intranet and DW leaders relied on a discipline most organizations still skip: a one-page charter that clearly spells out the Purpose, Vision, and a handful of non-negotiable Success Standards.
If your organization never got around to creating that document, you are definitely not alone. But in the age of AI Assistants, this step has become a lifeboat, not a luxury. It is the only reliable way to keep budgets, roadmaps, and hundreds of stakeholders pointed in the same direction.
AI doesn’t replace the need for a charter. It amplifies the consequences of skipping it.
Rebuilding the foundation: The charter you should have had ten years ago
Before we even touch AI, we have to talk about the part most organizations neglected: the foundation.
Not a task force. Not a steering committee. Just a single page that should have existed a decade ago—and is now the only stable platform for building trusted AI.
This isn’t just about good governance. It’s about diagnosing the root cause of your current struggles: fragmented ownership, political quick favors, and an intranet that becomes a content dumping ground instead of a strategic asset.
Core elements
Purpose – What it answers: Why does this digital workplace exist in this organization at all? – Example: “AcmeConnect unites our people with each other and with the information, tools, and applications they need to serve customers and succeed at work.”
Vision – What it answers: Where are we taking it in 3–5 years? – Example: “A seamless, intelligent digital workplace that feels like an extension of every employee’s own thinking.”
Success Standards – What it answers: What 4–6 things must we never stop improving? – Examples: Content is accurate, relevant, and up-to-date, people find what they need, fast, it’s easy to see what’s new or changed, daily active use continues to grow, publishing and maintenance are easy for creators, overall satisfaction stays above 80%
These classic standards are mostly measured with short, strongly worded perception-based survey items employees can answer honestly in minutes.
-With no charter? You get death by a thousand cuts and endless “quick favors.” With a charter? You get the superpower to say polite, evidence-based “no”—or an enthusiastic “hell yes”—to every new idea.
Everything that comes next depends on this foundation. AI doesn’t fix old governance gaps. AI magnifies them.
Why classic success standards are no longer enough
The old mental model assumed:
low trust → low usage.
That model is broken.
In 2025, when employees don’t trust sanctioned AI tools, they don’t stop using AI. They simply switch to their personal AI systems—ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Grok—and paste proprietary data straight into public models.
Shadow AI is now the norm, not the exception:
- 78% of knowledge workers use gen AI at work
- 80% of them bring their own tools (Microsoft Work Trend Index 2024 + 2025)
- 60–70% admit to using Shadow AI (Forrester, Slack, Fishbowl 2025)
- Shadow AI ranks in Gartner’s Top 5 emerging risks.
But the biggest unknown risk isn’t data leakage. It’s something more dangerous and less discussed:
The real risk: Institutional amnesia
When employees solve a complex problem using ChatGPT, that solution lives on OpenAI’s servers—not in your Knowledge Management system. Your organization doesn’t learn from itself.
This creates:
- Lost expertise
- Lost process knowledge
- Lost continuity, productivity and innovation opportunities
- Increased dependency on external AI for core operations
High AI adoption across the enterprise no longer means success. The new failure mode is high overall AI use + low sanctioned AI use.
That elevates trust from a “nice-to-have” value to the make-or-break condition for relevance.
Trust — redefined for the age of AI assistants
In his acclaimed business book, “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team,” Patrick Lencioni defines trust in teams this highly observable way: “Trust is the confidence among team members that their peers’ intentions are good, and that there is no reason to be protective or careful around the group.”
In 2025, as we encourage employees to treat AI as a teammate, we need a parallel definition:
“Employees truly trust our AI assistants when they’re certain that both the tools and the leaders behind them are on their side—and when they know, beyond doubt, that being open or vulnerable will never be held against them.”
That’s the bar. And that bar must now appear directly in the charter.
The six new success standards every AI-powered digital workplace needs
These success standards should sit alongside your Purpose and Vision as non-negotiables. I’ve recently begun referring to this as the “Digital Endurance Charter”
Employee-perception standards
1. Trust: “I can be completely open with our AI assistants without fear.”
2. Transparency & correction: “I can see exactly which documents the AI used to answer me, and I know how to fix them if they’re wrong.”
3. Augmentation & agency: “AI makes me better at my job.” “I always feel like I have the final say.”
4. Pride & recommendation: “I’m proud of how we use AI here and would recommend our workplace to friends.”
Standards measured differently
5. Equity & fairness: The experience feels fair regardless of role, location, language, or identity. (Measured by comparing scores across key groups.)
6. Source integrity: The AI provides answers based on verified, structured content—not outdated file dumps. (This is a system requirement, not a perception metric.)
A complete 2025 example — AcmeConnect (Fictional Enterprise)
Purpose (unchanging)
AcmeConnect is the daily starting point that unites our people with each other and with the information, tools, and AI assistants they need to serve customers brilliantly and grow in their careers.
Vision (2028)
By 2028 every employee experiences AcmeConnect and its AI assistants as a trusted extension of their own mind and team—personalized yet private, proactive yet never presumptuous, always amplifying human potential.
Success Standards (10-second quarterly pulse survey)
Trust – Target: ≥90% agreement – Survey item: “I can be completely open with our AI assistants without fear.”
Transparency & Correction – Target: ≥95% agreement – Survey item: “I can easily view the source documents behind the AI’s answers and know how to flag errors.”
Augmentation & Agency – Target: ≥90% agreement on both items – Survey items: “Our AI tools make me better at my job, I always feel like I have the final say.”
Equity & Fairness – Target: No material gaps – Survey Items: Same scores across segments
Source Integrity – Target: ≥85% agreement – Survey item: “My company ensures our AI-facing content is accurate, relevant, and up-to-date.
Pride & Recommendation – Target: eNPS ≥60 – Survey item: I’m proud of how we use AI and would recommend Acme as a place to work.
How to get your charter ratified in the next 60 days
Don’t attempt to write your charter from scratch in a workshop—that’s a recipe for gridlock.
Do the pre-work. Use the workshop to ratify.
Phase 1: The Strawman (Weeks 1–4)
– Interview Legal, HR, IT, and Comms individually.
– Capture hopes, fears, and deal-breakers.
– Draft a “Strawman Charter” based on what you hear.
Phase 2: The Ratification Workshop (Half-Day)
Invite decision-makers. The goal is not brainstorming—it’s alignment.
Hour 1: Reality Check Shadow AI usage. Trust issues. Institutional knowledge risks.
Hour 2: Purpose & Vision Reaffirm why the digital workplace exists.
Hour 3: The “Blood Oath” Debate and finalize the success standards.
Critical:
– IT owns the pipes.
– Comms owns the quality of the content flowing through them.
– Both must agree on Source Integrity.
Hour 4: Governance
– Who reviews this? How often?
– Aim for quarterly or semi-annual review.
I’m often asked, “What do you do with this?” after the charter is documented.
The answer is simple: You use it to lead.
The digital workplace experience is not a destination—it’s a living journey. If you’re anything like me, you have been navigating business transformations, technology shifts, and the constant evolution of employee needs for years.
The AI era doesn’t introduce a new challenge; it amplifies the need for the one thing that was always missing: a courageous foundation built on clarity and trust.
This charter is your new operating system. It’s the compass that transforms “institutional amnesia” into institutional knowledge and swaps “shadow AI” for shared progress. It gives you the evidence-based permission to say a polite, evidence-based “no”—or an enthusiastic “hell yes”—to every new idea that lands on your desk.
Your work is not about managing a platform; it is about curating the collective intelligence of your entire organization.
Start the 60-day clock today. The future of work is not waiting for permission—it’s waiting for direction. Be the leader who gives it.
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