In the age of AI, forward-thinking organizations are shifting their perspective from seeing AI as a collection of tools to viewing AI as integral team members that amplify human capabilities. Leading this transformation is Moderna, where Head of AI Innovation Brice Challamel has famously stated:

"There are no more individual contributors at Moderna. Every employee is a team of five: Themself, their AI Assistant, their AI Coach, their AI Expert, and their AI Creative Partner."

This isn't just a clever framing—it's driving extraordinary business results. With this approach, Moderna has achieved 100% AI adoption across their organization and increased mRNA production from approximately 30 per month to 1,000. The shift from treating AI as tools to creating distinct AI team members with specialized roles has unlocked exponential impact through cross-functional integration.

The Five-Member Team Model

What makes this model so powerful? Let's break down each team member's role and how they collectively transform productivity:

1. The Human Team Leader

The employee remains at the center, bringing domain expertise, emotional intelligence, judgment, and creativity. They direct the AI collaborators, evaluate outputs, and make final decisions. The human is not replaced—they're elevated to focus on higher-value work.

2. The AI Assistant

This team member handles administrative tasks, information retrieval, and routine processes. From summarizing documents to managing emails and scheduling, the AI Assistant frees the human from time-consuming, repetitive work.

3. The AI Coach

The AI Coach provides feedback, helps identify areas for improvement, and suggests learning resources. It analyzes performance data, compares against best practices, and offers personalized development guidance. Unlike human coaches who are only available for scheduled sessions, the AI Coach is available on-demand.

4. The AI Expert

This team member delivers specialized knowledge from across domains, recalls obscure information, and helps the human navigate complex topics outside their primary expertise. The AI Expert transforms everyone into potential cross-functional contributors by democratizing access to specialized knowledge.

5. The AI Creative Partner

The creative partner generates ideas, visualizes concepts, drafts content, and helps overcome creative blocks. It suggests alternative approaches, expands thinking, and helps refine creative work through rapid iteration.

Implementation Challenges and Success Factors

Moderna's transformation didn't happen overnight. Their success hinged on several key factors:

Executive alignment and modeling: Leadership demonstrated personal AI usage, showing practical applications rather than just talking about potential.

Cross-functional change champions: Moderna identified AI champions across departments who showcased real-world productivity gains and trained peers.

Balancing centralized governance with local innovation: They established clear guardrails while encouraging experimentation within those boundaries.

Focus on user experience: Ensuring AI tools were intuitive and integrated into existing workflows reduced friction to adoption.

Measuring what matters: Rather than complex ROI calculations for every use case, they focused on adoption rates, user satisfaction, and key business outcomes.

First Steps for Your Organization

Ready to build your own AI team of five? Consider these starting points:

1. Audit current workflows to identify high-impact areas where AI team members could add immediate value
2. Identify and empower early adopters to become your change champions
3. Focus on use cases with clear, measurable outcomes to build momentum and demonstrate value
4. Create ongoing learning opportunities to continuously develop both AI and human capabilities

The Future of Work is Human + AI Teams

As we move from AI tools to AI team members, the fundamental nature of work transforms. The most successful organizations will be those that establish new norms around human-AI collaboration, redefine roles and responsibilities, and create cultures where everyone leads a high-performing AI team.

The question isn't whether to integrate AI into your workforce, but how to do it strategically for maximum impact. Organizations that embrace the team approach will see outsized productivity gains, enhanced employee satisfaction, and competitive advantages that those still treating AI as mere tools will struggle to match.

Is your organization ready to move beyond AI tools and build AI teams?

‍