Transcript for Cutting Through podcast Season 2 Episode 5

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Jonathan Holt   This is Cutting Through, the podcast for corporate digital communicators. I'm Jonathan Holt, Head of Strategic Insights at Bowen Craggs. And today on the podcast, we're asking, what does the rise of AI really mean for corporate communicators?

By now, we're all familiar with the hype, the hope, the fear, and the existential questions that AI has introduced into life and work. And while some of the biggest questions remain unanswered just yet, we know a lot more about the implications for communications professionals than we did even just a few months ago. Early adopters and the more visionary among us are making quick work of adapting to the earthquake that is AI search, while agentic AI is – maybe possibly – starting to edge into at least some communicators' day-to-day work. Recently unveiled research from global nonprofit think tank, The Conference Board, has given us one of the first statistical views on how all of this is shaping up, both in terms of the channels and tactics, as well as changes in team structures and skill sets.

And I'm pleased to say that we have the people behind that research with us today, Ivan Pollard and Denise Dahlhoff from The Conference Board's Marketing and Communication Center. We're also joined by Scott Payton and Caterina Sorenti from Bowen Craggs. And I should say that Bowen Craggs collaborated as a knowledge partner on this research. Ivan and Denise.

Welcome to the podcast and before we dig into some of headline findings from the AI research, could one of you tell us for any listeners who don't already know a bit about what The Conference Board does and how the Marketing and Communications Center supports that work?

Ivan Pollard   Yeah, of course, Jonathan. Well, thank you very much for having Denise and I. Denise and I work in the Marketing and Communication Centre of The Conference Board. Many of you may not have heard of The Conference Board. As Jonathan said, it's a not-for-profit think tank that's been around for over 100 years, and its global mission is to provide business intelligence  to our network of professionals in the C-suite  and try and give a non-partisan, unbiased, objective point of view about what's going on in the world of economics, geopolitics, human capital policy, governance and sustainability, and also marketing and communications. So we were very pleased to partner with Bowen Craggs to explore one of the issues that you just mentioned, Jonathan, which is, okay, this process of AI has actually been going on for some people will say 50 years, but for those in communications, it's really started to rocket over the last four or five years. So what are the communicators thinking, doing, feeling, and acting on in the new evolution of what AI is doing to change workflows?

Jonathan    The survey involved quite a number of high-level marketers and communicators. Who exactly did you hear from?

Denise Dahlhoff   Yeah, I can speak to that. Great to be here. And I want to reiterate what Ivan said. It has been great to collaborate with the Bowen Craggs team. So the survey that we did was actually, it's our regularly scheduled CMO+CCO Meter, which we do twice a year. And we have recurring questions about business impact of marketers and communicators, as well as how the senior level marketing and comms leaders are feeling about their resources, meaning their budgets, teams and tools, and how happy they are with their work, in particular recognition, workload and overall satisfaction. 

And the second part of the survey, we always mix that up with current topics and the current topic that we focused on in the February run of the survey was the impact on channels due to AI, to all these new  gen AI platforms coming on the scene, but also the impact on teams and the human skills that are becoming more and less important in this new AI era.

So we reached 100 communicators, senior communicators, mostly in the US and Europe, and 67 senior marketing leaders.

Jonathan   Which channels did the survey indicate senior communications leaders considered to be the most important right now in this moment when AI is so much on the rise?

Denise   Yeah, so I can speak to that. And of course, the channel that we were mostly curious about where that would fall is where these new AI platforms are falling. So what we found is that the most important channel that communicators are thinking of for reputation building is owned media. That means the owned website and the owned social media channels. And that is ahead of media relations. And then in third place, we see reviews and word of mouth, really important for validating companies. And then in number four, that's the channel that we had our eyes on, which are these new AI platforms, meaning anything from ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and others. They're already in number four. And at the bottom end of what types of channels are more important now are now shared channels, in particular, not third-party search channels, customers of third parties commenting on companies, but more the internal social media, meaning by employees or even by the C-suite. And then in last place is actually paid channels, now any advertising, for example.

Jonathan   Well, the number one channel, as you mentioned, is owned media. This is something that's near to our hearts at Bowen Craggs because it's the area that we consult on. But I wanted to ask everyone in bringing Scott and Caterina into the conversation too, does what this survey shows line up with what you're hearing as you're talking to communicators in conferences and events and just the day-to-day chit chat?

Scott Payton   Well, yes, rings true loud and clear. And it's so interesting. We were at The Conference Board's Corporate Communications Conference in Brooklyn about a month ago, and we've just run a conference in Berlin for about 100 communications professionals last month.

