Feature
Generative AI could disrupt Internal Communications (IC) more than most roles.
Now that GenAI can create content and power algorithms to personalize experiences, do IC teams need to spend as much time on writing and content creation? Does this mean IC roles are under threat? Or does AI provide new opportunities for internal communicators to play more of a strategic role in the organization, advising leaders and employees on the use of AI while ensuring communications are purposeful and powerful? And what effect will AI agents have?
The impact of Generative AI internal communications was top of the agenda at the recent Gallagher Digital Experience Summit, held in London. The two-day conference, previously known as simplyEXP and created by industry veteran and founder of Simply, Marc Wright, attracts a crowd of practitioners involved in employee communications and engagement, as well as a sprinkling of consultants and vendors. Presentations and discussions dwelled on the current situation with AI, and what the future holds.
Here are some of the takeaways on how internal communicators feel about AI:
How Internal Comms Views AI: From Job Threat to Strategic Tool
When I attended this event two years ago, AI was also top of the agenda, with a particular focus on the threat to roles and the profession. Many of the conversations had a note of apprehension in them. I particularly remember one roundtable discussion, when an IC leader admitted that if she was introducing GenAI, she would almost certainly downsize her team.
Two years on and most IC teams are using AI in one way or another. While the current wave of restructures is a concern, a consistent sentiment expressed by speakers and participants is that AI is an opportunity rather than a threat — and an opportunity IC professionals must accept.
Alana Foster, head of communications at Travelex, said her perceptions of AI have changed after using AI and speaking with industry peers in the industry. “I was slow to start learning and using ChatGPT,” she said. “Today, I am confident if used correctly and safely, AI will be beneficial to the profession, especially when comms teams are particularly lean and juggling multiple responsibilities at competing deadlines.”
Wright said he had observed a shift in thinking about AI’s possibilities, but still felt the profession has been too slow to fully adopt it. “It’s like the advent of internal social media,” he said. “Many of us were too slow to move from the phases of ignoring, making fun of and then criticizing the new tools. We should embrace AI and quickly.”
Nicole Eves, Gallagher’s client engagement lead for digital & AI transformation, also urged IC professionals to seize the opportunity. “AI isn't just a new tool, it’s a people-first change requiring new behaviors, mindsets and skills,” she said. “Those who take action now will shape the future of internal communication and the employee experience, rather than follow it.”
How IC Pros Can Use AI to Their Advantage
So how should IC professionals seize the opportunities AI brings? To some degree it’s a question of mindset, with many speakers such as Gallagher’s Sonya Poonian urging IC teams to lead from the front.
“You either have a victim mindset or an architect’s mindset,” said Frank Dias, founder of Ai x Comms Lab. “AI is an opportunity every time. I want more comms pros to have an architect mindset.”
IC professionals also need to bring the right perspective, said Jarod Williams, head of digital communications channels at St. James Place. “AI is absolutely an opportunity, as long as we treat it as a tool rather than a replacement. The only real threat is us overthinking it or not being prepared for what it means.”
While a mindset shift is key, Wright’s closing keynote also dwelled on the importance of IC professionals improving their skills and knowledge, such as becoming “hallucination hunters” to weed out risky data errors. “You should be the expert in your company around how to leverage Generative AI,” he said. “It strikes right at the core of what we do as communicators.”
Foster agreed about the importance of learning about AI. “Comms professionals must stay savvy and upskill in AI now, or risk falling behind.” She also said that failing to understand the opportunities as well as the risks, challenges and ways to effectively adopt AI would be detrimental in the long term for organizations and comms functions.
Understanding AI gives communicators important credibility, Dias said. “We must be better with AI than the common employees,” he said. “If not, how can we communicate about it deeply?” The best way to acquire knowledge is to experiment, he said. “AI is lifelong learning,” he said. “The ah-ha moment is through your self-discovery, not from a textbook or a course.”
Williams also urged IC teams to experiment. “Play with different tools, understand what they can and can’t do and build confidence through small tests,” he said. “You don’t need to be a technical expert — just curious and willing to explore.”
IC's Role in AI Change Management
Once armed with AI credibility and knowledge, IC professionals could play a role in change communications supporting AI adoption. “IC folk are good at engagement,” said Wright. “In the short term, we have a real role to play in the adoption of AI in our organizations.”
One example of this is Visa. At the conference, Stephanie Griffiths, senior manager in Visa’s enterprise transformation team, spoke about Visa’s global change management program to embed generative AI, involving tactics ranging from running a pilot to GenAI ambassadors to creating toolkits for senior leaders. But the secret sauce behind the campaign’s success was treating AI adoption differently from other technology rollouts, with IC and change professionals playing a role.
“Stephanie Griffiths’s advice to treat rolling out AI tools in the workplace as a behavior change, not an IT change, really resonated with me,” said Emma Turner, an internal communications and engagement consultant. “One of the biggest challenges to overcome with any type of change is resistance to new ways of doing things and fear of not having the skills or competence to work in the new way.”
