Orlando — At a Thursday morning AI session at ASSP Safety 2025 featuring Voxel real-time site visibility intelligence using computer vision case studies, it was quickly apparent as the speakers discussed AI pitfalls in detail that the same issues that can detail an AI initiative are responsible for causing almost any general safety initiative to fail.

The reasons AI “can go broke,” according to Voxel’s Chris Skipper, director of customer solutions, can break your safety roll outs:

• Overlooking the importance of culture and the impact of the initiative on the workplace culture.
• Taking a siloed, non-collaborative approach to the roll out
• Ignoring privacy and data security
• Failing to engage frontline workers
• Treating symptoms and not underlying root causes
• Poor planning and not have the right systems, foundations and infrastructure in place to support the project

Prioritizing the pitfalls leads to the same key issues for both AI implementation and introducing new safety practices. The most important is worker engagement. Whether it is an AI deployment or new safety effort, workers can lack trust, especially if the launch is perceived as another “flavor of the month” program; be resistant to change; particularly with AI surveillance tech there can be a fear of “big brother” watching; and workers can input poor quality data or perform poor reporting if they are disengaged and not motivated.

Successfully engaging frontline workers, be it an AI project or general safety initiative, involve the same steps:

• Being transparent and honest about the purpose of the program or project
• Defining and sharing leadership’s clear expectations for the initiative and putting those goals into a policy
• Using safety committees, unions if present, and other employee groups to engage with the frontline along with senior leaders and safety and health pros
• Allowing employees to share their concerns by actively listening and having sincere give-and-take discussions. Sharing injury and illness data and other key performance metrics so employees see the big picture and what the initiative is trying to accomplish
• Discussing the potential benefits of the new initiative and any results of similar efforts at other companies
• Offering training and giving employees the opportunity to provide 360-degree feedback
• Avoiding blaming employees, playing the gotcha game, and expecting workers never to commit error

Remember, as an earlier speaker said, safety doesn’t work well when done to people. These are command and control dictates and mandates or compliance enforcement. Safety succeeds better when it is done with people. With their input, ideas, feedback and collaboration.