One thing that it's clear to me is for a number of years the corporate website was seen as a bit of a Cinderella in the corporate communications function, particularly in the eyes of senior management. So, sweeping the floor in the basement. Everyone kind of thought you had to have a corporate website, but wasn't nearly as interesting as shiny Instagram. That has now turned on its head and a lot of our clients are saying that the senior leadership team is more interested in the corporate website than ever before. 

Caterina and I were in Munich a few weeks ago and one client there has told us that he's now been asked by the board to deliver fortnightly reports on the website's performance. And he said that that's never happened before. And we've got a global client in the UK that has an AI search optimisation program across all of their websites across the company and that project is being led by the CFO, again kind of unusual, and one client in your hometown of Minneapolis, Ivan, has told us last autumn that... I think, to paraphrase, they said they've never known the senior leadership team as interested in the corporate website as they are now. Cinderella is now going to the ball thanks to AI.

Caterina Sorenti   And yeah, I think just to add to that from my side. So, there's this growing emphasis on owned channels like the corporate website, because I think in the age of AI visibility very much so depends on what platforms can reliably source and cite. And your own channels are really the only place where you fully control credible structured content while offering the depth and the experience that AI summaries can't really replicate. So, I think I'd say people are just quite perhaps excited about the autonomy and creativity of their own content in light of this.

Denise   And can I just add something to that from our survey? So I mentioned the top four  channels, right? And number four being these new AI platforms. And number five, literally right after that, we see thought leadership. And that relates so much to own media, to your website, because you put thought leadership, really analytical content, credible data and insights on your website to feed AI platforms. So that goes probably with that focus on owned media.

Scott   Yeah, and I think it's a lot of our clients, kind of, or many of them, have a kind of a journalistic background or an editorial background. And again, five years or so ago, a lot of companies were kind of stripping back their thought leadership, thanks to the wonderful world of operational efficiencies. And now these kind of ex-journalists or editorial people are thrilled that as a result of AI, the attention is now turning on rich thought leadership, authentic, credible editorial, because it's now being more widely recognised as a really powerful tool for cutting through in AI search. So yeah, completely.

Ivan   Can I also add in that, you know, this idea about thinking owned and shared and paid in that direction. This has been around since the early 2000s. In fact, you can go back to the 1960s and see a few people talking about it. But it really started to gain pace as social media came on it. 

I do think I'll echo what you said, Scott, is that owned and the ability to feed owned media has become ever, you know, it's taken an exponential leap in terms of its importance, not just in where it plays, but how often it needs to show up with AI. So, people were getting used to this, then they started to cool off on it a bit. And now if you don't get on this, you're going to get left behind.

Jonathan   Well, one of the things that sort of surprised me about the research as I looked at the numbers, as Denise said, AI platforms and apps were the number four choice, but that came in at 26% for communications leaders versus 60% for owned websites and social media.

And so, at a time when everyone is in a tizzy about AI, it struck me as interesting that communicators would be so focused on the flip side. How do you interpret that? I mean, is there something hidden there which is the ghost of AI, that in a way it's there by implication, in people saying that owned channels are suddenly hugely important, because the AI is after all the reason why they're suddenly in the spotlight?

Denise   I would look at it from the other perspective. I would say AI platforms are already, after just a couple of years of being on the scene, they're already in number four. They're actually now stronger than SEO, which includes AI summaries, right?

And look at how many for how many years we have had SEO. So AI is already beating SEO. And also to keep in mind that AI channels are sort of only a second-degree channel because they pull from all these other channels, right? From owned, from earned, from all the reviews, from thought leadership. So, it probably makes sense that there is a ripple effect because of AI, right? That these other channels are becoming more important because these AI platforms are synthesising from these other channels. So naturally, maybe these other channels would grow, or the emphasis would be more on those. And of course, your own media, can control the content and make sure that it has this rich content, incredible content that AI systems prefer.

Scott   Yeah, and that was kind of exactly my interpretation too. And I think one of the great things about the website is it's the one channel that is totally under the company's control. It's not owned by Elon Musk. It's owned by you, and you can do what you like with it. And I think this finding does, as you say Denise, it reflects a recognition among senior communications people that focusing first on owned channels is the most powerful way of moving the dial elsewhere, especially in AI search. And yeah, it's remarkable that it's leapfrogged SEO so quickly.

Ivan   And just last week, we were having a conversation with 20 or so of our members and the CCO of a very large global organisation talked about the way that they have just experimented by setting up their own newsroom to generate owned media content, stories up to date about what they're doing and they're tracking how that's affecting the AI search summaries and all the platforms.

So, this is an accelerator. I think we're seeing it, coming to your point, Denise and Scott, this has come very quickly, just in a couple of years, people have started to elevate this and it's starting to make people rethink the mix of the way they think about where they show up in the world for their customers.

