Horizon Media had a clear ambition: transition from media agency to a growth partner for clients, with their AI operating system HorizonOS at the center of their business. For that to be real, AI fluency couldn't be optional or unevenly distributed across the organization. It needed to be the standard.

In 2025, a Section diagnostic revealed that Horizon employees wanted to be AI-first – but were unclear on how to use AI in their roles. Less than 12 months later, the culture is radically different.

85% of employees are certified as AI-proficient, meaning they can safely and effectively use AI to drive business value. Their Teams channels and community Office Hours are active with employees asking questions and sharing use cases. Their legal department hosts watch parties for AI content. Their CEO publicly shares his AI proficiency certifications. A culture of “genuine AI confidence and innovation” has replaced their initial uncertainty.

That shift didn't happen by accident. There are three important lessons from Horizon's journey that every AI leader should pay attention to.

Start with an honest diagnosis

Horizon's leadership had a clear vision for where the company was going. What they didn't want to do was roll it out as a top-down mandate – send an all-hands saying “AI is the future, everyone get on board” – and hope that translated into genuine capability.

Before building anything, they ran a diagnostic across the entire organization to understand where their people actually were. What came back was clarifying: people were bought into AI, but they were uncertain about how to use it.

Employees weren’t sure what AI use was appropriate at work, what Horizon’s AI policy was, which tools were best for which tasks, and what was specifically expected of them in their roles.

That finding changed the design of their AI curriculum. Rather than just rolling out content, everything Horizon did was intended to clarify: here's what AI means for our industry, here's what’s expected of you at Horizon, here’s how you benefit as an employee, and here's how you get there.

A mandate that didn't feel like a mandate

Horizon made AI certification a requirement for all employees. That's a significant organizational decision, and one that can carry risk if you do it wrong. 

What Horizon got right was the framing: “This isn't a compliance exercise. AI upskilling is critical to lead our industry as an AI-powered marketing platform – and it benefits your career path as an individual. That’s why we're doing it together.” The rollout reinforced that framing at every step.

Cohorts got dedicated time blocks on their calendars. Some teams organized watch parties. Bob Lord, Horizon's President, completed his certification and posted about it publicly. And critically, leadership didn't ask employees to do anything they weren't doing themselves.

“If I'm asking you to do 8 hours of training, I'm also doing 8 hours of training.” – Horizon Media Holdings President, Bob Lord

Making AI proficiency part of the brand

Horizon made the smart decision to brand AI proficiency internally. Employees who achieve their AI certification with Horizon’s Blu Angel AI platform “earn their wings.” They have stickers, mugs, and LinkedIn certificates showing off their wings designation. 

These branded assets make AI certification fun and desirable instead of daunting. 

The infrastructure nobody talks about

One of the least glamorous (and most important) parts of Horizon's rollout was their reporting infrastructure. When you're certifying hundreds of employees across multiple cohorts, with a mix of external courses and custom internal content, the operational complexity is real. Who's completed what? Who's at risk of missing the deadline? Which teams are lagging?

With Section’s help, Horizon built a dashboard that consolidated completion tracking across three required Section courses and five custom internal courses covering their Blu Platform and data fundamentals. Without that single view, managing accountability at scale would have been nearly impossible.

The lesson here: You can’t change what you can’t measure. Visibility helps leaders identify who needs support and signals to employees that completion matters.

7 lessons from Horizon’s AI culture change

Horizon’s workforce is now equal parts creative, strategic, and technologically fluent – and they didn’t get there by accident. Here are the lessons you should apply: 

‍1. Diagnose before you design. Identify the challenge before designing your approach: knowledge, trust, fear, policy clarity, or something else.

2. Frame the mandate as a shared commitment. More carrot, less stick. Avoid positioning training as compliance. Training resonates best when positioned as a new, competitive skill and collective investment.

3. Make the deadline real. Protected calendar time, cohort rollouts, and clear deadlines signal that this is a priority, not a nice-to-have.

4. Leaders do the work publicly. Certification, candid learning conversations, and visible participation from the top change the cultural permission structure for everyone else.

5. Build reporting infrastructure from day one. You cannot manage accountability at scale without visibility. A single dashboard tracking all requirements — internal and external — is a prerequisite, not an afterthought.

6. Reward publicly. Make AI certification desirable by branding it internally and rewarding employees with swag.

7. Year 1 is foundation; plan for Year 2. Culture change creates the conditions for application. If you stop at foundational knowledge, you've done the hard work without capturing the value.

‍