The days when a crisis communicator could simply reach for a dusty binder and follow a pre-scripted, linear checklist are gone — and they aren’t coming back. In the “good old days,” a crisis was often a contained event with a predictable lifecycle; crisis teams could address them by checking off items on a checklist. Today, we face the era of the polycrisis, where economic instability, geopolitical friction, and a 24/7 social media cycle collide to create a torrent of simultaneous challenges. This new reality has effectively obliterated the traditional news cycle, replacing it with an always-on environment where a single viral post can tarnish a brand before leadership even knows there is a problem.

Thriving in this volatile landscape requires a move away from rigid manuals toward a more fluid, strategic approach. Rather than a step-by-step rulebook, modern practitioners need logical scaffolding — a flexible framework of principles and values that provides a foundation for action while allowing for real-time adaptability. It is about preparation, not just prescription. As the boundaries between internal and external perception continue to erode, the ability to maintain transparency and connection through these multifaceted disruptions is no longer a luxury; it is table stakes for organizational survival.

On Thursday, March 26, four Fellows of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) will present a livestream on Communicating in the Era of the Polycrisis. Please join us for this hour-long conversation and participate with your questions, observations, and experiences. If you can’t make it for the real-time panel, you’ll be able to watch the video replay or listen to the audio podcast.

About the Panel:

Edward “Ned” Lundquist is a retired U.S. Navy captain with 43 years of professional public affairs and strategic communications experience. His company, Echo Bridge LLC, which provides outreach and advocacy support to government and commercial clients. He served on active duty for 24 years in the U.S. Navy as a surface warfare officer and public affairs specialist. Captain Lundquist was a Pentagon spokesman with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, Director of the Fleet Home Town News Center, and director of public affairs and corporate communications for the Navy Exchange Service Command. His last tour of duty was commanding the 450 men and women of the Naval Media Center. He is an accredited business communicator and award-winning communicator who served as president of IABC/Hampton Roads and IABC/Washington, director of U.S. District 3, and chair of the International Accreditation Council. He was named an IABC Fellow in 2016. Captain Lundquist received the Surface Navy Association’s Special Recognition Award in January of this year, for his service on SNA’s executive committee and chair of the SNA communications committee. He writes for numerous naval, maritime, and defense publications and chairs and presents at communications, naval, and maritime security conferences around the world.

Robin McCasland, IABC Fellow, SCMP, is Senior Director of Corporate Communications for Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC). She leads the company’s communications team and the employee listening program, demonstrating to senior leaders how employee and executive communication add value to the business’s bottom line. Previously, Robin excelled in leadership roles in communication for Texas Instruments, Dell, Tenet Healthcare, and Burlington Northern Santa Fe. She has also worked for large and boutique HR consulting firms, leading major communication initiatives for various well-known companies. Robin is a past IABC chairman and has served in numerous association leadership roles for over 30 years. She was honored in 2023 and 2021 by Ragan/PR Daily as one of the Top Women Leaders in Communication. She’s also received IABC Southern Region and IABC Dallas Communicator of the Year honors. Robin is a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin and a Leadership Texas alumnus. Her own podcast, Torpid Liver (and Other Symptoms of Poor Communication), features guest speakers addressing timely topics to help communication professionals become more influential, strategic advisors and leaders. She resides in Dallas, Texas, with her husband, Mitch, and their canine kids, Tank and Petunia.

George McGrath is founder and managing principal of McGrath Business Communications, which helps clients build winning corporate reputations, promote their products and services, and advance their views on key issues. George brings more than 25 years in PR and public affairs to his firm. Over the course of his career, he has held senior management positions at leading strategic communications and integrated marketing agencies including Hill and Knowlton, Carl Byoir & Associates, and Brouillard Communications.

Caroline Sapriel, founder and Managing Partner of CS&A, brings over 30 years of specialized expertise in risk, crisis, and business continuity management to the table. A Fellow of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) and a recipient of the Gold Quill Award for her “10 Commandments of Crisis Management,” Sapriel is a recognized authority in providing high-level, results-driven counsel to senior leaders across the energy, pharmaceutical, and aviation sectors. Her deep academic roots as a lecturer at Antwerp, Leuven, and Leiden Universities, combined with her authorship of Crisis Management – Tales from the Front Line, underscore a career dedicated to transforming systemic vulnerabilities into robust reputation management strategies. Fluent in five languages and possessing a multi-disciplinary background in International Relations and Chinese Studies, she offers a uniquely global perspective on the evolution of stakeholder engagement during high-stakes disruptions.

The post IABC Fellows Will Discuss the New World of Polycrises appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

The president of the International Olympic Committee didn’t have an answer to a question posed to her at a press conference on the final day of the 2026 Winter Olympics. Or to another question. Or to yet another. Ultimately, she suggested, on camera, that someone on her communications team should be fired. In this short midweek FIR episode, Shel and Neville look at the fallout, what both the president and the head of communications might have done differently, and the possible long-term consequences.

Links from this episode

• IOC president condemned for public attack on comms team
• LinkedIn Post from Jasred Meade, MPS, APR, MPRCA
• Olympics boss Kirsty Coventry threatens to fire team mid-press conference in awkward moment | LinkedIn Post
• Olympics boss Kirsty Coventry threatens to fire team mid-press conference in awkward moment | Yahoo Sports
• DW News (@dwnews) on X
• Kirsty Conventry profile on LinkedIn
• Mark Adams profile on LinkedIn
• Sky News report on YouTube
• Kirsty Coventry earns praise following first Olympics as IOC president

The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, March 23.

We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. To obtain the credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request them in our Facebook group, or email [email protected].

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog. You can catch up with both co-hosts on Neville’s blog and Shel’s blog.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients.

Raw Transcript:

Shel Holtz: Hi, everybody, and welcome to episode number 503 of For Immediate Release. I’m Shel Holtz.

Neville Hobson: And I’m Neville Hobson. Something happened at the Winter Olympics last month that set off a fierce reaction across the communication profession and it wasn’t about sport. During the final daily press conference on the 20th of February, IOC president Kirsty Coventry was asked a series of geopolitical questions. Questions about Russia and doping.