Jonathan   Well, let's dig into a couple of the channels that seem to be waning in popularity, first being paid advertising.  And this has been up until recently one of the big things, a lot of emphasis in corporate digital teams on sponsored content and such. Is it simply an economics matter, a matter of budgets, that it's now so much cheaper potentially to get information in front of people thanks to AI tools, or is it something else?

Denise   I would say as people are thinking more of AI systems, it's a little less important because AI systems are not, or paid advertising is not one of AI platforms’ preferred sources, right? However, it is still important as a reinforcer for reputation, right? Repetition is good. So, if you have seen something in digital, you might be out of home, you know, around the city and see an ad. That definitely helps. But in this universe of or in this era of AI, that might be a little less important, but still really important for awareness and reach. Also keep in mind, not everybody is online and a digital native. So it is important to think of these other audiences, how to reach those. And we also, by the way, comparing communicators and marketers. For marketers, paid advertising is still more important. For the communicators – they have a very different responsibility building reputation – a little less.

Ivan   So, those with bigger budgets are more likely to elevate, still going to stay in the fourth rank, in the fourth division. But they will elevate the paid advertising higher than those with smaller budgets. So we saw that too.  So, Jonathan, to your point, it is also a question of where you're going to spend your money, how much money you've got.

And it's not that it doesn't work, it's just that there may be more advantageous opportunities on the owned and earned, where you're still paying, but you're paying a little less for it. But just to reiterate, all of the evidence I've gathered over 40 years in marketing and communications is that when you get these things working together, you actually get a cumulative multiplier effect. So don't write off paid advertising yet, even if you're a communicator.

Scott   Just to look into my crystal ball, I think it's not going to be long before sponsored content and more paid content starts to be introduced by OpenAI and Google through the new AI search platforms. I think it's only matter of time.

Ivan   I think that's beautifully put, Scott, a new form of paid. OpenAI are already accepting advertising. It costs a lot of money to do it, by the way. Roughly $200 billion is spent every year on SEO advertising. So that $200 billion isn't going to go away. We're going to find new ways for these AI platforms to start to leverage it, but also, you know, that goes into the paid advertising bucket. The people who own that money will start spending it differently.

Jonathan   We actually have a sort of case study within Bowen Craggs' with a client we've been working with who uses paid advertising on social media and campaigns. Through our surveys, we've been able to track a correlation between people who see those images and messages and positive brand perception for the corporate brand. 

I wanted to draw attention to another of the less popular channels, which was that employee social media posts and as you mentioned one of the least popular among senior communications leaders. Why do we think that is?

Scott   Well, that finding surprised me too, actually, because we do see that authentic human content from real employees does seem to be kind of a powerful trust signal, in AI search as well as among humans. I wonder whether this finding is partly down to the fact that kind of employee social media posts, for example, are possibly kind of run more by the HR department rather than the marketing or communications department. So it's kind of really simply kind of being the responsibility is slightly adjacent to rather than directly something that the CMO or the CCO is in charge of. So, I think it’s possibly that. My message to CMOs and CCOs who don't value employee content is to change their view on that. I think in AI search that it is... And in an age of growing mistrust and misinformation and synthetic information, I think real stories for real employees is really quite a powerful way of cutting through and building trust. But other views are available.

Denise   I think we also have to differentiate between two types of employees' social postings, right? The one is the ones that companies themselves, their social media team creates that employees just repost. And then the other type where an employee really genuinely talks about their company and an experience and things like that. And I don't know AI algorithms that well, but maybe... they have a preference for the second kind, right? The authentic, really written by an individual rather than repostings. Maybe those AI algorithms deprioritise the reposted corporate social media postings, right? And maybe that's why they are getting less priority.

Scott   I think it's, one way we, when we work with clients on AI search optimisation of their content, what you find, if you ask ChatGPT or Google, Is company X a good place to work? or Does this company have a good workplace culture? the AI answer is more likely to be fed by Glassdoor.com or Indeed.com than the corporate website because the AI bots are thinking, well, Glassdoor, there's thousands of honest reviews from employees. Let's go there rather than to the career side of the website. So actually these kind of employee content from the company is really, is again a really powerful way of actually kind of in the kind of the battle for the truth about your company in AI search, employee content is a really quite powerful way of being highly ranked and being visible.

Jonathan   I wonder if there's something here though coming back to that message, that idea of control and particularly senior people wanting something to hold on to in a time of incredible change and uncertainty. Because if you go on YouTube, which we often do when we're testing the effectiveness of, you know, companies’ online communications, and look at the Shorts that are there, the short videos that are there that YouTube is surfacing if you're asking, you know, what is X company doing about climate change or you know, do they do child labour or whatever, most of the times those are very independent, you know, very real, very authentic, very critical, you know, voices. And so that's a sort of scary world, I guess, or an unpredictable one. Do you think that this is about control?

