Hey Reader,

Each week in this newsletter I answer a question from a reader. This week's comes from someone who's clearly feeling the squeeze, and I suspect a lot of you will resonate with this question:

I’ve gotten several versions of this question in the last couple of weeks. Lots of leadership teams and big bosses and important stakeholders telling comms teams “just use AI to write the comms” with little to no understanding of (a) that’s insulting, frankly and (b) there’s an awful lot more skill to comms than just putting some words on a page.

But that’s not to say AI isn’t helpful. It’s a tool we can use, on our own terms, to do our work well and make an impact in the company. But sometimes it’s hard to know what to use AI for, where it can actually add value, how we should incorporate it into our work without letting it take over.

And sometimes the most helpful thing in this situation is to get out of your own head and hear from others in the industry who can share insights and ideas and answer your questions. Because when you’re working in-house in a team of one or a tiny team, you’ve kind of got nothing to compare yourself against, have you? And you’re wondering if other comms teams are further ahead than you, what are they really using AI for, are other comms pros also quietly struggling with AI or do they have it all figured out already?

So let’s do just that. Let’s get together online, live, and talk about AI.

I'm teaming up with my friends at Workvivo for a free live session on June 24^th. Let’s create a space for a candid, practical conversation about how AI is impacting our world of internal comms: where it's adding real value, where it absolutely isn't and where we’re headed in the future.

I’m excited for this event because it’s a panel discussion with four people who have deep insights and access into a huge number of comms teams around the world. We are talking to comms teams every day about how they’re using AI, what’s working for them, what’s been trickier to crack, what they’re planning on next. So while this is a conversation about how to adopt AI well, you're also going to get something you can almost never get in our profession; a real sense of what's actually working out there, behind the scenes, in teams just like yours.

Meet the people I'll be sharing the stage with

Now an event like this is only as good as the people on the stage, and let me tell you this is going to be a top-tier event. Let’s meet my fellow panellists.

Sonya Poonian, AI Transformation Director at Gallagher

First up we’ve got my pal Sonya. Sonya and I were total strangers until a couple of years ago when I was approached about co-hosting an in-person comms conference in London. I was super excited about it and said yes and only afterwards it occurred to me I never asked who my co-host would be, haha.

Lucky for me, it was Sonya. Sonya has years and years of experience in internal comms consulting, workplace transformation and helping companies introduce new platforms successfully. She now leads Gallagher's global AI Transformation practice and as a result she has a rare panoramic view of what's happening with AI across a wide number of organisations. Sonya’s whole philosophy is that AI transformation only works when people do, and I’m excited to learn from her in this session.

Btw Sonya is not only a comms expert but she’s also a lovely person, she surprised me with a birthday cake onstage at the conference and got the entire audience to sing happy birthday to me. I was absolutely mortified and delighted in equal measure! Sonya and I have been firm friends since, she attended my book launch in 2024 and is always the first to text me with kind words of congratulations when I’ve achieved something in my business.

Colum Nugent, Global Director of Services at Workvivo

Now you might be thinking: how can anyone possibly follow Sonya? She’s a bloody hard act to follow! Well fear not because our second panellist is Colum Nugent who is a key business leader in Workvivo.

Colum has been with Workvivo for 6 years and in 2022 he founded the Workvivo Boost programme; this is a team of experts who work with Workvivo customers to help with things like comms strategy, content, consulting, governance. This means Colum has deep, rich insights into some of the biggest companies in the world and gets a first-hand look at how the comms teams operate and what their approach is to AI.

Colum is very honest, direct and he has a great sense of humour, I find he has a wonderful way of taking complex business topics and making them accessible and easy to understand. I’m looking forward to getting practical tips and tricks from Colum’s world to build on my own understanding of AI and I’ll be experimenting with some of his tips after the event.

John Goulding, Co-Founder & CEO of Workvivo

And last but not least, we’ll also be joined by the CEO of Workvivo, John Goulding, for an exciting product announcement 👀

John is a Cork native who founded Workvivo in 2017 and has since grown the company into one of the world's leading employee experience platforms. Absolutely no mean feat but frankly well deserved because Workvivo the platform is top-notch and Workvivo the people are hands-down fantastic.

Btw I met John in person in the new Workvivo Cork office last year and was very impressed by how much his external brand matches his real life persona. He didn’t meet with me to give me a slideshow about Workvivo or to sell me a spiel about how Workvivo is the best platform ever… he asked me lots of questions about myself, about my business, about my take on the world of internal comms and what matters to me and my network. He was curious and kind and humble and an absolute pleasure to spend time with. We spent a couple of hours chatting and drinking coffee before I headed back to Dublin on the train… and I was sent off with a 3-course packed lunch, a cold drink and a bag of Workvivo gifts to bring home. Talk about Irish hospitality!

And I’ll be speaking at this event too

Sorry I got so excited to have Sonya, Colum and John at the event that I totally forgot to say that I’m also a panellist at this event. I’ll be sharing what I’m seeing and hearing across my extensive network of internal comms professionals and giving you practical tips and advice that you can implement in your role. I’ve been experimenting with AI since I first heard about ChatGPT and I’m starting to form stronger opinions on what AI is genuinely useful for and what kind of work we should actually NOT use AI for.

[For example, I write this newsletter myself each week instead of outsourcing it to AI. Why? Because firstly I enjoy writing, secondly this is good practice for me to keep my writing skills strong and thirdly because I would feel so strange writing what is quite a personal newsletter via a robot narrator.]

Come join me at this event to hear from all the wonderful speakers. You’ll come away with:

• A real sense of what's genuinely working across other comms teams and industries
• Where AI is adding real value (and where it isn't)
• How to cut through and communicate well in an increasingly noisy workplace
• Practical things you can take back to your own team
• A clearer picture of where internal comms is heading next

The details:

📅 June 24th

🕐 4pm BST / 11am EDT

📍 Online

💰 Free

As always, bring your questions and your curiosity, and I'll answer as many as I can on the day. And if you can't make it live? Register anyway and we'll send you the recording.

Thanks for reading and stay curious,

Joanna

PS If you have a nagging feeling that everyone else has figured out AI and you're the only one still winging it, come join us and get the inside scoop. Join us here.

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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