Sidearm Sports built 100s of AI use cases within months 

The Challenge

Tools without transformation. Every time Sidearm visits a partner school, they get asked the same question: how are you thinking about AI? The external pressure was real.

Internally, the picture was familiar: enthusiastic early adopters in some pockets, people using AI for personal tasks but not meaningfully in their work, and significant variance across teams. George knew that without a real standard and real accountability, adoption would stay uneven — a handful of people push forward, others wait, and the gap between them grows.

The Solution

George Scott had been a Section subscriber since fall 2024, before any company-wide program existed. When Sidearm decided to scale AI across the organization, Section was the natural partner. George mandated Section for all employees and led by example from day one.

"The head of the company needs to lead from the front. You should never be asking employees to do something you haven't already done as a leadership team."

George Scott, President, Sidearm Sports

The partnership covers:

• Section coaching for all employees: hands-on, highly personalized coaching on AI skills and use cases
• Basic proficiency certification: a defined baseline standard every employee is expected to reach
• Use case discovery and creation: Section's platform surfaces hyper-relevant AI use cases to every individual and helps them build and save custom use cases
• Hands-on, instructor-led workshops: two workshops to activate VPs and managers to lead their teams as AI advances

"Once people knew the Section platform was coming, they were hounding us: 'When can I get in there?' Once enrollment was open, I had not even communicated it to them yet they were already in the platform building skills and use cases."

George Scott, President, Sidearm Sports

The Results

The results came quickly. 90% of employees have completed Section's Basic AI Proficiency program. They've built hundreds of AI use cases, and recently expanded the partnership to include two workshops that give VPs and directors more targeted guidance on leading with AI.

The impact showed up in unexpected places too. Section-trained engineers are adapting to Claude Code significantly faster and more effectively than their untrained peers – a concrete downstream signal of what genuine proficiency looks like versus nominal training.

Lessons from Sidearm + Section:

• Leadership goes first. George's own experience – the early frustration, the breakthrough, the daily practice – gave him credibility and specificity when he set expectations for others.
• Tie AI to performance, and to careers. Formal review criteria create accountability; framing AI proficiency as a career skill creates personal motivation.
• Leaders have to demonstrate the tools, not just endorse them. Public use of specific tools, with specific results, normalizes the behavior.
• Peer sharing beats top-down communication. A Slack channel where real people share real use cases and time savings builds social proof.
• Your internal capability is your external differentiator. For companies whose clients are also navigating AI, an AI-fluent organization is a real competitive signal.