Ivan   I think that's a great question, Jonathan. And just thinking about where the employee voice has gone, as I said, when I was working in agencyland in 2000 and working on a very big global project, we talked about the employees being an owned media channel. So think this is pre, you know, the real growth of social and the voice of the employee then.

Now we're starting to think about it as a shared. You don't own it. You don't control it. You don't even earn it. So yeah, it's a scary world. And I think this is forcing companies to think about the way they treat their employees. So this is a communications issue. It's an HR issue. It's a leadership issue. And to quote Richard Branson, I remember reading this very long time ago, Richard Branson's approach to people was he's going to train them so well that they can get a job elsewhere, but he's going to treat them so well that they're going to stay. 

And I think that's a good mantra to put into the world today as you're trying to, you can't control their voices, but you can influence them. So you don't have authority, but you have influence. And it comes down to what the work experience is like. And just for the listeners online, as Jonathan just said, hey, you know, we can go and check out any company. I just asked ChatGPT, whether Bowen Craggs is a great company to work for. And indeed it says, yes, it is. It says you get a very high-touch experience and whilst you might be a niche organisation compared to the great agencies, the experience is really good. So constantly checking yourself, what your people are saying and not trying to control it, but trying to understand why they say what they say. I think actually is something that we, that as, as, as you're pointing out, Jonathan, this is becoming more influential on whether or not a customer will sign a deal with you because they're going to check these things out and they can check it out very easily.

Scott   Cheque's in the post to ChatGPT.

Ivan   Ha ha ha ha!

Jonathan   So even if employees’ own content, maybe at a low point right now in the eyes of senior communications people, we did have 13% of communications leaders saying that they're investing more in formats like video and audio that AI can't easily summarise. You have to assume that a lot of those are about employees. So there's a distinction there. Employees' voices and images are not going away, are they? If anything, they're probably ascendant.

Denise   I would just say in general, as everything goes digital and written, anything that stands out from that is more unique. I mean, think of how some companies brought their catalogue back, like direct marketing, right? When everything, like the IKEA catalogue is a great example. And the same now, as we get so many search results from these AI platforms and other sources, videos stand out. I mean, there has been a huge trend toward video for years now. Anecdotally, see so many people, even when you're out and about in a city, so many people taking videos of themselves to share it on social media. But the other thing in the AI age is also a thing about trust. So what you get from an AI machine can often not be verified or it takes a lot of work, right? But if you see a real person saying something, that buys you authenticity and trust and credibility. Some people have actually said, you used to be able to hide any insights or content behind the company name. Now, the audience, the reader, the listener or the viewer, they want to see, you know, or they want to know, Who is the person behind this? So video of course goes to that because you see the person live.

Ivan   Let me give you a very topical example. I don't know if you've all seen it, but did you see that recently there were elections in Hungary? So I don't know if many of us have seen a video of the person that was elected as the president, but getting over, know, getting into the millions of viral views yesterday was the health minister doing a disco dance on the stage and, you know, that got the world thinking about, so there's an employee of the government, he's the health minister in the new thing. And yet a viral video that stood out really got a lot of attention, probably more attention than the actual news stories. So I do think I echo what Denise is saying. Real videos… By the way, on The Conference Board, some of you may have heard of a thing called the Consumer Confidence Index and the CEO Confidence Index. That's what The Conference Board does as well.

And in the recent run of the Consumer Confidence Index, we started to ask about trust and AI. And yes, three years ago, we thought everything was fake. Now we're getting into the stage where we can't tell. And we're getting into the stage where over 40%, for instance, of millennials are trusting what AI tells them and are believing that the companies behind it are being ethical and have the right governance in place to make sure that what they see is real. And if that be so, then that just doubles up the power of having a real story from a real employee saying a real thing, a truthful and authentic thing. So yeah, not always “The checks in the post”. It's even better if they say it because they mean it.

Scott   Absolutely.

Jonathan   That Hungarian dance is quite a jig. I think if anyone wants a little boost of joy, I'd say look up that video. And in fact, I think we'll have the link on the podcast page.

Jonathan   So as we wind down our discussion around platforms and techniques, we always like to offer a little practical advice on Cutting Through. So, Scott and Caterina I know you've been out and about talking to people about the implications of AI. And in fact, you gave a joint presentation at the conference in Berlin about must-take actions. Without going into all the details, can you share just maybe one action that people can be taking right now and give an example of what that looks like in practice?

