--- title: Inside How Anthropic Teaches Effective AI Use description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. canonical: https://time.com/partner-content/charter/inside-how-anthropic-teaches-effective-ai-use/ author: Brian Elliott article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2026-07-28T10:30:00.241Z article:modified_time: 2026-07-27T23:22:14.525Z og:title: Inside How Anthropic Teaches Effective AI Use og:description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. 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Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf16fe04e606ddcba/6a67e7730876013577643b3e/charter-vanida.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- The information presented here is created by Charter, independently from the TIME editorial staff.  Time charter * [ai](/partner-content/charter/tag/ai/) ## ai # Inside How Anthropic Teaches Effective AI Use by [Brian Elliott](https://time.com/author/brian-elliott/) Executive-in-residence, Charter Brian Elliott is Charter's executive-in-residence and CEO of Work Forward. Jul 28, 2026 10:30 AM UTC  Art: Charter by [Brian Elliott](https://time.com/author/brian-elliott/) Executive-in-residence, Charter Brian Elliott is Charter's executive-in-residence and CEO of Work Forward. Jul 28, 2026 10:30 AM UTC Teaching AI fluency—the ability to understand, evaluate, and collaborate effectively with AI—has typically been done in pieces, behavior by behavior.[ That’s how Kristen Swanson](https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristennicoleswanson/), who leads education and research programs inside Anthropic, and her team began in February, tracking specific AI behaviors like telling the AI tool who it's writing for or the role it should play. But the models got good enough to do most of that work on their own, and the specific behaviors became less important. As a result, her team went looking for a more durable approach: a new framework for developing AI fluency that focuses on three major components. **Mindsets** are the beliefs people bring to AI that decide what they'll even try, like whether they keep retesting what the tools can now do or stay anchored on what failed six months ago. **Access** is whether the organization has actually put the right tools, models, and permissions in their hands. And **skill** is how much effort a task takes, measured in back-and-forth interactions with the tool, which falls as fluency rises. Teaching specific behaviors, Swanson and her team found, was far less valuable for developing AI fluency than supporting all three components at the same time. Swanson spoke as part of a recent [Charter Forum](https://www.charterworks.com/forum/) session on AI fluency, learning, and development. But just as her team saw the need to broaden its approach, the Forum conversation quickly expanded to discuss more than just learning: why trust is so essential, the need for “multiplayer” teams of humans and AI agents, and what AI does to people's sense of identity. That conversation drift reinforces a lesson: whether AI fluency takes root in an organization has less to do with a training curriculum than with the conditions leaders establish. Sign up for Charter's newsletter to get the handbook for the future of work delivered to your inbox. Email Address You can unsubscribe at any time. By signing up you are agreeing to our [Terms of Service](https://www.charterworks.com/terms-of-service/) and [Privacy Policy](https://www.charterworks.com/privacy-policy/). **Trust is the foundation everything sits on** Swanson framed every AI transformation as a choice leaders make, whether they realize it or not. Leaders can position AI as filling people's deficits or as extending what they are already good at. If employees believe managers’ true focus is expanding their capabilities, they’ll come along for the ride. "It comes down to \[whether\] people trust that working with AI and learning how to use it will give them the opportunity to continue to grow," Swanson said. "If people do truly believe that, the mindsets develop in kind. If people do not believe that, the mindsets are much harder to shift." Trust is essential because using AI effectively depends on people making their work legible to a machine, documenting how they work so an agent can act on it. But nobody works in the open like that if they suspect being transparent could lead to getting replaced. "You sort of need the trust as the foundation layer for that to play out in the right way," Swanson said. Other Forum participants agreed. Atlassian’s [Molly Sands](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mollysands/), who leads the software firm’s Teamwork Lab, says that simply pushing employees to [disclose their AI use can backfire.](https://www.atlassian.com/blog/ai-at-work/new-research-shows-honesty-about-ai-use-at-work-is-backfiring) Their research found the odds that a coworker would categorize a peer as “lazy” jumped from 3% to 24% if they disclosed using AI. The only reliable fix, their research found, was ensuring culture is set from the top, with leaders being visible AI users. **Why ‘multiplayer’ human-agent teams are what’s next** In [organizations](https://www.charterworks.com/why-getting-results-from-ai-is-a-team-problem-not-a-tech-problem/) that are [further ahead](https://www.charterworks.com/why-your-ai-adoption-strategy-is-stalling-and-what-to-do-instead/) in how they use AI, teams become an opportunity for even greater adoption and deeper automation. Anthropic [says](https://claude.com/blog/building-effective-human-agent-teams) work increasingly looks more like a “multiplayer game,” with teams of people setting the strategy and AI executing the work. The fastest-moving teams Swanson sees are shifting to “multiplayer agents”—AI models that work with many different humans at the same time. They form [human-agent teams](https://claude.com/blog/building-effective-human-agent-teams) who work on a shared platform like a Slack channel where the AI agent can access a team’s shared documents, files, and workflows. What makes them succeed are the fundamentals we have known about human teams for decades, like role clarity and a clear set of goals. "These things we've known \[about\] human teams for many years reemerged on human-agent teams as being