If you’ve felt overwhelmed, uneasy or conflicted by all the noise around artificial intelligence lately, you’re not alone. At our recent Women in Sustainability Network session with AI trainer and yoga teacher Kerry Harrison, we stepped into a rare space: one where AI could be explored without pressure or hype.  A space where our values were allowed to lead the conversation, not the other way around.

Kerry’s workshop, AI for People Who Don’t Like AI, offered exactly what so many of us have been craving: clarity, honesty and grounded guidance. Together, we looked at how to navigate this fast-moving landscape without losing our voice, our wellbeing, or our environmental ethics. And perhaps most importantly, we remembered to breathe before diving in.

Below are some of the key reflections and learnings that emerged for the WINS Team.

1. The AI Catch-22: Wanting the benefits, wrestling with the costs

Many of us recognise the tension Kerry named: AI can genuinely make work easier, faster and more creative but we cannot ignore its implications. We feel the pull towards efficiency AND the pull towards responsibility. So how do we move forward without compromising what matters?

Kerry’s invitation was simple but transformative:

 Decide your own boundaries.

Not Silicon Valley’s. Not the media’s. Not even your peers’. Yours.

This alone felt liberating!

2. AI is useful, but only when used consciously

Kerry was refreshingly honest: AI can help our work. It can brainstorm ideas, speed up research, summarise dense material, generate content starters, analyse data, and automate repetitive tasks. But the goal is not outsourcing our intelligence. It’s augmenting it.

Her “AI Sandwich” was a firm reminder:

1. Human thinking first – clarity, context, intention.
   
2. AI in the middle – the drafting, ideation or initial shaping.
   
3. Human intelligence last – editing, sense-checking, fact-checking and adding the heart.
   

This approach protects our authenticity and safeguards against “AI mush”—the generic sameness now flooding our feeds.

AI doesn’t need to replace your voice or your values. You’re allowed to choose how you use it — and where you don’t.

3. The big considerations we can’t ignore

Hallucinations Happen

Large language models will sometimes invent facts or cite sources that don’t exist. They are rewarded during training for giving an answer even if they’re unsure

 Our role: always fact-check.

Data Privacy Matters

Free AI tools often use your inputs for future training. Client data, personal details or sensitive topics should never be fed into such systems unless you’re using paid, enterprise-level, GDPR-compliant versions

Our role: Switch on privacy settings, use paid versions wherever possible as there is far greater privacy and data protection than on the free platforms. 

Bias Is Everywhere

AI reflects the dominant, Western, male-centred culture of the data it was trained on. 

Our role: Whether writing or generating images, we must intentionally include marginalised voices, perspectives and bodies or AI won’t.

Environmental impact is real but nuanced

Kerry shared important information about the true energy and water use of AI models. 

The reassuring news: Recent independent research shows the footprint per prompt is far smaller than earlier headlines suggested.

But the real point is bigger: AI’s impact sits within our whole digital footprint, from video streaming to social media.

Kerry’s guidance? Use smaller models when possible, minimise unnecessary prompting, and stay mindful rather than fearful.

AI should never replace the parts of your work that make your heart light up

4. Creating an AI policy: A simple but powerful act

One of the most empowering parts of the workshop was Kerry’s invitation to create an AI policy or manifesto, however small your business. This is boundary-setting in action.

A simple policy might include:

• What you will use AI for
  
• What you won’t use AI for
  
• Which tools you consider acceptable
  
• Rules around client data
  
• Commitments to human oversight
  
• Expectations around transparency
  

This provides clarity for you, your collaborators, your clients and protects trust.

A More Human Way Forward

Kerry closed with a beautiful reminder:

Don’t outsource the very things that make us human.

Creativity. Judgment. Connection. Storytelling. Relationship-building.
 

These cannot be automated—and should never be.

AI may support our work, but it must never replace our wisdom.

Featured Image: Canva Stock images

More about our AI trainer, Kerry Harrison

To find out more about Kerry Harrison training, visit her website, sign up to her substack and connect with Kerry on LinkedIn