Caterina   Yeah, sure. So, I think many of our kind of practical takeaways seem to resonate with a lot of listeners. And I think that AI optimisation can feel quite abstract at times. Ultimately, we're catering for tools we don't 100% have technical understanding of. And it can feel like when we do, they change at such a rapid pace that we then don't. So, I think one really good piece of advice is listening to acronyms, AEO, answer engine optimisation. So the importance of feeding AI platforms with bite-sized answers. 

It's so crucial for corporate websites because it ensures that your content is structured and authoritative enough to actually directly be surfaced in AI generated answers, which makes your company visible even when users aren't clicking through. 

So I'd say that. And then a cheeky second point is double down on consistency. So consistency of fact, figures and messaging across all of your online channels, which is a crucial trust signal.

Scott   A big one from me, which I think is the biggest priority and the biggest struggle for lot of online communications teams at the moment, is a recognition of the importance of providing clear, detailed, authoritative answers to all relevant topics, even and especially difficult and controversial topics that the CEO really, really doesn't want to talk about at all. 

So, tackling contentious issues head-on on your corporate website, so that when… People will ask ChatGPT difficult questions about your company, so you've got to provide answers to those questions on your own channels. It's easy to say, but think culturally and politically very, very hard for some companies to actually do, because for decades they haven't talked about tricky things.

Denise   And just a comment on what Caterina and Scott just said, you talked about the clarity and the structure and the tough topics. And that pleases AI systems and works really well for them. But it also works very well for a human audience. So this is actually like a double benefit, cleaning up all the channels and the content that works for both the AI machines and for a human audience.

Scott   Absolutely, I think it is, and I think openness and transparency, they're two overused words, aren't they? But it's true, the increasing importance of openness and transparency. There is a rising human demand for it, and it's important for feeding the AI search beast as well. So, yeah.

Jonathan   Well, let's take a short break and when we come back, we'll find out how senior corporate communicators are thinking about the impacts that AI is going to have on their team size and structure and which skill sets they're most looking to build up in their teams. 

[Interlude] A new era of corporate communications is here and the good news is that the digital team is in the forefront like never before. The bad news is that the digital team is in the forefront like before. At Bowen Craggs we only do corporate digital communications advice and we’ve got all eyes on the twists and turns and opportunity zones in this particular corner of communication, working with many of the world’s largest corporate brands all over the world. For our latest insights on everything from AI search  to how corporate estates are evolving, visit our website at bowencraggs.com

Jonathan   So there's been lots of talk lately about AI's potential to radically remake the global workforce. And without a doubt, AI is already changing the way that work is done. A lot of corporate digital communicators are wondering what is this going to do to their roles and the shape of their teams. The Conference Board’s survey asked senior corporate communicators and senior marketers about this. So we have some data now around what's actually going on in the minds of the people who are going to be making these workforce decisions.

Let's get the bad news out of way first. 25% of comms leaders said they expect to hire fewer junior team members and 21% said they expect to see overall headcount shrink because of AI. But at the same time, 9% said they expect to recruit more human team members because of AI. So I said bad news, but actually, I don't know, given the doomsday scenarios – we've all seen the projections of 50% or even more job losses in some sectors – his doesn't seem so terribly bad, does it?

Denise   Yeah, Jonathan, what you point out is actually people's number one fear regarding AI job losses, right? But you say there's a lot of shifting going on in terms of not just the number of jobs, the types of jobs you mentioned that senior communicators are expecting fewer junior level roles. By the way, the same holds for marketers, even more.

There are lots of changes going on and by the way every new technology that we have been living through had that going on, right? But think of when the internet started. There was also a lot of job displacement, but there were also new jobs created for the digital universe right? So there are implications for both workers and also team managers, comms leaders. So for the workers, giving rescaling skilling options and alternative jobs. That's very important. Also at a societal level, I mentioned in other research we have seen that people's number one fear regarding AI is job loss.

And then the other implication is for comms leaders and marketing leaders as well. They have to manage their teams very differently. Like if you have fewer junior level people, for example, what does that mean for talent development, right? To develop future leaders. 

But at the same time, those marketing and comms leaders now have to also supervise AI agents and more AI talent, which we actually see as one of the big changes too on teams. You have more AI focused roles, more tech focused talent. So for comms leaders to manage these types of teams, it's actually a huge change and everybody has to really adapt to this new AI era.