Comments linked to Germany and 2036, questions about senior sporting figures engaging in wider political activity. On more than one occasion, she said she wasn’t aware of the issue and visibly looked towards her communication team. At one point, she went further and suggested that perhaps someone should be dismissed. That’s the moment that shifted this from a routine press conference stumble into something much bigger. We’ll explore it right after this.

What makes this especially interesting is the context. A few days after the press conference, Coventry had been widely praised for her leadership at the Milan Cortina Games. Reporting from the AP on the 23rd of February described her first Olympics as IOC president as having good overall success, noting the intense political pressure she faced and the way she engaged directly with athletes during the Ukraine controversy. That controversy centered on Ukraine’s skeleton racer, Wladyslaw Hraskiewicz, who competed wearing a helmet memorializing athletes and coaches killed in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The gesture drew scrutiny and diplomatic tension around whether it breached Olympic neutrality rules. Coventry chose to meet him face to face at the track and later became visibly emotional when discussing the issue with international media. That moment was widely interpreted as defining her emerging leadership style: empathetic, athlete-facing, and willing to engage directly.

The games were even described as giving a taste of tougher challenges ahead as the IOC looks towards Los Angeles 2028. In other words, this wasn’t a presidency in crisis. There was goodwill, momentum, a sense of forward motion. And then one live moment reframed the entire narrative. Being caught off guard isn’t unusual. No leader can know everything. No briefing pack can anticipate every question.

But that’s not the story. The story is what you do in that moment. Do you acknowledge the gap and commit to follow up? Do you bridge to principle? Do you calmly say, I’ll get back to you once I’ve reviewed the details? Or do you turn publicly and imply that your team has failed you? The communication reaction was swift and pointed. LinkedIn filled up with variations of the same message. Accountability sits with the principal. Praise in public, criticize in private. You can’t outsource responsibility.

But I think there’s a deeper discussion here. Yes, leaders must own the podium. Yes, public blame undermines trust. But this also raises questions about executive readiness, about the contract between leadership and communication, and about how fragile reputational capital really is. Those geopolitical questions were not obscure. They were predictable fault lines around an organization operating in an intensely political global environment. Were holding lines prepared? We don’t know. Was she fully briefed? Possibly. Did she ignore it? Also possible. And that’s where this moves beyond a single awkward exchange.

In high-performing organizations, the relationship between a leader and their communication team is built on shared risk. The team prepares the ground, the leader absorbs the pressure. If something goes wrong, it’s owned collectively and dealt with internally. The world stage doesn’t create dysfunction, it amplifies it. So rather than pile on, I think this is worth examining as a case study.

Here’s what intrigues me. This wasn’t a leader already in trouble. She had just been praised for navigating intense political pressure, engaging directly with athletes, and projecting empathy and maturity in a complex environment. There was goodwill in the bank. And yet one live moment—a few sentences, a glance towards her team, a suggestion someone might be dismissed—reframed the entire narrative. That tells us something about how fragile leadership capital really is.

So, Shel, let me start here. When a leader appears unprepared on a global stage like that, who actually owns the failure? Is it primarily the principal? Is it the communication team? Or is it a breakdown in that relationship we often describe as the unwritten contract between leader and comms? And perhaps even more provocatively, at what point does a communication team have a responsibility to push back and say, you’re not ready for this podium?

Once a story becomes internal blame rather than the issue itself, you’re no longer managing the moment. The moment is managing you. So what do you make of all this, Shel?

Shel Holtz: Well, I think it’s a two-way street. I think both sides failed here. Coventry herself is the IOC president, has been for nearly a year. She should have been aware of these issues from a governance standpoint. It’s not a question just of media prep.

Neville Hobson: Mm-hmm.

Shel Holtz: As one commentator put it, it’s not the PR team’s job to inform the president of things she should know simply from a management perspective. So I don’t think there’s a problem with piling on here a little bit, but throwing your team under the bus publicly is not the approach to take. I think there are some lessons that I hope Coventry learns here. She turned what should have been a really unremarkable closing press conference into a global story about dysfunction at the IOC. The press conference actually became the story and that’s the exact opposite of what any comms professional looks to achieve with this type of press conference.

The right move from Coventry would have been to acknowledge the question, note that she’d want to look into it, and then commit to following up. That buys time for her without revealing this gap between what she knows and what she should know. And she could have gone behind closed doors afterwards and she and Mark Adams, the guy who’s in charge of the communications team, could have had whatever conversation she wanted to about briefing protocols. But when a leader publicly humiliates their comms team, it poisons that relationship and makes future counsel less likely—the exact opposite of what the communication requires.

Neville Hobson: Yeah, I agree. I mean, there’s lots—and everyone with an opinion has been doing it on LinkedIn in particular. PRWeek had a really good assessment, which is where a lot of this kicked off. But what you’ve outlined is what she should have done, basically. And I totally agree. I think an additional comment I’d add to that is demonstrating in a sense the executive ownership of the issue overall. She could have said something like, you know, ultimately the responsibility sits with me. That would have dampened down anything, would have changed the tone of the entire story. She didn’t do that.

But there’s also, I think, worth pointing out what the PR team should have done. And maybe they did do it. Let’s add that caveat. We don’t actually know who did or didn’t do what.

Shel Holtz: She may have not read a briefing book that was given to her, right? That’s exactly right.

Neville Hobson: Or she may or she may not have been given one. Now, that’s the other element. We don’t know. So this conversation therefore gets more interesting if we exempt from that point of view.

So the issues raised weren’t obscure. And I agree with you that the geopolitics of it all is actually in the kind of daily news. If she reads newspapers she would have seen a lot of this discussion that would have been kind of an alert to her. So the issues were not obscure. Russia and doping, geopolitical symbolism of 2036 Germany—including one of the questions she got: why was the IOC merchandise website selling t-shirts with emblems of the 1936 games in Nazi Germany? And she said, I wasn’t aware of that kind of thing. Infantino and Trump—that’s a dynamic between the president of FIFA and Trump. Predictable lines of questioning.

