Every week in this newsletter I answer a question from a reader who works in internal comms, just like you. This week’s question comes from an internal communications manager at a finance company in London:
“Joanna, I’ve been playing around with AI a bit but I could do with some advice on how to use it better or how it could help me in my role as internal comms manager. I see lots of people talking about it online, but most examples seem generic. Any advice for our specific profession?”
What a timely question, one I’ve been obsessing over for the past year. Or maybe more. So the short answer to your question is yes, I absolutely do have advice for you. Buckle up!
The problem many internal comms pros have with AI
In my job as a comms consultant, I talk to internal communicators every day of the week. And here’s what I hear again and again: internal comms pros try AI once or twice, typically requesting content creation tasks like writing articles for the company newsletter or creating employee surveys, and often people are pretty nonplussed with the outputs. They get mediocre results and then conclude “AI isn’t for me” or "This isn't helpful for my role".
But that’s like buying a Swiss Army knife and only using it as a bottle opener. It can do so much more!!
Here's what I tell people all the time: AI isn’t just for content creation or generating drafts of communications. It's far more powerful than that. It can be your strategic thinking partner, research assistant, planning coordinator and data analyst all rolled into one.
The secret is knowing exactly what to ask and how to ask it.
3 ways AI can transform your work beyond content creation
What can this look like? Here's a few ideas to get you started.
- Survey data analyst. Stop staring at spreadsheets full of employee comments wondering what themes emerge. AI can analyse sentiment, identify patterns and suggest actions based on your survey data and it can do it fast. Save yourself hours of work and use AI to do this grunt work for you.
- Conversation prep coach. Got a difficult conversation coming up with a tricky stakeholder about budget or strategy or buy-in for a project? AI can help you structure your approach, anticipate their objections and frame your arguments to increase your chance of success.
- Daily operations manager. AI tools are so helpful for tiny teams or teams-of-one because they can help you with tasks like prioritising your overwhelming task list using the Eisenhower Matrix to creating realistic daily schedules that actually account for breaks. AI can help you get organised in ways your human brain finds exhausting.
The specificity problem
I’ve been honestly shocked at how many ways I can use AI to help me with my job. When I worked in-house as a team of one, I often felt overwhelmed and exhausted by the never-ending demands of stakeholders and looking back I wonder how differently things would have been if I had AI tools like Copilot or ChatGPT to help me.
But many people get frustrated with AI and from what I can see, there's a specificity problem. In other words, here’s what most people get wrong: They use vague, generic prompts and wonder why they get vague, generic responses. The magic happens when you get specific about your role, context and desired outcome.
Instead of “help me with employee engagement,” try something like “You are a communications consultant. I’m an internal comms manager at a 500-person manufacturing company. Our latest engagement scores show 65% of middle managers feel disconnected from senior leadership decisions. Give me three specific listening tactics I could use to get a deeper understanding of the issue in order to make an action plan, considering our workforce is 70% frontline employees with limited free time available.”
See the difference? The better your input is, the better the output will be.
38 AI prompts that act as your internal communications assistant
The key is having a toolkit of proven prompts designed specifically for internal communications work. I’ve developed 38 specific prompts that cover everything from getting organised to measuring campaign success.
These aren't generic AI prompts - they're crafted specifically for the challenges we face as internal communicators. Things like:
- Creating employee personas
- Writing business cases for additional resources
- Sentiment analysis in employee feedback
- Planning for a successful focus group
- Planning 90-day strategies for new roles
Your summer learning opportunity
If you're looking to upskill while things are a bit quieter over the summer months, I've packaged all 38 of these prompts into a a comprehensive course called '38 AI prompts that act as your internal communications assistant' (formerly: 'How to use ChatGPT as your personal assistant' - I rejigged the title to make it clear that you can apply the learning even if your company doesn't let you use ChatGPT - these prompts will work a treat in Copilot!)."
This course will give you 38 specific prompts you can use with whatever AI tool your organisation allows - ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Claude or any other generative AI platform.