Scott   I've been thinking about this a lot because I've got a 21-year-old stepdaughter and a 14-year-old daughter about to move into the workplace. And I actually think that when it comes to the world of white-collar work, and there are lots of existential questions being asked about the impact of AI on job opportunities and the potential for job losses. I think looking at kind of marketing and particularly communications, given the growing importance of humanity and authenticity that Ivan talked about, and we've all talked about. Given the growing importance of authenticity and humanity to effective communications, I actually think that in the medium term, the communications profession will see fewer layoffs than other professions. I think junior lawyers, big trouble, frankly. Junior accountants, big trouble. Coders, looking at a massive impact on programming. I think less so for the people who are in charge of safeguarding a company's reputation and building respect and trust.

Jonathan   Just this week in the New York Times there was an article making the case that one thing that would protect people's jobs in white collar roles is meetings and the need for human persuasion. You know, people whose jobs involve going on Zoom or going in person to pitch ideas and get people on board in order to make things happen, that's not something that AI can so far replace. And that also happens to describe the vast majority of what communicators, corporate communicators, do every day.

Ivan   Those human skills are perhaps more prevalent in the world of communications than they are in the world of plumbing. But I'm going to tell you that almost every, even though you're saying, Scott, you know, the accountant should be worried, the lawyers should be worried, the engineers should be worried, the architects should be worried, the doctors, the teachers. Everybody will find a way of elevating what's particularly important about the human contribution to that, and they'll start to use AI to help them amplify that. 

So as we said, you know, before, yeah, you know, I remember walking the streets of, I don't know, Rochdale in the year 1995 and there were travel agents all along the high street. We don't see a travel agent anymore, but all those people who used to work in travel. Now there are more jobs in travel because more people travel because it's easier to do and you can access it and it's all online. So I think we're going to see a little bit of a shift of that. And I think in almost any profession, you're going to find people asking this question: What is it that I can't use AI autonomously to do? And what is it that humans do or amplify what AI can do to give me a competitive advantage? That's what we're starting to see. 

The Conference Board also has a Human Capital department that's really looking into this about the implications. And I think we had that bubble of fear to start off with 50% of jobs will disappear. And now we're starting to calm down. But the big point is no job is going to stay the same. Not one single job. Every single job that anybody does, especially in white collar, but even in blue collar, when you, you hear, you know, Jensen Huang talking about physical AI and robotic AI, almost every job is going to change. It's a question of how it's going to change and how we're going to lead that change that I think is a real valid one to ask for the communications function.

And I also think you could project forward one of my predictions that somebody should come and check in the year 2070 is that the notion of  a discipline and of a functional department will start to erode and we'll start to have people who are less tagged and labelled by the department they work for and more tagged by what the outcome is.

Scott   We're already starting to see that in communications. I think one of the input… companies in the response to the rise of AI search, we're seeing more communications teams working in partnership with other parts of the business, whether that's public affairs or investor relations or press relations. So I think you're already kind of starting to see that breaking down of barriers. If we can get to your point, Jonathan, if meetings will be something that humans can continue to do. That depresses me because if I can get an AI agent to attend all of my internal meetings, then that would be the first thing I'd like to hand over. No disrespect to all the internal meetings at Bowen Craggs Nothing at all! Yeah. Me too.

Caterina   Hey, what are you trying to say?

Scott   Nothing at all.

Ivan   Well you do realise I'm an AI avatar in this. Yeah, I'm there having a cup of tea right now and this is just AI generation.

Jonathan   Well, so, you know, The Conference Board has published a report based on some of the results from the survey there. It's titled Important Human Skills in the Age of AI. What does the research show in terms of the skills, the human skills that are becoming more important in the age of AI?

Ivan   So remember, we're asking this of humans. So humans, we ask them, what's going to become more important in the world of communications and what's going to become less important? Let me give you like two big buckets, and then I'll give you a bit of a curveball at the end. So for those in communications right now, actually the top skill that they said is going to become more important is being able to work with AI. So, 76% of people are saying, hey, using the general tools and then a little lower down using specialised tools, 57% of comms leaders said these skills are going to be really important in the short term. 

Okay, we didn't ask short-term or we just said in the future, but we're hearing anecdotally short-term I need people who know how to use this stuff. Now underlying that the human skills that they see value in more long-term things like strategic thinking, reasoning, judgement, decision making. So it's not that AI cannot help with that, but the humans need to make the decisions, mainly because the humans are more tied to the other humans in their business and the business itself. So general model, even with an enablement layer and a small language model, those things work, but you still need the humans to see the real insights that come from working inside the business and working with its customers. So tools, but real strategic intelligence. 

And there's a couple of other things that were interesting that came up were an innovation mindset. The communicators, you know, kind of third or fourth on the ranking was I want an innovation mindset in my people, people who are thinking to make things better, make things different, make things more valuable. So that kind of was interesting. 

And then the fourth bucket was exactly what you were just talking about, Jonathan, which is the ability to connect with other human beings. So that relationship building and emotional intelligence and the human connection, you know, we've got 50 odd percent of the comms leaders saying that's going to become much more important. 