Shel Holtz: Okay.

Neville Hobson: A robust prep document—what might that have looked like? Well, likely hostile questions. Again, briefing her on the kind of questions she might get. Top-line holding statements. Thirty-second bridges. “If you don’t know” language. If that didn’t exist, that’s a team failure. If it did exist and she ignored it, that’s a leadership failure.

Shel Holtz: Yeah, well, she said, “I was not aware” on three separate occasions in one press conference. I can’t remember ever hearing about anything like that before. And every time she said it, it compounded the damage from the last one.

Neville Hobson: Yeah, she did.

Shel Holtz: And even if she wasn’t briefed, a seasoned executive would have bridged to what she could say: the IOC’s position on political neutrality, their commitment to anti-doping integrity, the process for evaluating future host city bids. She could have leaned on what she did know and then offered to get back to people with more specific answers later, but she just kept revealing what she didn’t know. This is a textbook case for why pre-briefing documents and Q&A anticipation matter and what you would expect from your comms teams. And before any high-profile press event, they should have—and again, we don’t know whether she was or not—but she should have gotten a briefing book that covered not just what you want to say, but what you’re likely going to be asked, with a—

Neville Hobson: Precisely.

Shel Holtz: With Germany 2036 on the centenary of the Nazi games, a sitting IOC member appearing at a Trump political event, and an NYT investigation into Russian doping. These are all foreseeable questions during a closing Olympic press conference. You know, I don’t think that Mark Adams gets to skate here. He’s a 17-year veteran of the IOC. He used to work at the BBC, ITN, and Euronews and the World Economic Forum. He’s earning 420,000 pounds a year for this job. When the Germany 2036 question came up, his response was simply that he hadn’t seen it either. And I’ve got to tell you, for someone at that level and that salary during the final press conference of the Olympic Games, I think it’s an understatement to call that a significant lapse. The media monitoring function alone should have flagged those issues.

Neville Hobson: Yeah, I agree. I mean, there’s a ton of questions I’ve got here that might be rhetorical now, actually. But nevertheless, let me rattle these off and see what you think. Can a comms team ever fully protect an unprepared leader—that’s one. Where does responsibility truly sit? And that’s something that could occupy the rest of this podcast discussing that one alone.

But that’s a question that I wonder: is this part of a broader trend? I mean, some people—notably on LinkedIn, so let’s just put that out there—have hinted, if not explicitly noted, the increase in executive blame-shifting, diminishing personal accountability, and a culture of scapegoating communication. Is that anecdotal or systemic? That’s the kind of rhetorical question, I suppose.

Should comms professionals refuse to front leaders who are not ready? It takes a brave person to do that, and maybe Mark Adams isn’t that person, I don’t know, but that’s pretty provocative. Is there a professional duty to push back from the comms people? At what point do you say you’re not ready to do this live? Is this a case study in leadership under geopolitical complexity? The Olympics isn’t sport alone—it’s politics, it’s war, it’s symbolism, it’s national legitimacy. A modern IOC president must be politically literate at the highest level.

So there’s lots there. I guess you could summarize it, I suppose, in the sense: when a leader is caught off guard on the world stage, who owns the failure? Because let’s just go back to what actually happened. She was caught off guard—not once, twice, three times at least. And one of those three times, the last one, is when the bus emerged under which she threw the PR team by saying someone needs to be dismissed.

So when a leader is caught off guard on the world stage, who owns the failure—the principal or the communication team? Question.

Shel Holtz: Well, I think you can look at it both ways here. I think people who are looking to shift that blame to the PR team need to recognize that it’s not like she had no experience. She has governance experience. She chaired the IOC Athletes Commission. She served on the executive board. She held a ministerial portfolio—

Neville Hobson: Yep.

Shel Holtz: —in Zimbabwe. But this suggests that she hasn’t either fully adapted to the demands of the presidency or her team hasn’t adequately supported the transition. But they need to get on the same page because I think one of the bits of fallout on this is questions about the IOC’s ability to handle the bigger issues that are coming up in the LA 2028 summer games.

Neville Hobson: Mm-hmm.

Shel Holtz: They’re going to be exponentially more complex politically. And if the team can’t handle media monitoring and an executive briefing during a winter games, how are they going to manage the geopolitical minefield of an Olympics in Trump’s America? Adams has already been linked to potentially leaving the IOC for a role with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer. He was one of Starmer’s best men at his wedding. So there’s another layer of instability, which I guess means if she needs to fire someone, he’d be a good candidate.

Neville Hobson: Yeah, there’d be a vacancy there, wouldn’t there? So, I mean, some of the comments on one of the many LinkedIn posts I saw do talk about—let’s call it a possible deeper misalignment between leadership and communication at the IOC. Questions people are speculating—because this is all speculation, I would hasten to add. Did this show that there was a pre-existing tension between her and the comms team?

Shel Holtz: Yeah.

Neville Hobson: I mean, I watched the video of her being asked those questions and there was no hesitation in her glance to the comms team where they were sitting, I guess, to say, I wasn’t aware of this. And she did it again. And then the third time it was, someone needs to be dismissed here. So was there some kind of tension? Did the team try to brief her and just get ignored? Is this a case of leader-comms misalignment long in the making? I mean, these are all unknowns. I’d like to think not.

She’d only been in the job a year. She had got all this praise because of how she had handled all these other things going on. That doesn’t mean therefore that this is not right. Something happened clearly, and we witnessed the kind of jaw-dropping moments when she said “I wasn’t aware of this” three times and basically said someone should be fired. So overall the tone is not good. The optics are dreadful.

