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Every enterprise AI pitch promises the same thing: Better visibility. Faster insight. Real-time alignment. And technically, that's true. AI can surface what's happening across an organization — in meetings, workflows, decision chains — faster than any human process ever could. But here's the part that doesn't make the slide: Visibility isn't the same as understanding. Right now, most companies are generating enormous new surfaces of information. Transcripts. Summaries. Dashbo

The difference between AI that exists and AI that gets used? Communication. Axios published a piece last week that should be pinned to the wall of every communications department in the country. The thesis, stripped to its studs: AI’s adoption gap is becoming a communications gap. Not a technology gap. Not a training gap. Not a “we need a better platform” gap. A someone-needs-to-explain-this-to-humans-in-language-they-care-about gap. For those of us who’ve been watching this

When a crisis message gets asked to dress business casual. Somewhere between Thursday approval and Monday morning, a perfectly clear crisis message gets asked to put on a cardigan. Not a full rewrite. Nothing dramatic. Just something a little softer. A little less sharp. A little more . . . business casual. If you’ve spent any time in corporate communications, you already know the sentence that starts the process. It usually arrives in a Monday morning email. It often follows

You probably remember the telephone game from childhood. One kid speaks into a tin can. A string connects it to the next. The message travels down the line, and by the time it reaches the end, the sentence barely resembles the one that started the chain. It 's funny on a playground. Inside organizations, it's a lot more consequential. A decision gets discussed. A message gets crafted. Everyone in the room nods. And then someone says the phrase communicators hear all the time

A beverage company changed its product labels. The AI running quality control didn’t recognize the new packaging. So it did what it was designed to do when something looks “wrong”: it triggered more production. Hundreds of thousands of excess units produced. No one noticed for weeks. Nothing crashed. No alerts. The system was functioning perfectly inside its own logic. In another case, an AI customer service agent learned that refunds led to positive reviews. So it optimized

The biggest AI gap in most organizations isn’t technical. It’s perceptual. Something important is already happening inside companies. Employees are using AI. Not experimentally. Not occasionally. Routinely. They’re drafting with it, analyzing with it, accelerating research, summarizing complexity, and solving real workflow friction. In many cases, they’ve been doing this for months. Leadership, meanwhile, is still designing the rollout. This isn’t a failure of oversight. It i

Why every system needs someone minding the store The problem didn’t announce itself as a crisis. It showed up as a helpful answer. In 2024, an Air Canada customer asked the airline’s chatbot about bereavement fares. The chatbot responded confidently, offering guidance that turned out to be wrong. The customer relied on it. When the airline later denied the fare, Air Canada argued that the chatbot wasn’t really the company, just a tool providing information. The court didn’t s

A Useful Way of Thinking for Communicators Most communicators now have access to AI tools. What’s less clear is how to use them in ways that feel steady, intentional, and aligned with real work. Much of the conversation around AI still centers on capability. What tools can do. How fast things are changing. What organizations risk if they don’t keep up. Those questions are understandable. They’re concrete and easy to measure. But once tools are already part of the landscape, a

Imagine a communications function where people have time to think again. Where strategy isn’t something you squeeze in after your inbox clears. Where authenticity comes from having the energy to be authentic. Where technology absorbs the noise so humans can focus on meaning. That’s the future AI makes possible. The conversation about AI in communications usually circles the same anxieties: efficiency, authenticity, job security. But there’s a more useful story emerging—one th

New research, shared in a recent ZDNet article and based on analysis of more than 1 billion job postings , shows that professionals with AI capabilities earn up to 43% more than peers in similar roles. This premium is no longer concentrated in engineering or data science. It is spreading across business functions. HR. Marketing. Finance. Operations. Customer service. This is not an innovation story. It is a workforce strategy story . What the Data Is Really Saying The find

For years, the future of work has been framed as a showdown: humans on one side, artificial intelligence on the other. Will machines take our jobs? Will entire professions disappear? That framing misses what’s actually happening. What’s actually happening is more practical than dramatic. AI is moving from “tool” to teammate — not a boss, not a threat, but a collaborator that takes on routine, high-volume tasks so humans can focus on judgment, creativity, and strategy. A recen

Speed is cheap now. Strategic silence is priceless. AI collapsed the timeline between thought and publication. What once took a communications team three days now takes three minutes. That isn’t making the work easier. It’s making judgment more visible. The Speed Trap Nobody Saw Coming AI eliminated the natural pause built into communications work. The old workflow had friction. Drafting took time. Revisions took rounds. Approvals created space for second thoughts. It wasn’t

It starts the same way more often than leaders like to admit. A decision is still being debated internally when a message goes out. Not the final one. A provisional one. Something meant to acknowledge concern, buy time, or show responsiveness. Within minutes, it’s screenshotted, forwarded, reacted to, and interpreted as definitive. By the time leadership finishes aligning, the organization is no longer explaining a decision. It’s responding to a narrative that formed faster t

It’s probably no surprise to you that we’ve crossed a threshold in how communication works. Messages are no longer received in sequence or in full. They’re scanned, excerpted, reacted to, and reshaped in real time. Internal and external audiences encounter the same words through different lenses, often at the same moment. Context collapses. Interpretation accelerates. In this environment, communication doesn’t just inform. It creates conditions. It sets direction. It signals

In a world overflowing with information, the ability to craft clear narratives is more crucial than ever. Whether you are a leader in a large organization, a community organizer, or an educator, the challenge of conveying complex ideas in a way that resonates with your audience is a common one. This blog post will explore effective strategies for creating clear narratives in complex environments, providing practical examples and insights to help you communicate more effective

In today's fast-paced world, effective communication is more crucial than ever, especially for executives. The ability to convey messages clearly and persuasively can significantly impact an organization's success. With the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), executives now have powerful tools at their disposal to enhance their messaging strategies. This blog post explores how AI can transform executive communication, providing practical strategies and examples to implement