Charlie Coode: how AI will be shaping company culture in 2025

As we commence a new year and reflect on key lessons from 2024, company culture remains a hot topic – from rising expectations for employees to return-to-office reports of declining employee engagement. It all stems from a lack of cohesion between existing culture and the real-world needs of the business, with leaders everywhere called upon to better align their corporate cultures with their organisational strategies, recognising the role that culture can play in driving business growth.

We sat down with Charlie Coode – CEO and Founder of Culture15 – to find the answers, learning how his SaaS platform, running on cutting-edge AI technologies, could redefine how company culture is measured and managed. Sharing his insights on the challenges of 2024, Charlie speaks openly about how AI is transforming workplace culture and the developments to come in 2025.‍

Hi Charlie! 2024 has been a whirlwind for many businesses, particularly when it comes to culture. What trends have you picked up on over the year?‍

It’s impossible to answer that question without speaking about the hybrid work revolution and the work-from-home/return-to-office debates that followed. Not to mention the rise in what can only be described as “cultural drift”, with more and more businesses complaining about the erosion of critical values. Companies have invested heavily in hybrid and remote setups but are still struggling to maintain cohesion and alignment with their strategic goals, because they haven’t put enough effort into deciding whether this culture works for them and – ultimately – the business.

Take Amazon, for example. Earlier this year, more than 30,000 workers responded to its return-to-office mandate by signing a petition to maintain flexible working. Those numbers are a clear sign that organisations are still struggling to align what employees want with what is best for the business. As such, leaders must take a deeper dive into their own organisational goals and internal cultures, and develop unique, data-driven plans to determine how they can realistically deliver both desired business outcomes and employee satisfaction.

Another big trend right now is the rise of employee activism. We’ve seen Google employees rallying for stronger commitment to sustainability, as Starbucks staff continue their push for unionisation. These movements reflect a growing desire for cultures that reflect personal and societal values – not just corporate objectives – and it’s our job as a platform to use insights to allow leaders to draw harmonisation between the two.‍

So, where does AI come in? How exactly does it help to tackle these issues?‍

AI is becoming a game-changer in culture, because it makes culture more actionable. What I mean by that is that culture has always been tricky to define. It’s not as tangible as, say, a profit margin or product launch. So, historically, when companies relied on things like engagement surveys, they got a bit lost. These tools give you averages – but not a lot of depth.

That’s where AI comes in. Direct employee feedback and narratives actually contain a lot of useful cultural information – and we often go as far as claiming that that’s where culture really lives. The problem is that, without the tools to sift through this feedback, which is full of human emotion and bias, it’s impossible for employers to take anything tangible out. Our AI-powered verbatim tool solves this problem by allowing employees to record responses in their own words – written or spoken – in any one of 30 native languages. The platform then uses sentiment analysis to translate these raw narratives into quantitative insights, plotting scores along carefully created cultural axes to give leaders a clearer, unbiased picture of what their culture actually is at any one time.

The insights gained work wonders for company culture by helping to determine appropriate, data-driven actions. Say, for instance, that a fast-scaling tech firm used the Culture15 platform to process thousands of feedback responses post-merger, discovering that employees were enthusiastic about innovation but felt disconnected from new leaders. Armed with this insight, the company can implement targeted leadership workshops that will help build the desired collaborative culture to replace reported dissatisfaction, driving better outcomes for both team members and the organisation.‍

That sounds powerful. Can you tell us more about the latest AI updates at Culture15? How are they pushing the boundaries?‍

Absolutely. Our September launch introduced AI-driven summarisation, which takes things one step further. Imagine analysing thousands of employee comments in real-time and being able to identify key themes without drowning in data. This is essentially what our new tool does, highlighting the collective behaviours that show up in the organisation and mapping them on carefully curated axes for data-driven insight into things like the levels of challenge or harmony within a team, if the energy is cautious or ambitious, or if information flows around the team in a structured or unstructured way.

What’s most exciting to me is that these tools enable organisations to track culture like they would track revenue or customer satisfaction. When you can quantify culture, you’re no longer guessing, which is a complete game changer.

‍You mentioned “culture drift” earlier. What do you think leaders should focus on in 2025 to prevent it?‍

Alignment is key. Leaders need to make sure that their company’s stated goals and values are reflected in everyday behaviours. If an organisation says it values innovation and wants to achieve X number of sales by a specific date, for instance, leaders must ask whether this translates to everyday employee processes and actions. A one-size-fits-all approach simply won’t cut it here, which is why I’d always recommend AI. Data-led insights are the only thing that allow organisations to correlate outcomes, goals and behaviours across teams and regions, ensuring that strategies and actions are contextually relevant.

Transparency likewise remains critical as employees expect authenticity. Tools that surface honest, data-driven insights and make employers listen can help leaders to communicate more openly about challenges, with greater clarity on any steps that will be taken to address them.‍

Some critics worry about AI dehumanising culture. How do you address that?‍

It’s a valid concern – but I see AI as an assistant, not a replacement. Culture is fundamentally human. It’s about people, values and relationships as well as behaviours and processes. AI is simply the lens through which we can make sense of that complexity, without losing the human touch. Take our verbatim feature. By capturing raw, unfiltered feedback, we’re actually giving employees more of a voice. We’re simply encouraging employers to use AI and other tech tools to process that feedback, so insights become more informative and relevant, while allowing leaders to act on what has been said in more guided and meaningful ways. It’s about enhancing human decisions, not automating them.‍

Finally, what excites you most about the future of workplace culture?‍

It’s the potential for culture to become a true competitive advantage. When organisations align their cultures with their strategies, the results speak for themselves: higher engagement, better retention and stronger financial performance. With tools like AI summarisation and sentiment analysis, it’s easier than ever for leaders to take culture seriously and see it, not as human whimsy but a serious organisational metric. That’s important because culture isn’t just “nice to have” but the foundation for everything an organisation can achieve.

As we move into 2025, I believe more and more companies will start recognising this, investing in the tools and strategies they need to make culture measurable, actionable and impactful as a result. It’s the start of a new business future – a future I’m thrilled to be part of.

‍