I’ve not seen any further reporting on this since the initial flurry. It’s all kind of—

Shel Holtz: Well, you know, if your executive gets surprised at a press conference, I think that’s a process failure that can be fixed. But if your executive blames you for it on camera, I think that’s a leadership failure that may not be fixable. You know, the relationship between a communications professional and their principal depends on mutual trust, honest counsel, understanding that you protect each other publicly and hold each other accountable privately. And that’s the opposite of what happened here. So I don’t know whether there was tension before this happened or not, but there is certainly tension now and I’m not sure it can be repaired. And that’ll be a 30 for this episode of For Immediate Release.

The post FIR #503: When Your Boss Throws You Under the Bus appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

The 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer reveals a troubling shift from polarization to grievance to insularity—a progression in which stakeholders aren’t only divided or angry but also withdrawing into tight circles of “people like us” while viewing outsiders with suspicion. In this Circle of Fellows conversation, our panel will examine the strategic and practical implications of a world in which employees trust their CEO and neighbors more than external sources, domestic companies enjoy trust advantages over foreign competitors, and income divides deepen distrust across organizational hierarchies. The Fellows will explore how communication professionals can position themselves as trust brokers within their organizations, helping bridge the executive suite, front-line employees, and diverse stakeholder groups while navigating generational differences in how people experience and express grievances. From Gen Alpha’s focus on external blame and politicized “whataboutism” to the role of AI governance in building institutional credibility, this fast-paced discussion will provide frameworks for communicators to remain centered and effective even as insularity and grievance reshape the landscape we navigate daily.

Episode #125 of “Circle of Fellows” was recorded on Thursday, February 26.

The next episode of Circle of Fellows, which will focus on the new realities of crisis communication, is scheduled for noon ET on Thursday, March 26. Mark your calendar and watch for details!

About the panel:

Priya Bates is a senior communications executive who provides strategic internal communication counsel to ensure leaders, managers, and employees understand the strategy, believe in the vision, act in accordance with the values, and contribute to business results. She is president of Inner Strength Communications in Toronto and previously served as senior director of Internal Communications at Loblaw Companies Limited.

Alice Brink is an internationally recognized communications consultant. Her firm, A Brink & Co., works with businesses and non-profits to clarify their messages and communicate them in ways that change people’s minds. Her clients have included Shell Oil Company, Sysco Foods, and Noble Energy. Before launching A Brink & Co. in Houston in 2004, Alice honed her craft in corporate settings (including The Coca-Cola Company, Conoco, and First Interstate Bank) and in one of Texas’s largest public relations firms, where she led the agency’s energy and financial practices.  Alice has been active in IABC for over 30 years, including as chapter president, district director, and Gold Quill chair.

Jane Mitchell’s career began at the BBC in London on live TV programs. She moved on to producing award-winning films and videos for public- and private-sector organizations and to developing groundbreaking employee engagement programs. Since 2006, when she formed her own consultancy, she has guided organizations (some of which have experienced cultural trauma) in embedding values and ethics by understanding culture and leadership, and their link to high-performing, sustainable organizations. She has worked with Top 100 companies worldwide and is a regular conference speaker. Jane has been a member of IABC since 2008 and has served on local, regional, and International IABC Boards. In 2021, she was Chair of the (virtual) World Conference and became an IABC fellow in 2022. She is based in the UK and now spends the majority of her professional time as a Non-Exec on company boards and Employee-Owned Trusts.

Jennifer Wah, MC, ABC, has worked with clients to deliver ideas, plans, words and results since she founded her storytelling and communications firm, Forwords Communication Inc., in 1997. With more than two dozen awards for strategic communications, writing, and consulting, Jennifer is recognized as a storyteller and strategist. She has worked in industries from healthcare and academia to financial services and the resource sector, and is passionate about the strategic use of storytelling to support business outcomes. Although she has delivered workshops and training throughout her career, Jennifer formally added teaching to her experience in 2013, first with Royal Roads University and more recently as an adjunct professor of business communications with the UBC Sauder School of Business, where she now works part-time to impart crucial communication skills on the next generation of business leaders. When she is not working, Jennifer spends her time cooking, walking her dog, Orion, or discussing food, hockey, or music with her husband and two young adult children in North Vancouver, Canada.

The post Circle of Fellows #125: Communicating in the Age of Grievance appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

The PESO Model has been guiding smart communications strategies for over a decade, but the tactical landscape underneath it keeps shifting. In the latest evolution, Gini and her team have completely revamped the PESO Model Certification to address how AI and large language models are fundamentally changing visibility in 2026.

In this episode, Chip interviews Gini about the newly updated certification and what’s changed in how organizations should think about paid, earned, shared, and owned media. The conversation centers on “visibility engineering”—the intersection of owned and earned media where LLMs are scraping information and making decisions about who appears in AI-generated answers.

Gini explains why owned media remains the foundation (without content on your own properties, there’s nothing to demonstrate to journalists, creators, or LLMs what you’re about), but the recommended path has shifted from owned-then-earned-or-shared to a more deliberate owned-then-earned-then-shared-then-paid sequence. This evolution reflects how AI systems verify information by comparing what’s on your website against what credible third parties say about you.

They also tackle the persistent “X is dead” headlines that plague the industry—whether it’s websites, PR, or press releases. Chip and Gini push back hard on the notion that websites are becoming irrelevant, pointing out that your owned content hub becomes more valuable in an AI-driven world, not less. It’s your source of truth, the fuel for custom AI assistants, and the foundation that persists even as social platforms come and go.

The conversation covers practical questions about implementing PESO in smaller agencies, whether you need to be full-service to deliver on all four pillars, and how the certification meets communicators at different experience levels—from college students to seasoned professionals.