ICs have an opportunity to drive AI change, said Rupert Coghlan, a digital experience consultant. “Internal communicators can position themselves as leadership’s right hand during an organization’s AI adoption — guiding trust, clarity and behavior change,” he said.
Here, one of the elements that IC professionals bring to change management communications is empathy and emotional intelligence (EQ).
“Internal communicators are high on EQ,” said Charles Radclyffe, CEO at EA Global AI. “That’s why they’ve got the roles they have and deliver immense value to their organizations.” ICs’ ability to empathize with colleagues and for this to “ooze through comms” will also be essential in communicating difficult messages about roles affected by the advance of AI in the future, he added
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Internal Comms Must Become Strategic AI Advisors
With IC already playing a role in change management and AI adoption in some organizations, does AI at last offer internal communicators a more strategic role in organizations, an ongoing theme within the profession?
“Most organizations have dabbled with GenAI, but the real opportunity is now in using AI to improve the quality, timeliness and reach of communication — and critically, in understanding which ‘flavors’ of communication actually land with different audiences,” Coghlan said.
IC teams have an important role in advising companies on how to avoid AI-generated “slop” diluting critical messaging, Turner said. “AI will definitely give people more freedom to quickly and easily create content,”she said. “But it may miss the nuance or alignment with the big picture that comms professionals bring and potentially create a lot of organizational ‘noise.’”
On a more practical level, AI also frees time for IC professionals to play a more strategic role.
“AI can lift so much of the repetitive work off our plates and free us up to be better strategic partners,” said Williams. “It can handle that last minute article for the intranet, while we talk to the CEO about creating a great place to work.” IC pros can use the time AI given back , to listen, advise and build trust across the business.
Eves also advised IC pros to take advantage of productivity gains. “Use saved time to focus on what matters: strategic influence and meaningful human connections.”
Turner said she’s already seeing teams using AI tools imaginatively to claw some hours back from the work week. "I’ve seen some fantastic use cases — from teams using AI personas to review their messages from different perspectives, to quickly editing content for different channels to save them time,” she said.
How AI Impacts Internal Communications Tools and Channels
At the conference, presentations and roundtable sessions also touched upon how AI is affecting the tools and channels that IC professionals use every day. Kevin Hähnlein from Staffbase demonstrated an AI-powered facility to deliver personalized podcasts to employees, another example of the rapid infusion of AI into intranet products. Meanwhile, Wright believes AI will render staff email messages “totally useless” in 2026 as employees increasingly rely on an AI summary of an email message rather than reading the original message.
However, some felt that internal communicators should be doing more to better understand how to use the tools available. Radclyffe said he was surprised how many IC professionals at the conference equated AI with chatbots, “Most of the concerns I heard about the downsides that stemmed from the use of AI came from a simple lack of awareness of the art of the possible,” he said.
Coghlan also felt IC professionals should be more active in influencing the direction of AI in communication tools. “Push vendors beyond content generation,” he said. “Challenge them on how AI can radically improve search, workflows, integrations and the wider digital employee experience.”
Success Stories: Internal Comms Projects Without AI
While AI is changing the internal communicator’s toolset, the conference also featured a number of successful digital workplace and employee engagement projects that did not feature AI at all.
Clarie Gannisan and Nicola Laver from UK utility company Northumbria Water Group described how they had successfully built a brand ambassador program by equipping employees with facts and arguments to counter negative reactions they receive in public. Yannick Van Winkel and Nicole Eves covered a project to launch a new intranet for the European Space Agency, while Sirin Ariason from Nordics restaurant chain Max Burgers talked about how after a false start, the team got nearly 100% registration of its employee app as well as a range of other employee engagement goals. All without a sniff of generative or agentic AI.
Foster described the impressive adoption and usage statistics for Travelex’ long-term intranet, The Lounge, again without the aid of AI. "We have 93% of colleagues actively visiting and using The Lounge every month, while in October we saw that rise to 96%," said Foster, who added that frontline employees use the intranet to research operating procedures, book annual leave and complete training, as well as blogging and sharing peer-to-peer recognition and supporting DE&I and wellbeing.
All these examples are a salient reminder that while AI is changing the workplace and increasing opportunities for IC professionals, it is not everything.
AI and the Future of Internal Communications
There’s still apprehension, but the sentiment from the Gallagher conference and its attendees is that AI represents an intriguing opportunity for internal communicators to make a bigger impact. Wright, reflecting on decades in communications and wrapping up his last conference before semi-retirement, is excited about the future. "I wish I were 20 years younger and able to take advantage of the massive changes ahead,” he said.
Editor's Note: How else is GenAI changing internal comms?
- Learn, Inspire and Play Your Way to AI Mastery in Internal Comms — Generative AI can support overworked internal communications teams — but first you have to learn how to use it and how it can help you.
- AI Safety in Internal Comms: Ensuring Data Integrity and Security — The path to GAI adoption at organizations is ill-defined, but there are ways for internal communicators to tap into the capabilities with more assurance.
- Intranets Get an AI Makeover — Will GenAI make intranets obsolete? Based on how intranet vendors are incorporating AI into their products, the answer is not any time soon.
