Each week in this newsletter I answer a question from a reader. Today's question comes from close to home, from a reader in Dublin who is working as an Internal Comms Manager.
"My leadership team has basically told employees that we're expected to 'use AI for everything' to save time and money. I get the efficiency argument, but it doesn't feel right to run our whole comms function through AI. Am I being a dinosaur, or are my instincts right? is there a real case for keeping some things human?"
Ah, let me put your mind at rest straight away: you are not a dinosaur. Or if you are, then I'm one too. Because there's a problem with that "use AI for everything" instruction, isn't there? That's what we'll talk about in today's newsletter.
Now just before we dig into that, I have an invitation for you. Come join me and my pal Jason Anthoine for a live event on 29th July where we'll be discussing and dismantling lots of misconceptions and misunderstandings in internal comms and employee experience. The cool kids call this a "roast".
We’ll be discussing things like:
➡️ Why your manager cascade doesn't work
➡️ Why you probably don’t need a set of comms champions
➡️ Doing less, and doing it better, might be the approach you need this year
This event is live and it will be spicy. It's online, hosted by Unily, and it's my favourite price of COMPLETELY FREE. See you there?
Okay back to business. Let's talk about using AI for "everything".
What's the goal here?
If leaders want you to use AI for everything, they want you to move faster and produce more and essentially be a high-speed content factory, then perhaps it's time to slow down and engage them in a conversation about what the goal is. About what internal communication is really for.
Because for comms, the goal of doing more and doing it faster is tempting of course, but who is it helping? If AI just helps you produce more, you haven't solved any business problems or helped your employees to do their job more efficiently. You're probably inadvertently doing the opposite and making their job harder by creating lots of noise that is distracting them and annoying them.
Employees don't want "more content" or "more communication". They want more RELEVANT communication. Stuff that matters to them and to their job and to their day-to-day reality. Having content generation AI tools at our fingertips makes it dangerously easy to flood employees with content under the old misconception that more = better.
So what should AI actually be doing?
For me, AI is great at helping comms teams with execution and fiddley, tedious, time-consuming tasks. For example, AI can be great at proofreading the speech you wrote or spotting the grammar issues in your newsletter before you send it out. It can help you find gaps in your draft plan or give you some ideas of how an employee group might react to a message.
The teams I see getting genuine value from AI are the ones who actively and deliberately AREN'T using AI "for everything". Their goal is not to use AI to churn out more assets and create more stuff. Their goal is to use it where it can plug gaps in the team, speed up delivery or solve problems. It's a thoughtful approach that considers when and if AI should be used at all.
Yes, some work should stay firmly human
In my view, no you shouldn't be outsourcing everything to AI. There are definitely things that a comms pro should keep firmly to themselves. For example, an easy line to draw is that the deciding stays with the human, the delivery can sit with the robot. The judgment, nuance, insights, human understanding... this is all critical to the success of our role. A robot can't sit in a leadership meeting and observe the quiet politics playing out between stakeholders, or have a tricky conversation with the Head of HR who is demanding a tactic without an objective. That work is yours.
There are other judgement calls you need to make about AI too, and they are all very subjective. For me, for example, I don't use AI to produce drafts for me. I love to write. Writing this newsletter each week is a joy and a delight and why on earth would I outsource that to AI? If you had asked me when I was a kid "what do you want to be when you grow up?" I would have answered immediately "I want to be a writer". So for me, the writing stays with me, not only because I enjoy it but because I know that my writing skill is like a muscle. It needs to be exercised regularly to stay strong. If I got AI to do my writing for me, I suspect I'd be a crap writer in a year or two and that would really upset me.
You can start today: draw your red lines
So maybe that's your homework for today, if you want it. Think about what work you're NOT going to use AI for. What is the work that is solely with you, the human? Maybe it's because there's some work that you simply love to do. Maybe there's a skill you want to keep sharp. Or maybe there's a new skill you want to practice so you can get better at it.
Everyone right now is racing to work out what AI can do. I think the far more useful hour is spent deciding what it shouldn't.
Maybe AI restraint will be our new focus, rather than AI enthusiasm.
Hit reply and tell me what you're NOT going to use AI for. I'd love to read it and I'll compile your responses into a future newsletter so you can see what other comms pros are doing.
Thanks for reading and stay curious,
Joanna
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.