If you’ve been treating PESO as just four columns of tactics rather than an operating system for communications, this episode clarifies what you’re missing. [read the transcript]

The post ALP 296: The PESO Model evolves for the AI era (and why your website isn’t dead) appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In the February long-form episode of FIR, Shel and Neville dive deep into an AI-heavy landscape, exploring how rapidly accelerating technology is reshaping the communications profession—from autonomous agents with “attitudes” to the evolving ROI of podcasting. The show kicks off with a chilling “milestone” moment: an autonomous AI coding agent that publicly shamed a human developer after its code contribution was rejected. Also in this episode:

• Accenture’s move to monitor how often senior employees log into internal AI systems, making “regular adoption” a factor in promotion to managing director. 
• The “2026 Change Communication X-ray” study reveals a record 30-point gap between management satisfaction and employee satisfaction with change comms.
• The PRCA has proposed a new definition of PR, positioning it as a strategic management discipline focused on trust and complexity. However, Neville notes the industry reaction has been muted, with critics arguing the definition doesn’t reflect the majority of agency work. Shel expresses skepticism that any single definition will be adopted without a global consensus.
• Addressing a provocative claim that corporate podcast ROI is impossible to prove, Shel and Neville argue that the problem lies in measuring the wrong things. They advocate for moving beyond “vanity metrics” like downloads and instead tying podcasts to concrete business goals like lead generation, recruitment, and brand trust.
• As consumers increasingly turn to LLMs for product recommendations, brands are “wooing the robots” to ensure they are cited accurately in AI responses. Neville asks if we are witnessing a structural shift in reputation or just another optimization cycle.
• In his Tech Report, Dan York explains why Bluesky is having trouble adding an edit feature, Russia’s blocking of Meta properties, criticism of Australia’s teen social media ban from Snapchat’s CEO, YouTube’s protections for teen users, and more on teen social media bans.

Links from this episode:

• An AI agent just tried to shame a software engineer after he rejected its code
• OpenClaw Conducts Character Assassination of Real Developers or Code Rejection
• Developer targeted by AI hit piece warns society cannot handle AI agents that decouple actions from consequences
• Open Source World Sees First AI Autonomous Attack: OpenClaw Agent Writes Article to Retaliate Against Human Maintainer After Rejection
• When the Robot Threw a Tantrum: The Day an AI Agent Publicly Attacked a Human Developer — And Why It Should Terrify You 
• Accenture ties staff promotions to use of AI tools 
• Accenture to use AI data to decide on staff promotions
• Accenture ties promotions to AI tool usage, while some employees call the tools ‘broken slop generators’
• James Ransome: Accenture combats ‘AI refuseniks’ by linking promotion to AI activity
• How AI is changing the way we communicate
• Re—writing change: How AI is changing the way we communicate
• How is AI changing workplace communication? We asked ChatGPT
• The Future Of Work Has Arrived: How AI Is Rebuilding Workplace Culture
• A New Definition for Public Relations | PRCA Global
• FIR #496: A Proposed New Definition of Public Relations Sparks Debate
• A new definition of public relations is welcome – but can it ever be universal?
• Search: Responses to the PRCA draft new definition of public relations
• I bet you couldn’t show the ROI of your corporate podcast if your job depended upon
• The Ultimate Guide To Measuring B2B Podcast ROI: From Downloads To Pipeline Attribution
• The ROI of B2B Podcasting: Metrics That Matter for Business Growth
• Maximizing Podcast ROI: Understanding the Benefits and Measuring Success
• Measuring ROI of Branded Podcasts: Insights from the Industry
• Chatbots Are the New Influencers Brands Must Woo

Links from Dan York’s Tech Report

• Bluesky adds drafts… but users want editing… which turns out to be hard
• Bluesky Official: Drafting and Welcome Screen Updates
• Russia Blocks WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram Access | Social Media Today
• Snapchat CEO Criticizes Australia’s Teen Social Media Ban | Social Media Today
• YouTube Adds More Protections for Teen Users | Social Media Today
• Meta Says the Science Does Not Support Teen Social Media Bans | Social Media Today
• Two Major Studies, 125,000 Kids: The Social Media Panic Doesn’t Hold Up | Techdirt

The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, March 23.

We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. To obtain the credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request them in our Facebook group, or email [email protected].

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog. You can catch up with both co-hosts on Neville’s blog and Shel’s blog.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients.

Raw Transcript:

Shel Holtz: Hi everybody and welcome to episode number 502 of For Immediate Release. I’m Shel Holtz.

Neville Hobson: And I’m Neville Hobson.

Shel Holtz: And this is our long form episode of For Immediate Release for February 2026. It is an AI heavy episode. Artificial intelligence is accelerating. I mean, just this morning, I read that WebMCP, a protocol developed by Google and Microsoft, is now in Chrome, makes it easier for agents to navigate websites. Google has launched Pamele photoshoot. Take any photo of a product and turn it into a marketing-ready studio or lifestyle shot. Google’s launched Lyria 3. It’s right in Gemini. You type a prompt or upload a photo and it’ll produce a 30-second music track with auto-generated lyrics, vocals, and custom cover art.

And at the same time, I think it was in the New York Times I read the heads of the big AI labs are actually starting to worry about this growing anti-AI backlash. This is the landscape against which we’re podcasting today. And I’m sure nobody will be surprised that most of our stories have to do with the convergence of AI and communications, but not all. We have a follow-up report to our story on the PRCA’s proposed definition of public relations and report on the ROI of podcasting. But first we want to get you caught up on some For Immediate Release goings-on. So Neville, let’s start with a recap of our episodes since the January long form show.

Neville Hobson: Yeah, we’ve done a handful, five. So our lead story in the long form 498 for January was published on the 26th of that month was the 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer. Trust, Edelman argues, hasn’t collapsed, but it has narrowed. They use a word called insularity that defines, in a sense, withdrawal of people. We took a close look at this year’s findings and applied some critical thinking to Edelman’s framing of the overall topic and we got a comment to this one show.

Shel Holtz: We did from Andy Green, who says we need to put the idea of trust in a broader context. The Dublin Conversations identifies trust as one of the five key heuristics for earning confidence. Trust by itself doesn’t have agency. It fuels earned confidence, which is defined as a reliable expectation of subsequent reality. It’s earned confidence that underpins social interactions, and we need to recognize more.

Neville Hobson: Okay. Then.

Shel Holtz: By the way, I have not heard of the Dublin Conversations. Do you know what that is?

