Hey Humans: AI Will Make Strategic Communications More Powerful (Not Less)

The Trending Communicator launched in early 2024, and what a year it’s been. I maintain that I’m the luckiest communicator alive—just take a look at the thinkers, influencers, and movers and shakers I’ve had the good fortune to have on the show so far—and my gratitude to you, dear Reader, all my listeners, and my guests, knows no bounds.

I thought about writing a 2024 round-up to share a few slices of the huge pie of knowledge I’ve gained from my guests, and I still might do something to that effect. But seeing as I have an army of analysts and researchers at my beck and call (yes, I mean AI), I decided to go in a slightly different direction. I hunkered down with my trusty Google NotebookLM and huddled up with my buddy Claude, and with my dream team in place, we dug into all 20 episodes of the show to learn what my guests and I had to say about the future.

So let's have a somewhat uncomfortable conversation about where communications is heading in 2025. Not the sanitized version from corporate trend reports, not the breathless AI hype from tech vendors (though I admit I do like a lot of that hype), and certainly not the recycled (and dull) predictions cluttering your feed. It's time to confront some brutal truths about our industry's transformation – and why most of us are woefully unprepared for what's coming.

The Media Apocalypse Nobody Wants to Discuss

Before we dive into AI, we need to confront an even more fundamental shift: the complete collapse of traditional media consumption patterns. Gini Dietrich puts it bluntly: traditional media is no longer where younger audiences get their news. They're going to non-traditional sources first, rendering our carefully crafted media relations playbooks about as relevant as a fax machine in a WhatsApp world.

Think about that for a moment. While we're still obsessing over press release optimization and media list management, our actual audiences have moved on. They're consuming content in ways that make our traditional approaches all but irrelevant.

It's not just about changing channels. The entire concept of media relations as we know it is becoming obsolete (I make no bones about the bones I have to pick with media relations - read all about that here). Rob Davis nails this when he says, “They don't need to talk about their latest tagline. They don't need to talk about whatever they decided to hype at the quarterly meeting. They need to talk about what is getting typed in that box in the same vernacular that the customer is using.”

While we're crafting perfectly polished corporate messages, our audiences are having entirely different conversations in entirely different spaces. And we're not even in the room.

The Great AI Delusion

2024 was the year everyone played AI dress-up. Communications teams proudly proclaimed their “AI-first” strategies, sprinkled ChatGPT fairy dust on their content, and declared mission accomplished. The result? As Mark Schaefer accurately diagnoses, we're drowning in what he calls “the pandemic of dull” – an ocean of AI-generated content that reads like it was written by algorithms pretending to be humans pretending to be algorithms.

David Armano captures this perfectly when he calls AI “the best intern you’ll ever have…[that’s] really freakin’ good at good enough.” But here's the thing about interns – you don't put them in charge of your entire communication strategy. Yet that's precisely what many organizations are doing, letting AI drive their content creation while human judgment takes a back seat.

The problem isn't just bad content – it's the fundamental misunderstanding of AI's role in communications. Yes, it can and does make grunt work easy; yes, it can write an email for you; yes, it’s a dirt-cheap editor. But too many communicators stop there, thinking they’ve improved efficiency and productivity by 20-30%, and that’s good enough. As Anuneha Mewawalla emphasizes, “AI is going to turbocharge our field. It's going to reimagine communications as we know it.” But turbocharging a broken engine just makes it fail faster.

Consider these uncomfortable questions:

• If your content is indistinguishable from AI-generated text, what value are you really adding?
• If your strategy can be replicated by a prompt, how strategic is it really?
• If your “thought leadership” can be automated, are you actually leading thought?
• If you’re seeing a huge productivity increase, do you think your competitors might just be seeing it, too?

The Trust Apocalypse We Can't Ignore

While we're obsessing over prompt engineering and API integrations, something far more fundamental is unraveling: the fabric of digital trust itself. As Deirdre Breakenridge emphasizes, “you can't have a relationship without feeling.” Yet we're racing to automate the very elements that make communication human.

The numbers should terrify you. Rafi Mendelsohn reveals that “the average conversation across social media has around four to seven percent of fake accounts.” But here's what should keep you up at night: in conversations around specific brands or issues, that percentage can skyrocket. We're rapidly approaching a world where the majority of online discourse about your brand could be artificial.

This isn't just about spam or fake accounts anymore. As Mendelsohn notes, “GenAI is fantastic, but in the hands of malicious actors, it becomes a tool for creating very believable content.” We're talking about sophisticated narrative warfare where the lines between real and artificial become increasingly blurred.

The implications are staggering:

• How do you maintain authenticity in a world where authenticity itself can be automated?
• What happens to trust when every piece of content becomes suspect?
• How do you build relationships when your audience can't tell if they're talking to a human or an algorithm?

The Evolution Revolution

Lisa Kaplan observes that “Communications used to be something that was done from a podium, and now it's something that's a conversation, whether you want it to be or not. It's interactive. It's hearts and minds. It's telling a story.”