Now, the thing that surprised me is when you go down the other end of the bucket, things that is less important were things like communications expertise. People that understand and have done it and have experience. I think there's a sense, and again, this is getting qualitative feedback for the quantitative decisions as we're talking to people, is this sense that communications in the future may be very different from communications in the past, and therefore the expertise and the experience are not as valuable.

I think you can challenge that because you could sit here and go, yes, the practices are definitely going to change, but the principles might be something that we have to hold on to. And by the way, how do you teach a junior person about strategic decision making or human connection if you don't have a way of bringing them in? So yes, we're going to see people recruiting less entry level people, but we are still going to have to create the leaders of the future and teach them these skills as we go. 

So the curve ball I'll throw you is, of course, that's what the humans said. When we asked AI, AI was very interesting because it gave almost exactly the same answers at the top end of the funnel. Yes, you’d better understand strategic thinking and reasoning, that ability to make decisions and frame up the big questions for the company and the business and the understanding of the customer. They were, and the stakeholder, they were at the top end.

Down at the bottom end, remember we've got communicators saying you need to know how to use AI tools or to be able to manage AI agents. That was an important human skill. AI is saying you don't need that. That actually literally said it was down bottom of the 13 and 14 was essentially knowing how to use the tools. And underneath that, I think it's looking a bit more long-term, but also I think what it's saying is I can do that for you. Interesting thought.

Jonathan   Very interesting. So, and if we get to the point where senior leaders are sending their AI avatars into meetings to make decisions, then I think we'd probably best be paying attention to what the AI says is going to be on the agenda. 

Scott and Caterina as we said earlier, you've been out and about quite a bit recently. How does what you're hearing from communications practitioners line up with the survey results around the human skills that are important and not important?

Scott   Well, just quickly from me, think what we're hearing does chime loudly with the findings that Denise and Ivan were talking about. I think there's a lot of talk about the rising importance of authenticity in communications in the AI age. And I think it's one of the great paradoxes of our time that as more information in the world becomes synthetic or potentially synthetic, the higher in demand genuinely real content will be. People will place an increasingly high value on genuinely real human content. And I that's where the communications professionals we talk to, that's where they can still thrive and succeed in the AI search age, which is kind of a thread running through this conversation.

It's getting harder to do, to distinguish, as Ivan says, what is real and what is synthetic. But the uncanny valley in various forms is still there. Yeah, yeah, humanity and authenticity seems to be the key to a long and fruitacious professional future in communications. That's what we're hearing.

Caterina   And I think what we're hearing is that AI isn't replacing people. It's making the human side of the job so much more important because teams still need people who can think clearly, tell a good story and decide what actually matters. So yes, I do think the kind of judgement side of things is so important. But I also think that there's a real injection of kind of excitement and enthusiasm. We have this resurgence of rich editorial and creative content, which is a really kind of exciting prospect. And AI can't produce content that feels inherently human and vivid in lived experience. This is where a very human artistic endeavour is so important. And so this should really be posing arguably more opportunities for comms professionals. And I think that in the conversations that at least Scott and I have had recently, you can kind of gauge that. I feel like it's quite a pertinent feeling in the room wherever you go. So I’d say there is a real positive angle to all of this as well.

Denise   Caterina, just to add something to that, in separate research, I talked about people's fears regarding AI, right? Number one is job losses for themselves or the people that they know. But number two is actually too much dependence on AI, and with that skills erosion, right? People get cognitively more lazy. There's actually a new term now, cognitive surrender. So that's another interesting new problem that is arising from this, right? That there used to be, many decades ago, ways where companies or even states were encouraging people to be physically more active. So maybe this is now moving into staying cognitively more active and cognitive fitness and talking about exercises to keep us all mentally in shape.

Ivan   And I'm a big believer in what you said, Caterina, that these tools are going to help us all get better, faster, smarter, more connected and be able to react better. But ultimately, the ability to put creativity around the stories that we tell is what will make them stick and what will make them different. If everybody's got the same tool, who's going to build the better chair? So there is a little bit of that where I do think.

We are going to see a resurgence of brand building, of storytelling, of creativity, of differentiation. And, like you said, you can start to feel that bubbling again. Like let's say 18 months ago, we were all worried, Oh gosh, what's my job going to become? Should my kid, should I tell my 21-year-old to go into the world of marketing?  Eighteen months ago, we'd have said, no, now we're saying maybe. But maybe you need to think about the skills you have. 