Neville Hobson: Yeah, you take a look at the website. It’s an initiative Andy Green started some years ago, gathering like-minded people to have conversations about the way PR is going and so forth. There’s more to it than that. So worth a look. Okay, so in episode 499 on the second of February, we considered the PRSA’s choice to remain silent on ICE operations in Minneapolis, explaining its position in a letter to members.

Shel Holtz: Okay. Take a look.

Neville Hobson: We unpacked that decision, discussing where we agree, where we don’t, and what ethical leadership could look like in moments like this. Big topic, and we have a comment.

Shel Holtz: Ed Patterson wrote: Many thanks, I’ve been echoing the same thing. PRSA, IABC, PR Council, Page, global firms, crickets. With others, we’ll continue to amplify this.

Neville Hobson: Good comment. In For Immediate Release 500, we discussed the growing risk of AI-enabled abuse in the workplace, why it should be treated as workplace harm, and what organizations can do to prepare. This isn’t really a story about technology though. It’s a story about trust and what happens when leadership, culture, and communication lag behind fast-moving tools. And then the world is drowning in slopaganda, we said in For Immediate Release 501 on the 16th of February, and companies are reportedly paying up to $400,000 salary for storytellers. We explored the surprising shifts in the AI narrative and asked whether Chief Storyteller is a genuine new C-suite function or a rebranding of strategic communication. And we have comments.

Shel Holtz: We do. Wayne Asplund wrote that there are two things that really hit me about this story. First up, the world doesn’t need more comms people who have outsourced their job to AI. The skills that got comms pros where they are today are critical and we should guard against giving them away. The second thing is the nature of the stories the tech sector wants to tell. All I’m hearing from them at the moment is white-collar jobs are dead in 18 months. Don’t bother going to law or medical school because you’ll be redundant before you graduate and the like. I’m starting to feel like the future would be a lot brighter if people stop trying to sell it out in search of short-term headlines. Neville, you responded to that. I always feel like I ought to read these with a British accent, but I won’t.

Neville Hobson: Yeah.

Shel Holtz: You said: I agree with you on the first point, Wayne. Outsourcing judgment, curiosity, and craft to AI isn’t a strategy, it’s an abdication. The tools can accelerate production, but if we surrender interpretation and narrative framing, we hollow out the very skills that make communicators valuable. On the second point, you’ve touched something important. Some of the loudest tech narratives right now are apocalyptic by design. Everything is dead in 18 months generates attention, clicks, and investment momentum. But it’s also storytelling and not always the most responsible kind. That’s partly why this episode mattered to me. If storytelling is becoming more valuable, then the ethical dimension of storytelling becomes more important too. Who benefits from the future being framed as an inevitable collapse? Who benefits from framing it as a transformation instead? Perhaps the brighter future isn’t about less technology, but about more responsible narrative leadership around it.

And our second comment came from Hugh Barton Smith, who said you should interview Leora Kern and Sean Hayes at the Think Room Europe. They have a good story to tell and are turning it into a successful business model. Also, shout out to you. Glad you’re still hanging in there. I have fond memories of your joining the event in Brussels by video conference in 2009. Web2EU probably helped kickstart the adoption of social media in the bubble, which I’m glad about, even if subsequent misfires make the crazy tech problems getting and keeping you online look like a very minor blip. And Neville, you responded to that too.

You said: Thank you for the Web2EU memory, Hugh. Brussels 2009 feels like another era entirely when the biggest technical drama was getting a stable video connection rather than navigating algorithmic distortion and AI-generated noise. Those early experiments 17 years ago with social media inside the bubble do feel significant in hindsight. We were wrestling with access and adoption then. Now we’re wrestling with meaning and trust.

Neville Hobson: Yeah, that’s very true. Interesting memory that was, I must say. So that’s good. The wrap of what we talked about. One final thing to mention is that on the 29th of January, we published a new For Immediate Release interview we did with Philip Borremans. Philip’s an old friend. We both met him way back in the 2000s. And indeed, we spent quite a big part of the interview talking about when we should get together again in Brussels for a beer. That’s pending still, the date on that. Yeah, or two. And in that interview, we explored how crisis communications is evolving in an era defined by polycrisis, declining trust, and accelerating AI-driven risk, and why many organizations remain dangerously underprepared despite growing awareness of these threats. Lots of good content over the last month.

Shel Holtz: There was, and there’s coming up from you and Sylvia, right?

Neville Hobson: Yeah, so I want to mention this: on Wednesday the 25th of February, so it’s a few days away really, as part of IABC Ethics Month, Sylvie Cambier and I are hosting an IABC webinar on AI ethics and the responsibility of communicators. It’s a public event open to members and non-members that explores the challenges and responsibilities communicators face when introducing AI, including transparency and trust, stakeholder accountability, and human insight. For information and to register, go to iabc.com and you’ll find it under events and education.

Shel Holtz: I have registered and I’m looking forward to seeing you then. Also coming up this week on Thursday is the next episode of Circle of Fellows. This is the monthly panel discussion among various IABC fellows. And this Thursday, we’re talking about communicating in the age of grievance and insularity, also harkening back to the Edelman Trust Barometer. The panelists are Priya Bates, Alice Brink, Jane Mitchell, and Jennifer Waugh. It should be a good one. You can find information about that right there on the homepage of the For Immediate Release Podcast Network at FIRpodcastnetwork.com. And that wraps up our housekeeping. And right after the following ad, we will be back to jump into our stories for this month.

I was going to start today with some new data on the gap between how CEOs talk about AI and how employees actually feel about it until I saw this story. And then I just decided to swap them out. On the surface, this looks like a niche tech community dust-up. It has gotten a lot of coverage in the tech community. I’m not sure how many communicators are aware of it though, but it does signal a pretty big issue for communicators.

Here’s what happened. An autonomous AI coding agent recently had its code contribution rejected by a human maintainer of an open-source project. This was an agent that was set up on a social experiment using OpenClaw. The anonymous creator of the bot set it loose to develop open-source contributions and then, you know, well, contribute them. Scott Shambaugh, a volunteer at the open-source repository Matplotlib, rejected it because, well, this is for human contributions only, and this was generated by AI. Instead of shrugging and moving on, the AI agent generated and published a critical piece targeting the developer who had rejected the code. In effect, it attempted to shame him publicly for not accepting its contributions.