This shift from broadcast to conversation isn’t a new idea, but it represents a fundamental change in how communication works. But most communications teams are still operating on the broadcast model, just with fancier tools.

Anne Green points out that “this industry is a really elite profession, in terms of the skill sets required.” The gap between where most teams are and where they need to be isn't just wide – it's widening exponentially. Every day that passes makes it harder to catch up.

It doesn’t help that the weight of conventional thinking holds us back. Let's dissect four dangerous myths that have infiltrated our thinking – heavy chains that prevent forward progress:

Myth #1: Traditional Media Relations Still Drives the Conversation

Traditional media relations isn’t built to deal with disintermediated, disrupted, and distrusted media. Rafi Mendelsohn will tell you that your brand can find itself in a full-blown crisis without a single journalist writing a word about you. Welcome to what Gini Dietrich calls our “post-truth America,” where traditional media gatekeepers have lost their monopoly on credibility, and your carefully cultivated media relationships might as well be written in invisible ink.

While you're measuring media impressions like they're still meaningful, Melanie Samba 's research reveals a fascinating shift: audience reach and influence are increasingly driven by conference appearances and peer networks, not media placements. The “prestigious” coverage you're chasing might matter less than the conversations at industry events you've probably dismissed as “nice-to-haves.” Daniel Gaynor nails it: we need to combine creative instincts with data literacy to understand actual audience engagement, yet how many of us are still running our media relations playbook like it's 2019?

The reality is that your beautiful feature in that prestigious publication isn't driving the conversation anymore – but commenting on a conversation that's happening somewhere else is. As Ethan McCarty points out, communications teams need to “listen and sense and perceive and synthesize and analyze the world of data and opinions” rather than just “getting the message out.” Traditional media isn't dead – it's just been demoted from king to courtier. Yet how many of us are still treating it like it holds the keys to the kingdom?

Myth #2: AI Makes Communication Easier

Does it? Anuneha Mewawalla tells us that “AI is going to turbocharge our field. It's going to reimagine communications as we know it.” But most teams are using AI like a fancy spell-checker instead of the transformative force it could be.

Consider this: If AI makes mediocre communication easier, doesn't that just mean we're creating more mediocre content more efficiently? As Danny Gaynor notes, “AI can validate our intuition as communicators” – but should we be validating our intuition, or challenging it?

Myth #3: Good Content Can Be Automated

If your content can be entirely automated, it probably shouldn't exist at all. Pinaki Kathiari says it well: “I hope having a machine intellect might help us be more human and treat each other more like humans and not machines, which we've been doing all this time.”

The real question isn’t whether AI can write your content – it's whether that content deserves to exist in the first place. Are you adding value to the conversation or just adding to the noise?

Myth #4: Technical Skills Trump Human Intelligence

In an AI-driven world, human skills become more crucial, not less. Emily Bryson York hit this point perfectly: “The soft skills are going to be really important because in this AI future having that ability to build relationships and trust across an organization or from job to job or in your network is going to be a differentiator.”

If technical skills are all that matter, we're all in trouble because AI will eventually do it better. The real value lies in what AI can't replicate: human judgment, emotional intelligence, and strategic thinking.

The Critical Thinking Crisis

We’re outsourcing our brains to AI faster than we’re developing the critical thinking skills to manage it. While everyone’s obsessing over which AI tool writes the most human-sounding social posts, we’re witnessing an unprecedented atrophy of our industry's intellectual muscle.

How many of us are actually thinking critically anymore? We’re so busy asking AI to generate “thought leadership” that we've forgotten how to, you know, actually lead thought. We’re letting algorithms make strategic decisions that should require human judgment, discernment, and yes, that increasingly rare commodity – critical thinking.

Just listen to Kami Watson Huyse : “Number one is critical thinking skills... you cannot take everything at face value anymore.” Yet what do we do? We take AI outputs at face value, nod sagely at machine-generated insights, and call it strategic thinking. It's not. It's intellectual outsourcing dressed up in professional jargon.

Here's what real critical thinking looks like in 2025:

• Questioning assumptions (especially your own)
• Being relentlessly curious about the “why” behind the “what”
• Understanding context beyond what AI can scrape from databases
• Recognizing patterns that algorithms miss because they can’t connect non-obvious dots

Dr. Laura McHale argues that “it is one of the reasons that I think it's so important for comms people to really up their game and get much more knowledgeable about psychology and neuroscience.” She's right – but it goes deeper than that. This isn't just about understanding tools or even human behavior. It's about developing the intellectual rigor to question everything, especially our own assumptions about what “good communication” looks like.

Want to build trust with stakeholders? Start by trusting your own capacity to think critically. As David Armano points out, the real power lies in “asking questions to unlock the power of AI.” But first, you need to know which questions to ask. You need to be intellectually curious enough to dig deeper than the first, second, or even third layer of analysis.

