As the 2023 Impact conference in Cambridge, Mass., came to an end on a beautiful fall day, members of the Innovation and Collaboration program from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) gathered on the hotel’s deck for a debrief. What had they learned during the conference? What new ideas should be disseminated across APL?
One theme quickly rose to top of the list: the transformative power of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI). The group shared ideas on dispelling fears about AI, harnessing its power to improve efficiency and echoing the familiar phrase: “You won’t lose your job to AI, you will lose your job to someone who is better skilled at AI.”
AI has been a focus area of APL, a not-for-profit research center headquartered in Laurel, Maryland, dating back to the 1960s. Among recent novel uses of the technology, APL has integrated AI into traditional climate-modeling methods to expedite the identification of critical climate-tipping thresholds, and developed a conversational agent that provides battlefield medical guidance. But as the team shared what it had learned over the three-day conference, it realized many APL staff members still weren’t comfortable implementing GenAI into their daily work. But based on what the team members heard in Cambridge, it was time to get more staff knowledgeable — quickly.
On the flight home to Baltimore, Innovation and Collaboration Program Manager Briana Vecchio-Pagán began experimenting with some of the tools she had heard about. Before landing, she had leveraged Runway, a cutting-edge GenAI tool, to produce a video pitch for her new concept — a comprehensive upskilling program that would allow APL staff members to integrate GenAI into their workflow quickly and effectively.
In the video, Vecchio-Pagán highlighted examples of GenAI’s real-world potential. She showed how GenAI tools could accelerate mundane tasks like email and data processing, thus creating more time for high-level creativity and innovation. This, along with support from APL’s leadership team, allowed the program to launch quickly.
“We didn’t have time to wait,” Vecchio-Pagán said. “If we didn’t empower our workforce to leverage AI as 2023 came to a close, we risked falling behind. These GenAI tools allowed me to create something visual and compelling in just a couple of hours, and it helped us get the buy-in we needed from leadership right away.”
From Idea to Reality
The Level Up program was born out of this urgency, designed as an agile, scalable solution to upskill the entire workforce, from administrative staff to seasoned researchers.
“The innovation ecosystem at APL is strong, and our leadership understood that AI was not just the future, but the present,” Vecchio-Pagán explained. “They backed us fully because they saw that this program was necessary to keep APL on the cutting edge.”
While leadership was excited about the program, Innovation Program Operations Coordinator Jillian Kingwood recalled their questions about how APL could logistically create a program so quickly.
“We’d never put together training at this scale and speed,” Kingwood said. “But we were confident because we had done the homework, and Briana’s video pitch — which she used AI to create — really showcased how APL could expedite the development of the program.”
Design and Implementation
By the new year, the Level Up program was not only approved but ready to launch. The rapid turnaround was a testament to APL’s commitment to innovation and Vecchio-Pagán’s vision to make GenAI a safe and accessible tool while upholding APL’s standards for security and ethical considerations.
Level Up was structured to ensure accessibility, scalability and impact. Kingwood led a Slack outreach series, which kicked off in January 2024, sending two messages per week to roughly 10,000 staff members to familiarize them with GenAI tools. This outreach had great impact with searches and access of GenAI tools doubling within the organization by February.
Level Up launched a series of 10 training videos that were created by APL staff members with varying levels of experience, including some who were completely new to GenAI. The first three required courses introduced AI fundamentals, including what makes AI generative, how to use large language models (LLMs) and ethical considerations for AI use. The course on AI ethics and bias reduction ensured participants were not only learning how to use AI but were also aware of the potential pitfalls, including how AI models can unintentionally perpetuate or exacerbate bias.
Once the foundational courses were completed, participants had the option to select from various elective modules, such as prompt engineering, AI in software development and creating music and videos. The program culminated in an Innovation Capstone, where participants used the skills they had learned to develop a pitch for a new innovative concept.
“The capstone pushed people beyond the theoretical and into practical application,” Vecchio‑Pagán said. “Once staff were familiar with these concepts and tools, we started seeing them apply this technology to their workflows and utilizing them as an innovation partner.”
During program development, leadership wanted to ensure the tools and technologies introduced in Level Up and the capstone were available to all employees, not just those in technical roles. The accessible design of the foundational courses allowed staff from various professional backgrounds, including administrative and operations roles, to engage with AI on an equal footing. The training was even repeated that summer in a section competition for interns, including high-schoolers, who described the sessions as fun and accessible.