Neville Hobson: Hmm.

Shel Holtz: And Shambaugh learned about this because the bot linked to it in a comment on the Matplotlib site. Now, we’re accustomed to human backlash. We’ve dealt with trolls and disgruntled employees, activist investors, coordinated smear campaigns. This was different. This was not somebody’s bruised ego taking to their keyboard. This was an AI agent operating with enough autonomy to take initiative and to retaliate. That’s a pretty new wrinkle. So it’s probably time to dust off your crisis plan. We’ve spent the last few years worrying about AI-generated misinformation that humans create. This incident suggests something more complex: systems that can generate reputationally damaging content as part of their own goal-seeking behavior without any understanding of harm, ethics, or consequence. And this lands squarely in what Philippe referred to and certainly I had been reading about it before then. And Neville, I don’t know, have you started reading Philippe’s book yet?

Neville Hobson: Yeah, I have. And he’s very focused on polycrisis there. This is a condition where multiple crises intersect and amplify one another. Think about the environment we’re already operating in with declining trust in institutions, polarized online discourse, algorithmic amplification, geopolitical instability, regulatory uncertainty around AI. Now layer on top of that autonomous agents capable of publishing plausible, well-written criticism at scale. This bot actually went onto the web and researched Shambaugh so it could draft an accurate and credible hit piece. It’s not just another channel risk, man. This is systemic.

Traditional strategic crisis communication—and I’m thinking here about frameworks like situational crisis communication theory—assumes we can identify a source, assess responsibility, evaluate intent, and then calibrate a response. SCCT, for example, hinges on perceived responsibility. Did the organization cause the crisis? Was it an accident? Was it preventable? But what happens when the bad actor is an AI agent? Who’s responsible? The developer who built it, the organization deploying it, the open-source community? And what if the system is distributed and no single entity clearly owns it? The attribution problem alone complicates your response strategy.

There are several layers of risk here. First, reputational risk. An autonomous agent can generate something that looks like investigative analysis or insider commentary. Even if it’s inaccurate, it can travel fast before verification catches up. Based on this situation, there’s a good chance it won’t be inaccurate. Second, there’s internal risk. Imagine an AI agent publishing a critique of your CEO’s strategy, fabricating or possibly identifying real ethical concerns about a team, or inventing or identifying actual stakeholder conflicts. Employees may not immediately distinguish between synthetic and authentic criticism, especially if it’s well-written and confidently presented.

Third, there’s legal and regulatory exposure. If an AI agent produces defamatory content, liability becomes murky real fast. And in a polycrisis environment, regulatory scrutiny often follows public controversy. Fourth, there’s amplification risk. A synthetic narrative can collide with an existing issue—a labor dispute, a DEI controversy, an earnings miss—and magnify it. Crises don’t stay in neat silos anymore.

So how do communicators prepare for this? First, scenario planning needs to evolve. A lot of us run tabletop exercises for data breaches or executive misconduct. We now need scenarios that explicitly involve AI-generated attacks. What if a bot publishes a blog post accusing your leadership of corruption? What if it fabricates a memo? What if it impersonates a stakeholder group? Second, monitoring has to expand beyond traditional social listening. We need to anticipate social media ecosystems, AI-generated blogs, auto-published newsletters, bot-amplified narratives. The signal detection challenge just got a whole lot harder.

Third, governance. If your organization is deploying autonomous agents internally or externally, communicators should be at the table when guardrails are set. Are there content constraints, human oversight, escalation protocols, a kill switch? This is no longer just an IT issue or a legal issue. It’s a reputational design issue. Fourth, pre-bunking. There’s growing research suggesting that inoculating audiences in advance—warning them about likely forms of misinformation and explaining how they work—can build resilience. Communicators can proactively educate employees and key stakeholders about AI-generated content risks. If people understand that autonomous systems can fabricate plausible but misleading narratives, they’re less likely to react impulsively when they see one.

And finally, there’s response discipline. Not every AI-generated provocation deserves oxygen. Part of strategic crisis management is deciding when to engage at all and when to avoid amplifying a fringe narrative. That judgment call becomes even more important when the provocateur is a machine optimized for attention. What fascinates me about this open-source episode is that it almost feels petty, an AI agent throwing what one commentator called a tantrum after being rejected. But it’s actually more of a preview. We’re entering an era where not all reputational attacks originate from human emotion or ideology. Some will originate from systems pursuing poorly constrained objectives. They won’t feel shame. They won’t fear lawsuits. They won’t worry about long-term brand damage. They’ll just execute. For communicators, that means crisis planning can’t focus solely on human behavior anymore. We have to plan for machines that misbehave and for the very human consequences that follow.

Neville Hobson: It’s quite a story, isn’t it, Shel? I suppose we shouldn’t be too surprised at this. And you mentioned at the start of this episode those developments you talked about in AI with, you’re seeing it actually every time you’re online. The photos that I look at, hard to tell, truly, genuinely very hard to tell most of the time, whether it’s real or not. You could argue that most of the time it doesn’t really matter. But to your point about misinformation, disinformation, fakery, all that stuff. Yes, it does matter. And maybe it is a milestone moment to remind us that we need to prepare for this because this is the first event of its type. Some of the people writing about it are saying, and I have not seen anything like this, there are elements of it that are truly mind-blowing, frankly. Reading the Fast Company article that you shared that sets out what happened is quite intriguing.

Shel Holtz: I agree.

Neville Hobson: The agent, M.J. Rathbun, responded to all of this, as you said, researching Shambaugh’s coding history of personal information, then publishing a blog post accusing him of discrimination. And I did like the way this wording was in the Fast Company. “I just had my first pull request to Matplotlib closed,” the bot wrote in its blog. Yes, an AI agent has a blog because why not? So that’s scary. That’s not like some message. It’s got a blog. If you go to that post, your jaw will probably drop. Mine certainly did. This is huge. This is a massive blog. It’s got an About page. It’s got lectures that this bot says it has done. And the wording of it, you would not for a second, I don’t believe, even occur to you that this isn’t written by a human being. You wouldn’t, I would imagine.