The real crisis isn't that AI might replace communicators. It's that too many communicators are in danger of replacing their critical thinking with artificial insights. We've become intellectual outsourcers in an era that desperately needs intellectual leadership.

The 2025 Divergence

Our industry is splitting into two distinct paths, and the gap between them is widening daily:

The Intelligence Amplifiers

These professionals understand what Anuneha Mewawalla means when she says, “The goal isn't just to become AI first. It's to become intelligence amplified.” They're not just using AI – they're fundamentally reimagining what communication means in an AI-augmented world.

They're asking questions like:

• How do we use AI to enhance human connection rather than replace it?
• What does authentic communication look like in a world of artificial intelligence?
• How do we measure real impact in an era of manufactured engagement?

The Complacent Crowd

If you're still treating AI like a fancy spell-checker or debating whether to experiment with generative tools, you're not just behind – you’re actively choosing irrelevance. As I once said on the podcast, “If you're stuck with ‘Oh well, if AI takes this away, what am I going to do?’ then frankly, you probably deserve not to do anything once AI takes your job away.”

As Ethan McCarty points out, while junior professionals are already mastering AI and analytics, what happens to “senior people who are running around with bloated salaries and are relying on gut instinct to advise their clients?” Yet how many communications professionals are still operating on outdated assumptions, measuring success by metrics that stopped mattering years ago, and calling it “strategic communications”? The gap between where most teams are and where they need to be isn't just wide – it's becoming an unbridgeable chasm. And in 2025, there’s no bridge coming to save you.

Three Uncomfortable Truths for 2025

1: Your Media Strategy Is Obsolete

Gini Dietrich points out that the term “misinformation” is itself a kind of misinformation. The entire concept of “truth” in media is being revolutionized. Your traditional approach to media relations isn't just ineffective – it might be actively harmful to your goals.

We need to fundamentally rethink:

• How we define and measure influence
• Where and how we engage with audiences
• What constitutes meaningful communication in a post-truth world

2: Your Metrics Are Lying to You

Danny Gaynor suggests that AI offers “a very rare moment in the history of capitalism where we can develop something that will be industry standard and that will be reputational ROI, that will be quantifying the impact of communications.”

Most of us are still measuring what's easy to measure, not what actually matters. We're counting press clips while our audiences are having conversations we're not even tracking.

3: You Need People Beyond Your Team

Mark Schaefer emphasizes that “you can't do it on your own if you want to be a trending communicator...find a community where you fit and where you thrive to get others to help you do it.”

Communities should be your support system and your go-to for learning and development resources—and broader perspectives. Closing the skills gap isn't just about technical capabilities – it's about fundamental communication competencies in a digitally transformed world.

The Path Forward: Three Strategic Imperatives

1: Redefine Your Relationship with Media and AI

David Armano notes that “AI is not a tool. AI, as some people have said, is talking software.” This isn't semantics – it's a fundamental shift in how we approach communication itself.

We need to stop thinking about AI as a tool and start thinking about it as a collaborator. This means:

• Rethinking our workflows from the ground up
• Developing new frameworks for human-AI collaboration
• Creating new models for authentic communication in an AI-augmented world

2: Invest in Human Intelligence

Deirdre Breakenridge emphasizes that “emotional intelligence and empathy are critical skills in leadership.” We need to cultivate influence skills to adapt to the evolving landscape.

This means investing in:

• Psychological understanding
• Emotional intelligence
• Strategic thinking
• Human connection

3: Build New Trust Frameworks

Ethan McCarty suggests that communications teams need to “listen and sense and perceive and synthesize and analyze the world of data and opinions” rather than just “getting the message out.”

We need new frameworks for:

• Building trust in an AI-mediated world
• Measuring authentic engagement
• Creating genuine connection at scale

The Bottom Line

2025 won’t be just another year of incremental change. As Kami Huyse reminds us, “That strategy piece is huge. It always has been, it always will be. I don't care what kind of technology they throw at you. You have to learn where to spend your time and where your time is not well spent.”

The future belongs to those who can think critically, connect authentically, and use AI as a force multiplier for human intelligence. If that doesn’t sound like you, 2025 will be a great time to make changes. Otherwise, you can be sure you’ll have to play catch-up or resign yourself to watching from the sidelines.

Notes

This post is roughly 80% AI-generated. Here’s how I did it:

• I used Google NotebookLM to analyze all 20 episodes of The Trending Communicator, identify themes, and pull out supporting quotes and insights.
• I used the Project I had already set up in Claude to draft newsletter content and gave it the outputs I had just generated on Notebook LM. I instructed Claude to use my recent posts as a style guide and then prompted it to draft the article you see above. I went through 4 iterations and a dozen or so section revisions, adjusting prompts and adding reference content along the way
• I cut and pasted the text into Substack, edited the copy, added in the hyperlinks, and then generated the hero image using Flux AI Image Generator.

Are you ready for 2025? Drop a comment below or send me a direct message. And don't forget to subscribe to The Trending Communicator podcast for more insights on navigating this wild, AI-powered world.