Additionally, entertaining and competitive elements were woven into Level Up, including the creation of a Labwide Leader Board, which tracked progress in real-time, created a sense of accomplishment and fostered healthy competition. With the early training, the Innovation and Collaboration program offered weekly prizes for teams that showed the most progress, aiming to increase the breadth of the program. As the training progressed to more challenging, technical topics, the team focused on depth of knowledge and prizes were given to individuals with the highest cumulative number of training sessions.
“This competitive spirit helped keep participants motivated,” Kingwood said. “APLers love a good challenge and gamification made the process enjoyable and rewarding.”
The team also strategically launched the “GenAI Arena” in Central Spark, APL’s makerspace for creativity and innovation. The team placed AI resources, such as image generation and citation tools, next to the free coffee stations, tagging the combination “Brews and Bots” to entice staff to practice using the technologies. The team launched a weekly AI challenge as the tools changed to further encourage staff exploration and application. The GenAI Arena was designed to be accessible to all staff members regardless of their technical background.
Impact and Outcomes
During the competition, more than 1,500 employees completed over 6,500 unique training sessions. Since the end of the training in April 2024, an additional 1,000 staff members have taken Level Up training, and more than 10,000 overall training sessions have been completed. These numbers far exceeded initial expectations — especially since the initiative was voluntary — solidifying the program’s success and laying the foundation for future iterations.
“For years, APL has focused deeply on AI, with subject matter experts using it to contribute to climate science and battlefield medicine,” said Vecchio-Pagán. “But now other staff members feel free to experiment with AI for a range of applications. That’s exactly what we envisioned when we met that afternoon in Cambridge back in 2023 and saw the urgent need for training — a program to get staff comfortable using AI while also giving them the tools to push the boundaries of what’s possible.”
Success Stories: From Individual Achievements to Organizational Impact
Many Level Up participants found themselves using AI in unexpected ways. One supervisor used GenAI to better communicate with a neurodivergent employee. Another staff member incorporated LLMs to make the annual evaluation process easier for everyone.
One APL executive told us, “I completed most of the Level Up training this weekend and wanted to congratulate you and your team… I think you struck the right balance between detail and length and provided a variety of examples.” A staff member said, “I’m currently enrolled in a data science master’s degree program, so I’m well informed in machine learning, but I still found myself learning plenty of new things.”
APL’s commitment to AI for all staff, catalyzed by the Level Up program, has become an enduring element of its innovation strategy. By embedding AI tools into its day-to-day operations and long-term research initiatives, APL has fundamentally transformed how its workforce solves problems and innovates. This is no temporary shift — it’s a transformation that is permeating the culture of the organization and positioning APL as a leader in GenAI integration.
Level Up has also reshaped the way APL operates. With more than 60 percent of the workforce now trained in GenAI tools and techniques, GenAI is no longer a niche area reserved for specialists. It’s a critical asset that every department can leverage to accelerate research, streamline operations and improve the quality and speed of decision‑making.
“We’ve created a foundation where GenAI is not just for the few, but for the many,” said Vecchio-Pagán. “Everyone at APL now has access to tools that can help them work smarter, innovate faster and think more creatively about solving the complex challenges our nation faces.”
Leveling Up for the Future
The Level Up initiative was not the end of APL’s commitment to AI — but the first step in getting as many staff members comfortable with AI as possible as the technology continues to advance. The program has proven that rapid, comprehensive GenAI upskilling is not only possible but essential for innovative organizations. APL’s swift adoption of GenAI across its workforce is a model of how organizations can embrace emerging technologies to fuel their own futures.
And the work continues. APL is investing in and piloting new AI tools, training executive staff and strategic leaders on how to use AI to evaluate proposals and make solid business decisions, and planning to evolve the Level Up program by incorporating advanced AI courses and collaborating with external AI firms. The goal is to ensure that APL stays on the cutting edge and remains a leader in GenAI innovation.
“We’re not stopping here; the program will continue to grow, and we’ll keep pushing boundaries,” Vecchio-Pagán said. “GenAI is too important for us to be complacent.”
Best Practices for Other Organizations
Want to replicate APL’s success? The Laboratory’s Level Up team offers these key takeaways:
- Start with a clear vision: Articulate the specific goals you want to achieve with GenAI upskilling.
- Focus on engagement: Various approaches, including gamification, weekly Slack messages, in-person presence and real-world application keep participants motivated.
- Secure executive support: Demonstrating the potential business impact of GenAI tools will help earn leadership buy-in.
Co-authors Paulette Campbell, Aliza Goldberg, Jillian Kingwood, Christiana Littrell, Anne Roberts-Smith, and Briana Vecchio-Pagan all work at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, a non-profit university-affiliated research center in Maryland.
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