When our company pushed everyone to start using AI tools, I thought about what it would mean for my team. As a remote company, we are already challenged by the lack of organic human connection. Every connection is planned and takes effort, and now, AI adds another layer. People now spend part of their day collaborating with a tool rather than with a person, which can take away from the time we spend learning from each other.

I was recently asked what I was doing about it, and my answer came down to creating space. Space for connection, space for collaboration, and space for discussion.

Why space is the thing I protect

My first instinct was to create space rather than write a new policy. Engineers will always maximize for efficiency and productivity. If there is an open hour in the day, they will use it to push their work forward. That is a good instinct, but it also means the hour is never spent on anything else. Setting aside time for something other than coding feels like a cost, or even like guilt.

Creating space takes that decision off their plate. When the hour is already on the calendar, and I am the one holding it, no one has to justify using it. My job is to build the space my team needs, in the shape they need it.

Space for connection

Once a month, we have a team lunch. Sometimes, we even play games. There is no agenda and no work talk required. It exists so we can connect as humans.

The feedback has been great, and I plan to keep it as long as I can. It is a small period of time with an immense return.

We are also intentional about celebrating the wins. After we finish a big project, we get together on Zoom and celebrate with an activity like building Legos, doing a virtual escape room, or painting with watercolors.

Space for collaboration

Every Friday, right after our team sync, we hold time for knowledge sharing. Even when the team is working on a project together, some work happens in silos. That is unavoidable. The clearest example is on-call or goalie rotations. The person on call spends the week solving problems the rest of the team never sees.

So, we do our own version of show and tell. Someone who worked outside of what the team was focused on walks everyone through what they did and how they solved it. People ask questions. The team learns from each other and connects while doing it.

We also make time for pairing sessions, and swarming sessions. If you are unfamiliar with the latter, it is essentially an exercise we can all do together, like whiteboarding.

Space for discussion

The space I am proudest of is our AI Innovation Time. I took one hour we already had on the calendar, our team donut, and turned it into AI Innovation Time. During the hour, everyone experiments with something AI-related, alone or together in an open Zoom. At the end, a Slackbot asks what they tried and what they learned, so we build a thread we can come back to.

Everyone is figuring out AI at the same time, and this hour is where that figuring out happens out loud.

It works because of choice. I let my team decide how and when they wanted to adapt, instead of letting the tools or management decide for them. This is the same idea behind coaching. A coach asks open-ended questions and lets the person land on their own answer, because people follow through more on ideas that come from themselves than on ideas handed to them. Giving my team that choice created something a mandate never could: psychological safety and autonomy.

The people who were skeptical at the beginning came around on their own. They saw teammates using skills that saved them time and effort, so they tried those skills too. Once they saw the value, they started bringing their own ideas back to the group.

I want to be clear about what this space actually looks like, because “creating space” can sound like I stepped back from it all. The hour stays protected on the calendar every week, and if it needs to move, I check with the team first rather than canceling it on my own. One of our first discussions in that hour was about our own AI norms, written by the team, for the team, before the company asked anyone to adopt them.

The team has real freedom in what they try and how they try it. Showing up, reflecting, and keeping the agreement current is not optional. Freedom lives inside a structure that doesn't move, and that structure is what makes freedom safe to use.

Outside of our AI Innovation Time, we also hold space for flex discussion time. This slot is already in the calendar, and anyone in the team can claim the time to discuss a specific topic.

How “creating space” changed with time

Once the team had the space, they took it further than I expected. They started running their own experiments. No AI Fridays: a weekly reset from the tools. The Learning Opportunity skill from Dr. Cat Hicks addressed a worry a few people had about losing their technical skills over time. They shadow each other to see how someone else works through a task with AI, and they keep the skills they build in one shared place so no one starts from scratch. They also took on PR review, becoming a new bottleneck, and started experimenting there.

They try something for a while, keep what works, and drop what doesn't. Teammates now use our Friday show and tell to present experiments and share tools they are excited about for the rest of the team to try.

What I'd tell another manager

Start by creating the space. Give people room to explore without pressure or a rulebook waiting at the end. Then, stay close enough to monitor how it is going so it can keep evolving. Notice what is working and put more weight behind it. Let go of what isn't, without guilt. Keep the conversation open so people feel safe bringing up what is working, what is confusing, or what they are worried about. And when something works, celebrate it. That is how you know the space you built is being used and working.

This is true of almost everything I do as a manager, not just AI. I build the space where my team can develop, and I hold the structure that keeps it safe to use. My team is learning about AI with each other and from each other, and they are doing it alongside other humans. That is the part worth protecting.