My 6 AI recommendations for Communications leaders
November 6, 2025
You're the communications leader at a company doing multiple acquisitions annually. Growth mode. Everyone's talking about becoming AI-first within a year. And you? You haven't really picked up AI skills yet.
Not because you're behind. Because you've been busy running communications for a company that won't stop moving. But now the gap between where you are and where you need to be is obvious. Your team is stretched. Content takes forever. Messaging stays inconsistent across teams. And you're supposed to triple output while becoming AI-savvy?
Here's what I'd do, in order, starting tomorrow.
1. Upskill myself and my team on AI fundamentals—but skip the generic courses and definitely skip the tool training
There are plenty of generic AI courses out there. They might work for you. But if you haven't picked them up by now (and they've been around for a while), you probably need something more specific, personal, and guided.
Don't worry about certification. It's about understanding principles and applying them everywhere. I'd set up a structure where my team practices with AI tools daily on real work. Not on top of their work, but as part of their work.
The best training happens when you're working with AI on something you're already really good at. You learn faster. You see the value immediately. Plus the other upside: you'll find time efficiencies within a week, maybe two. So you're not adding more work. You're changing how you do work very quickly and getting time back in no time.
You get better at your work while building capability. No expensive hires needed when existing people can triple output.
And critically: don't focus on learning specific tools. Every tool is time consuming and you're learning how to navigate software, not AI. As with every tech wave, tools are fleeting. They can be handy here and there, but you move fastest if you focus on the underlying principles that are here to stay.
Learn how to prompt well. Understand what LLMs need to do what you want them to do. Learn how to structure information so AI can access it properly. These fundamentals transfer across any platform. When the next tool launches or your current one pivots, you're not starting over. You're just applying what you already know in a new interface.
2. Get my foundational knowledge and messaging sorted and accessible—for me, my team, and the entire company
This solves a huge part of what Internal Comms has been responsible for, plus many things nobody was ever responsible for because they seemed impossible.
Right now, your company's expertise lives in people's heads and scattered documents. Finding the right information takes longer than starting from scratch, so people improvise. Every time someone creates content, they're reinventing positioning. Every proposal tells a slightly different story.
I'd encode the foundational knowledge: what we do, why we do it, who we serve, how we're different. Not as more documentation that nobody uses. As a system that makes information instantly accessible when someone needs it. The kind of access that makes doing things right easier than improvising.
This is where understanding how to structure information for AI pays off immediately. You're not just organizing files. You're building knowledge architecture that AI can navigate and apply.
3. Encode our positioning and tone of voice as a structure that generates outputs on demand
Most companies document their tone of voice once, distribute it, and watch it get ignored. The problem isn't the documentation. It's that applying guidelines in the moment requires too much effort.
I'd build a structure where when someone needs content, they get the right message in the right voice for the right context, instantly. Not by searching through brand books. By working with a system that understands your positioning and enforces consistency automatically.
This is how you let subject matter experts contribute without going off-brand. This is how you scale messaging across acquisitions. This is how 300 people sound like one company.
4. Map how we work and systematize best practices so we stop reinventing the wheel
Every proposal shouldn't start from scratch. Every piece of thought leadership shouldn't require heroic effort.
I'd systematize operations: templates that adapt to context, workflows that make sense, best practices that compound over time. When someone creates a customer briefing, they shouldn't need to remember where the latest case studies live or which positioning is current. The system should surface what they need when they need it.
The path of least resistance should run through doing things right, not through improvising. When the correct way is also the easiest way, adoption happens naturally.
5. Become the strategic AI partner the C-suite needs by doing all of the above and speaking their language
Once you've built capability, organized knowledge, and established operations, you're not just implementing tools. You're driving transformation.
You understand how AI changes workflows. Where adoption stalls. What makes change stick versus fade. You've lived it with your team, so you know what works in practice, not just theory.
That makes you indispensable to strategy conversations. The C-suite needs someone who gets both the technology and the organizational dynamics. Someone who can translate between technical possibility and business reality. Someone who's actually done the work of transforming how teams operate.
You earned this seat by solving real problems, not by taking courses.
6. Build a content engine that turns expertise into pipeline, systematically
When subject matter experts can publish thought leadership directly without bottlenecks, everything changes.
Weekly publishing instead of quarterly. Customer questions become next week's content. Competitive moves get immediate responses. You move at market speed because the system handles consistency automatically.
Content volume increases 5-10x with the same people. Not because they're working harder. Because the friction disappeared. Organizations that publish weekly get 5x more inbound leads than those who don't. That gap between ambition and execution closes completely.
This is how you go from being a cost center managing communications to being a revenue driver generating pipeline.
