As technology advances and workplaces evolve, the role of internal communications (IC) has expanded far beyond message creation and distribution.
Internal communicators are culture champions, change engineers, digital ecosystem architects, trusted advisors, graphic designers, crisis strategists, data analysts…and yes, we write stuff, too.
In the past few years, we’ve seen many IC teams struggle to balance growing demands with lean budgets. And when you’re struggling to stay afloat, it becomes harder to focus on big-picture aspirations, elevating the value of strategic communications to keep employees focused on the work that matters and moves the business forward.
✨ Enter AI. Not a believer yet? Read on to learn how artificial intelligence (AI) can supercharge your IC toolkit and transform the way you work.
Before diving into the different ways AI can transform internal communications, let’s first demystify what AI is and how it impacts internal communications.
AI Can Do Some Parts of Your Job
At its core, AI involves leveraging machines to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence. This includes understanding natural language, recognizing patterns in data, and making informed decisions. For internal communicators, this means AI can automate mundane tasks, provide insights from data analytics, and even enhance creativity in content creation.
AI Cannot Fully Replace You
That said, it’s important to note that AI does not and cannot replace human connectivity. AI can craft starter copy, take over routine tasks and analyze data to uncover insights. But it’s the human element — our ability to empathize, understand context beyond data, and genuinely connect on a personal level — that makes our function as internal communicators irreplaceable.
Work smarter, not harder: how to use AI in internal comms
Let’s dive into all the ways AI can add speed and efficiency to our daily operations. Beyond conventional content development, there are innovative and diverse ways internal comms pros are harnessing AI to elevate their work. But be sure to avoid these AI mistakes while you’re using it.
AI for IC content creation
There’s nothing worse than staring at a blank page with a severe case of writer’s block. This is where AI’s most obvious benefit comes into play for IC pros. With the right prompts, tools like ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini can help us outline and generate content for all of our communications needs. They’re handy for more simple tasks like coming up with email subject lines, article headlines and intranet social posts, and even something a little more complex like checking for accessibility.
AI and corporate brand voice adoption
AI tools can analyze various writing samples to identify patterns in vocabulary, tone, style and sentence structure. That means you can train AI tools to adopt your preferred writing style. You’ll end up with an assistant that can generate content that more closely aligns with your brand voice. Taking it a step further, AI can help build comprehensive style guides that capture your brand’s unique style and attributes to create consistency across your organization.
AI to review and enhance communication strategy
You may have used AI for content development, but did you know it can also help you with that big campaign strategy or annual communications plan? You can upload your draft plan, an outline or even some baseline ideas. Then ask AI tools like ChatGPT to offer up big ideas, identify gaps, suggest key metrics and advise on improvements based on best practices and emerging trends.
AI to translate and localize
For companies with global workforces, translation and customization are big responsibilities that can eat up a lot of time. Tools like Gemini can translate communication materials into multiple languages and take cultural and accessibility nuances into consideration to make sure you’re using inclusive language across all geographic regions.
AI to boost change management and automate workflow
AI can boost change management efforts by automating routine tasks, personalizing messaging, and providing real-time data analytics for more informed decision-making. Imagine having an assistant to send cross-channel messages, segment audiences, pull key metrics, research trends and collect and analyze employee feedback. Now you have one.
6 must-have AI tools for internal communicators
Every communicator should have a well-stocked AI toolkit.
Bookmark this selection of helpful AI tools for communicators:
As the pioneer AI tool, ChatGPT is still one of our favorites. Its advanced AI language model was designed to understand and generate human-like text, making it invaluable for IC pros. Its versatility streamlines the creation of personalized, engaging content, automates responses to common inquiries, and facilitates more efficient and effective internal communication strategies.
Google’s AI-driven content curation tool helps communicators find relevant stories quickly and easily. It does much of what ChatGPT can do but with one very important distinction: it can use Google’s vast resources to quickly and accurately find the content that your employees need.
Forget boring old surveys! Trove throws out the rulebook and creates a whole new way to gather information. It’s like having a friendly chat assistant ask your questions in a way that has respondents excited to engage. The net-net? You get more responses and richer data from your employees.
Become a better speaker with AI. When enabled, Zoom AI Companion can analyze and provide metrics on key factors in your meeting conversations, such as talk speed, talk-listen ratio, longest spiel (or monologue), filler word usage, and your patience in discussion.
In a pinch and need a graphic to go out with your newsletter? Instantly create on-brand and attention-grabbing designs in seconds. Just describe what you’d like to see or upload examples, and Magic Design generates options just for you.
Spokn’s easy-to-use employee video platform now includes editable AI-generated closed captions that can be translated into different languages in just a few seconds. And coming soon, users will be able to use AI to translate their voices into different languages!
4 AI Resources for Internal Communicators
While the tools above will prove useful to internal communicators everywhere, don’t stop there! AI is advancing quickly, and new tools and integrations are introduced every day.
Here are some AI resources that will help communicators stay in the know on new tools and use cases and use AI effectively:
This daily newsletter keeps you updated on the latest AI news and developments. By signing up, you also get access to their handpicked collection of GPTs for content creation, design, image generation and more.
This AI news source contains guides for writing everything from motivational speeches to video game narratives. And for folks like us, there’s a guide on how to use AI writing tools for Internal Comms!
4. AI Prompt Tip Sheets
While we could dedicate an entire blog post to this topic, without solid prompts, AI can be about as useful as an EZ-Bake oven without a plug.
Remember that AI isn’t always accurate: Again, AI shouldn’t be treated as a replacement for human-driven content creation. AI models are still learning and can provide inaccurate information from unreliable sources.
Consider the environmental impact: The computational power required for AI can have a significant environmental footprint. Consider how this fits into your sustainability strategy as an organization, and provide guidance on how to use AI responsibly.
Create an AI Acceptable Use policy: Before encouraging teams to get on the AI bandwagon, create a clear and thorough use policy to help mitigate risks associated with AI usage like intellectual property infringement, data privacy and security, bias and discrimination, and others.
AI can improve your workflow
It’s such an interesting and fun time to be in the internal communications industry. So often, as internal comms pros, we’re responsible for improving everyone else’s ways of working and catering to the masses. AI gives us a rare opportunity to truly innovate how we work and operate. And with the variety of tools available, there are endless options to meet our unique preferences and needs.
Remember, AI can enhance our capabilities and help us do more with less, but it does not replace the critical thinking, personal touch and overall value we bring to employees.
Play around with new GPTs and invest the time to master the tools that bring the most value to your work. Then let us know what you find!
AI can enhance, but it can’t replace. Explore the possibilities.