So for instance, data and analytics, you know, that was a big thing that everybody wanted in 2010, if you were coming into a marketing team. Now we've got tools that can do that, but you’d better ask the smart questions or as we heard in one round table, somebody came up with the idea that humans ask dumb questions that AI will never ask, but those dumb questions lead to massive leaps in innovation. Why can't I walk on water? Okay, well let's go see if we can solve that. Why doesn't my dog get to drink something that's branded? Yeah, if we sell them dog food, why can't my dog have dog drink? So there's things like that where you go, yeah, there's excitement in the future. It's just gonna notch us up a level in creativity, notch us up a level in innovation. And maybe the work that we all have to do, all of us communicators, all of us marketers have to do that background work. That background work is going to get easier to get done, the competitive analysis or the trending issues for communicators. We can ask AI to help us with that. It won't tell us what to do with it.

Scott   Yeah, I was, I think in 2017 or 2018, the actor and author Stephen Fry gave a keynote at Bell Labs about all of this. This was long before ChatGPT, years before. And it's on YouTube. It's a rollicking watch. I highly recommend watching this lecture about the imminent impact of AI on the world. 

And one of the points he made, he was talking about this topic of skills, and he was saying, in 2018, he cited the average entry wage for an a PhD holder in artificial intelligence who walks into Google, and it was megabucks, and compared that to the average salary of  a philosopher or an ethicist. And his point then, pre-ChatGPT, was companies, societies, governments need to be starting to more highly value philosophers and ethicists because all of these existential questions, that's kind of where the humans do need to be in charge. 

And we've got an AI project, a partnership at Bowen Craggs with the University of Essex AI research group and we've got an AI engineer and one of  the professors who's working with us he started he decided to do a PhD in AI after watching, and I'm not making this up, after watching Terminator 2. Which is essentially you know a film about robots taking over the world. And I think we do need to, I think, looking at a high level… The thinking, the thinkers, the philosophers do need to be kind of part of the mix. And I think in the kind of current noise and rush to embrace AI and make the most of AI and to beat the competition in AI, I don't think that business, societies or governments have yet to kind of get to grips profoundly with how humankind can, should continue to remain in charge. Sorry, that escalated quickly, but you know.

Jonathan   This is all sort of barrelling towards a very open-ended and almost ecstatic climax, which is what we would want for the end of any podcast. And I wanted to ask you all about your views on agentic AI. know, so much of this AI revolution that we've been talking about so far has been really about generative AI and how it's profoundly shaking the foundations of communications. But agentic AI is coming, you it's already here, it's building. And 18% of the communications leaders in this survey said they already treat AI agents as team members. So there's an indicator for you. I wanted to just ask, you know, what's your prediction, if you have one, on the role of agentic AI in communications teams?

Denise   Well. I think it will, similar to what was said before, enhancing the quality. I think it will enable communicators to outsource more repetitive tasks and make their work better by, for example, collecting reputation or perception data more regularly, being alerted to emerging issues and what they mean. So that will help communicators lower risk, be more proactive, letting risks not come to a really bad point but get involved earlier. But also reputation tracking maybe in places where your team never had time to look. So it will certainly enhance the work of communicators while also making it more efficient. But at the same time, with more information and data, it also is more work, and that's where the human talent comes in to interpret all that data, to put their judgement and experience on it, to then decide what are the implications and what actions to take.

Caterina   In kind of in a similar vein, think, agentic AI will basically become kind of the engine running a lot of communications work in the background, writing drafts, as you said, Denise, tracking reactions, tweaking content. And I suppose if I was going to make a bolder prediction, perhaps instead of big teams doing everything manually, you might have smaller teams managing a set of kind of AI helpers, potentially each handling a different task or audience, who knows.

So I think ultimately the human role then shifts from doing every single piece of work to guiding it, setting direction, making big calls, and as Ivan again was saying earlier, stepping in where judgement really matters.

Scott   Will the agent attend my internal meetings for me? That's the big question.

Jonathan   I think the agent will free up all the time in the world for you to have back-to-back meetings every day of the week, Scott. So we'll be looking forward to that.

Scott   Brilliant. Fantastic.

Jonathan   Well, thank you all. This has been such a joy to talk about these actually not, it turns out, so scary movements around the rise of this radical new technology. To your point earlier, Denise, that we need to maybe be thinking about how to sharpen our cognitive abilities, I remembered an elementary school teacher of mine who was fond of telling us we need to sharpen our minds like we sharpen our pencils. Which I think doesn't really work anymore. We need to sharpen our creative abilities to come up with new metaphors. Thank you again. This been great.

That's it for this episode of Cutting Through. You can learn more about our guests at The Conference Board by visiting their website, conferenceboard.org. And as ever, you'll find show notes and lots of useful links, including to some of the materials we've talked about in this episode on our website, bowencraggs.com.

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