even more important because the agents require very explicit scaffolding," Swanson said in the Forum session. "Write it down, assign the roles, set the north star, extend the trust." Her blunter version: "If it isn't written down for an agent, it doesn't exist." **Identity concerns drive resistance to AI** Another core concern raised about building AI fluency is the loss of identity many people and teams feel when AI masters technical skills they’ve built over decades. Helping people understand which of their skills are more durable, Swanson says, can go a long way. For instance, remind software developers that much of their work was never just writing code in the first place, but working with teammates to understand user problems and find scalable solutions. That shift to durable skills matters more as AI keeps rapidly improving. One challenge of AI, former Levi Strauss & Co. CHRO [Tracy Layney](https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracylayney/) said in the Forum session, is it requires "an ongoing set of development we all have to sign up for, without a real end in sight." That’s exhausting if you treat it as a race and sustainable if you treat it as a curiosity, which is why Anthropic hires for that mindset in the first place. Unfortunately, plenty of organizations lack the trust for people to safely admit what they don't know, and curiosity can't survive where safety doesn’t exist. To build that trust and foster curiosity, leaders need to share their story at every level. Carve out time to build judgment and quality standards into your processes, especially for roles such as design, marketing content, and strategy work where it’s less clear when projects are officially “done.” Treat a learning mindset as something you hire for, nurture, and protect—not something you assume your people already have. None of this is settled, and talking about that honestly and openly may be most important. Even Swanson, whose entire job is to help people learn AI, says she needs to update her skillset every week. She encouraged leaders who feel like they’re drowning in the pace of change to “give yourself grace. It's not expected that everyone has mastered every system, and you will get there when you get there." _Charter Forum events operate under_ [_Chatham House Rule_](https://www.chathamhouse.org/about-us/chatham-house-rule)_. Quotes here are used with permission._ **How to build trust and grow AI fluency:** **To shift mindsets, show the growth path.** People can manage threats to their identity more easily when they see how they add value beyond what AI delivers. [At Zapier, for example](https://www.charterworks.com/zapiers-counterintuitive-move-to-boost-pay-before-seeing-ai-improvements/), as AI took over basic customer service tasks, agents shifted into higher-level challenges, such as sales. **To improve access, write it down.** One way to create shared context for “multiplayer” agents is to set up [AI working agreements](https://www.atlassian.com/team-playbook/plays/ai-working-agreements) like the ones used at Atlassian. These include shared norms for how a group is expected to work together with AI, including communication standards and what role AI agents play on the team. **To build skills, make it an experiment.** Have people write down the tasks that frustrate them and the hardest parts of their job. As AI evolves, retesting what AI can do and adjusting where you use it increases an employee’s sense of control. **What to read:** * How Box CEO Aaron Levie [uses AI](https://www.charterworks.com/how-box-ceo-aaron-levie-uses-ai/) * Gametime chief people officer Danny Guillory on moving beyond AI adoption to [AI depth](https://www.charterworks.com/how-to-move-beyond-ai-adoption-to-ai-depth/) * What the data actually say about [AI and jobs](https://www.charterworks.com/what-the-data-actually-say-about-ai-and-jobs/) --- ## Read more from Charter [READ MORE](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/) [Open article: The 'Intern Test' for Working with AI](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/the-intern-test-for-working-with-ai/)  ### The 'Intern Test' for Working with AI [READ MORE](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/the-intern-test-for-working-with-ai/) [Open article: What AI-Native Companies Do Differently](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/what-ai-native-companies-do-differently/)  ### What AI-Native Companies Do Differently [READ MORE](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/what-ai-native-companies-do-differently/) [Open article: The Two Investments That Helped One Fintech Company More Than Double AI Adoption](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/the-two-investments-that-helped-one-fintech-company-more-than-double-ai-adoption/)  ### The Two Investments That Helped One Fintech Company More Than Double AI Adoption [READ MORE](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/the-two-investments-that-helped-one-fintech-company-more-than-double-ai-adoption/) --- ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/partner-content/charter/inside-how-anthropic-teaches-effective-ai-use/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/partner-content/charter/inside-how-anthropic-teaches-effective-ai-use/"},"headline":"Inside How Anthropic Teaches Effective AI Use","datePublished":"2026-07-28T10:30:00.241Z","dateModified":"2026-07-27T23:22:14.525Z","description":"A framework that includes mindsets, access, and skill is more effective than just teaching behaviors","url":"https://time.com/partner-content/charter/inside-how-anthropic-teaches-effective-ai-use/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf16fe04e606ddcba/6a67e7730876013577643b3e/charter-vanida.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Brian Elliott","jobTitle":"Executive-in-residence, Charter","url":"https://time.com/author/brian-elliott/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf16fe04e606ddcba/6a67e7730876013577643b3e/charter-vanida.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"charter-vanida.jpg","caption":"","creditText":"Art: Charter","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/partner-content/charter/inside-how-anthropic-teaches-effective-ai-use/","name":"Inside How Anthropic Teaches Effective AI Use"}}]}] ```