Each prompt is copy-paste ready with examples of how I use them in real scenarios.
Here's what internal communicators who have already taken the course have to say about it:
"This course has been a real eye-opener for me! I've already started to play around with some prompts and using ChatGPT as my new assistant!I'd 100% recommend this course - it's not too long, has good pace and gives some really good insights and food for thought." -​ Jane Crawford, Culture and Engagement Lead, On The Beach
"The examples of how to practically apply AI as an internal communicator were super useful, and I enjoyed the different examples, use cases and prompts. Whilst we're using a different AI platform in my organisation, everything in this course is still relevant and useful. And I'd definitely recommend this course to others." - Jenny Paterson, Global Head of Internal Comms, Computershare
"I have only dabbled with ChatGPT in the past and had no concept of how useful it could be in my day-to-day work. This course is concise and fast-paced. For a short investment of time, I've come away with a massive number of ideas and tips that I can't wait to try!" - Jen Ballantyne, Senior Internal Comms Lead, 1Password
What you get: 38 copy-paste prompts organised by your workflow
Get organised (9 Prompts)​
- Task assessment and prioritisation
- Daily scheduling optimisation
- 90-day plans for new roles
- Career advancement strategies
- Team hiring decisions
- Difficult conversation structures
Communications planning (10 Prompts)
- SMART objective creation
- Business goal alignment
- Employee persona development
- Business case writing
- Strategic presentation prep
- Campaign option analysis
Content creation (10 Prompts)
- Engaging content ideation
- Tone of voice adaptation
- Content repurposing (blog → video → presentation)
- Headline generation
- Channel optimisation strategies
- Proofreading and editing
Measurement & evaluation (9 Prompts)
- Metrics identification
- Focus group facilitation
- Survey question writing
- Sentiment analysis
- Thematic analysis
- Action plan development
Here's some more feedback from happy comms pros who loved this course:
I got loads of new ideas about new ways to use AI that I wouldn't have thought of, plus help honing my prompting skills (which were not good before!) - Kate Haynes, Senior Internal Comms Manager, Babbel
I liked seeing the prompts in action as it inspired me to think about how I could start applying this today. Very very useful, I've already asked ChatGPT one of the prompts! I would 100% recommend this course. - Nicole Wayment, Senior Comms Manager, Third Bridge Group
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Wow the whole course is a huge font of knowledge for me. Whilst I've been using AI for a while, I've not been as tight with my prompts or using it for all the the tasks I could or should be. Not any more. As I lead a small, but mighty, team of two using AI as our 'personal assistant' will help us be more productive and work smarter not harder. - Victoria Burkinshaw, Internal Comms & Engagement Lead, Marshalls plc
Invest in yourself over the summer
If you’re ready to stop struggling with AI and start using it as your strategic partner and your personal assistant, you can get access the course here:
On that note, I am signing off for a few weeks to take a rest and chill out. It's been a busy year and I quite fancy a digital detox. This newsletter will also be taking a break for a couple of weeks too. I'll be back in late June.
Thanks for reading and stay curious,
Joanna
P.S. If you grab the course now, you’ll have plenty of prompts to experiment with while I’m building sandcastles. Just saying.
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Find me on YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn and check out my book​
Want to work together?
- Join The Curious Tribe. This is my membership community for ambitious, curious communicators who want to achieve more in their roles and have fun at the same time. Membership allows you to work directly with me for 12 months, make deep connections with other communication pros who 'get it' and improve your skills through training and learning. More info here.
- Ready to review your channels and content but don't know where to start? Download my practical Internal Comms Audit Playbook to guide you through a DIY audit - no expensive consultant needed.​ This has ready-to-use templates and checklists to give you a systematic way to do your own audit which you can repeat every single year. Get it here.
- Take a shortcut. I've developed a collection of tried-and-tested templates, checklists and how-to guides for the key processes you'll need in your role as an internal communicator. You can download my Internal Comms Cheat Sheets here.​
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