![](\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/brent-saunders-e1770563968221.jpg?w=2048\")
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Experience alone used to be enough. Learn your craft. Do the work. Repeat.<\/p>\n
That world doesn\u2019t exist anymore. Today, standing still isn\u2019t neutral \u2013 it\u2019s falling behind.<\/p>\n
Artificial intelligence makes that reality impossible to ignore. AI is already reshaping how we write, analyze, plan and make decisions. Tasks that once took hours now take minutes. Insights that required days of manual effort can surface instantly. Entire workflows are being reimagined.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re embedding AI across our business \u2013 from strengthening our R&D engine and automating manufacturing to improving customer service and modernizing marketing \u2013 but technology alone doesn\u2019t create advantage. People who know how to use it do.<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t some distant future. It\u2019s happening right now, inside every industry. And the gap between people who use AI and people who don\u2019t is widening every day.<\/p>\n
The risk isn\u2019t that AI replaces people. It\u2019s that people who don\u2019t use AI get replaced by people who do.<\/p>\n
At Bausch + Lomb, we decided early that we didn\u2019t want our teams watching this shift from the sidelines. We want them leading it. So we partnered with Coursera to launch the Bausch + Lomb AI Academy, offering foundational generative AI courses to roughly 8,000 knowledge workers across our company.<\/p>\n
The results were immediate. Teams began automating reports, accelerating research, drafting communications faster and freeing up time to focus on customers and patients instead of repetitive tasks. Small efficiency gains compounded into meaningful impact.<\/p>\n
But we also saw hesitation.<\/p>\n
Some people felt AI wasn\u2019t relevant to their role. Others believed they were too early in their career \u2013 or too far along \u2013 to need it, or assumed it wouldn\u2019t make much difference. That mindset is understandable, as change rarely feels urgent until suddenly it is. But when technology evolves this quickly, opting out isn\u2019t staying where you are. It\u2019s moving backward.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why we made a clear decision: foundational AI learning is now mandatory. If employees don\u2019t complete it, they\u2019re not eligible for their bonus.<\/p>\n
And we didn\u2019t stop at completion. We\u2019re asking employees to show how they\u2019re applying what they learn by sharing real examples of how AI helps solve day-to-day challenges, improve workflows or create better outcomes for customers and patients.<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t about checking a box. It\u2019s about changing how work gets done.<\/p>\n
AI literacy is now a core business skill, just like financial acumen or customer focus. And we\u2019re expanding the Academy so employees can go as deep as they want, applying those capabilities directly to their everyday work.<\/p>\n
Our goal isn\u2019t to create AI experts. It\u2019s to create AI-enabled professionals. Because the future won\u2019t belong to the people who know the most \u2013 it will belong to the people who learn the fastest.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s been most encouraging is who\u2019s leaning in. Some of the most powerful use cases are coming from experienced professionals who combine decades of expertise with new AI tools. That combination isn\u2019t redundancy \u2013 it\u2019s advantage.<\/p>\n
For leaders, this means modeling curiosity. We can\u2019t delegate learning.<\/p>\n
For employees, it means treating AI like a career investment, not a compliance exercise. As I\u2019ve stressed in global town hall meetings, start small. Automate one task. Experiment with one tool. Save one hour. Those gains add up quickly.<\/p>\n
AI will keep evolving, and none of us will ever feel completely caught up. But staying ahead isn\u2019t about mastering everything \u2013 it\u2019s about refusing to stand still.<\/p>\n
In the age of AI, standing still isn\u2019t safe. It\u2019s the fastest way to become irrelevant.<\/p>\n
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of\u00a0<\/em>Fortune.<\/em><\/p>\n This story was originally featured on Fortune.com<\/p>\n #Bausch #amp #Lomb #CEO #Standing #falling<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Experience alone used to be en… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20861,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[620,12649,529,2345,1055,12650,8368,1624],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20860"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}