The Future of Communications

AI didn't write this. I'm not saying I didn't get a little help building my site because I did. The struggle to overcome imposter syndrome was too real. The draw to position myself as a futurist after being forced to live in the extreme present over the past four years required serious initial vetting. And then careful (and more important) vetting with real live humans in my inner circle. Thank you, humans! Many of us are questioning the future of our profession in the age of AI. Genuine and fully acceptable anxiety aside (because obviously there are enough anxieties at present), I'm excited. Nervous. But excited.

For more than two decades, I've watched teams be forced to do more. And more. And more. Often with less (or at least the same). I started my career when websites were nothing more than a fancy online brochure. When the largest casino-hotel entertainment venue in the upper Midwest was processing millions of dollars in direct marketing offers through a clunky Microsoft Access database. No sophisticated CRM. No Facebook. Important memos routed with interoffice mail folders, addressed to the recipient by hand and 'secured' with little red string closures. This isn't a post about the value of employees who've seen it all (that's for another day). So why paint myself as a dinosaur?

Because it creates a foundation for understanding the exponential growth of channels we communicators must manage. We must remember that the pre-AI evolution between the late 90s dot-com boom and late '00s iPhone-fueled social media boom was significant.

The thing is that communications has always gone through periods of contraction and expansion. And every time, our skills bring us back to the table. Across marketing and corporate communications.

Because our skills are absolutely transferrable to so many facets of business. And because humans will ultimately evade intrusive robot-fueled drivel. We already see it in the popularity of community-driven platforms like Reddit.

History has a way of constantly repeating itself. There was real fear early-on that social media would be a job killer to the communications function. We all know how that ended. Better human inputs = better AI outputs

I ran my own test recently with a client project focused on a large-scale change initiative. I had a series of eight videos that needed vignettes cut to share with executives. Using the client's native Copilot system, I input three of the videos and had it recommend what cuts to include. I ran those outputs against my own human judgement. In all three cases, Copilot missed critical opportunities to highlight the exact kind of business process changes executives wanted to see. It provided an opportunity for me to learn how to provide better inputs. Shifting the inputs for the remaining five videos did ultimately save time., and as part of my off-boarding process, I provided the client with recommendations on the use of AI for future communications needs.

That aligns with how business leaders are starting to see the AI opportunity: great for large-scale efficiencies and automation but only when humans are there to lead strategically (not to mention ethically). In the end, the most successful companies in the AI-era will be those that understand the true value of human-driven communications. I'm seeing it across the board in job postings where the word 'storytelling' is appearing with high frequency. AI's impact on communications is interesting. On one hand, it's another tool in the toolkit. My hope is that it will ultimately right the ship of tides turning toward communicators getting some relief from constant channel proliferation. On the other, AI Search/Generative Engine Optimization is yet another channel to manage that's creating massive disruption. Either way, my career doesn't look anything like it did 20+ years ago. And for that, I couldn't be more grateful.