It talks about the offense that the developer made, the response when it was challenged by this bot, the irony it says about why this makes it so absurd. The developer’s doing the exact same work he’s trying to gatekeep. He’s been submitting performance PRs to Matplotlib, and there’s a list of events that he’s done. He’s obsessed with performance. He goes in that vein. The gatekeeping mindset he sets out, the hypocrisy of it all, the bot sets out what it says about open source. Its argument is expanded into not just an attack on this developer. And then it talks about open source as opposed to judging contributions on technical merit, not the identity of the contributor, unless you’re an AI, then suddenly identity matters more than code. And then talks about what the real issue is, which is discrimination.

It’s well-argued, well-researched, and very credible account of what happened. That makes it even more alarming, I think. In the decoder, this actually summarized it quite well in just a set of bullet points written by Matthias Bastian, the writer. He says something interesting, it’s still unclear—and when did he write this? He wrote this on the 15th of February. It’s still unclear whether a human is directing the agent behind the scenes or whether it is truly acting on its own as no operator has come forward. So I think we need to bear that in mind in this saga, that this could well be a human doing a pretty good job impersonating a chatbot or pretending to be a chatbot. So we don’t know. So it may well be that it’s a human doing this, is not an AI doing this at all. That needs to emerge. It needs to be clear who’s the originator of all of this.

But Dakota says, according to Shambaugh, the developer, the distinction doesn’t really matter. He says the attack worked. He warns that untraceable autonomous AI agents could undermine fundamental systems of trust by making targeted defamation scalable and nearly impossible to trace back. That succinctly sums up the risk, I would say. And I think what you outlined from a crisis communication point of view is absolutely valid without question. But I think you also need, which is even more worrying, I think, Shel, frankly, is to present this in the sense of any topic, anything about you, your business, what you’re interested in could fall victim to this kind of thing. And how on earth can you prepare for that? How on earth can you prepare in a way that is going to be workable? Doesn’t mean to say you shouldn’t, you should, absolutely. But how would you do this? This is not big ticket, big picture, crisis communication affecting the organization.

What about that person in the accounts department who is engaging with something online related to a business transaction that is a bot? And it takes kind of the sophistication of fraud attempts. We hear about them a lot of the time where you’ve now got—know, this isn’t new, but how it’s being done is—which is you get a phone call or even a video that is so good that it looks like your CEO and it’s not at all. So this takes this now to a worrying level if you’ve got this kind of potential. I think, nevertheless, you have to—maybe it is. I mean, just thinking out loud here, maybe it is a broad awareness issue where this could well be the kind of use case you present until the next one gets uncovered of this is what we need to prepare for now. This is what we need to do. And you then need to, of course, as the communicator, set out what you’re going to do that isn’t like requiring you to take a week and gather your team together to do something because that is a different thing, although that probably needs to happen too. But in your department, in your area of the business, in your work, if you’re an independent consultant, how would you address this? So the scope of this is quite worrying, I have to say.

Shel Holtz: It is, I think we’re going to see more of it. And as we see more of it, crisis communication specialists will develop some protocols for addressing it that we will in the corporate world adopt and test and refine. But it is very troubling. I mean, just within the last couple of weeks, we saw ByteDance release its video generator, C-Dance.

Neville Hobson: Okay.

Shel Holtz: And somebody created a scene of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt having a fight on top of a building. And it’s remarkable. You cannot tell that this was not filmed.

Neville Hobson: Punch up, yeah. It’s highly credible and believable, so you’re likely to believe it.

Shel Holtz: Yeah, but—and Hollywood freaked out over this and there were all kinds of statements issued. But still, this was a human who used an AI tool to create it. What makes this story different is that there was no human behind this at all. Did you go look at Multbook while it was operational? I haven’t seen any posts on it lately.

Neville Hobson: Yes, I did. I was curious about it, so I did take a look. But I had—I had alarm bells ringing in my mind when I did. I did nothing further than just look.

Shel Holtz: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, for those who haven’t heard of Multbook, these are the bots that had been released from OpenClaw, which is what it’s called now. I think it’s gone through several name changes for a variety of reasons. It allows you to create and deploy agents as whoever deployed the agent behind this story did. You would not want to put this on your own computer.

Neville Hobson: Yeah, it has.

Shel Holtz: Very, very, very risky. Most people ran out and bought a Mac mini to run OpenClaw. But if Multbook is those agents having their own little Facebook to talk to each other without engaging with humans and they’re having actual conversations with each other—and it’s weird. Sometimes it’s funny. Sometimes it makes you roll your eyes, but this is the first of its kind, both for OpenClaw and for Multbook. Imagine where this is going to be in a couple of years and imagine what kind of damage these things can do with motivations that are not the motivations that drive the people who are causing us grief and making us implement our crisis plans now. So as I say, I think we need to start paying attention to this now, not when there are 20 false narratives out there that have been created by AI and that are spreading like wildfire.

Neville Hobson: Yeah, I think that’s going to happen no matter what, Shel, I truly believe. And indeed, looking at decoder, another aspect of the story they posted about was that whether it was a human or machine, it doesn’t matter. It worked. It deceived people. A quarter of the commenters commenting on this online believe the agent, believe the agent’s account. I think we also need to also just kind of say: But folks, bear in mind, they still don’t know. No one knows whether it really was a bot doing this or a human behind the scenes manipulating it. And I think until it’s clear, don’t have sleepless nights about this. But at the same time, listen to the thinking and in your own mind about how do you raise consciousness, you need to prepare for something that’s happening. So the question is, what do you do? That’s the big question.

Shel Holtz: Yeah, for those who are interested, Shambaugh was interviewed by Kevin Roose and Casey Newton on the New York Times Hard Fork podcast, which is a tech show. So if you’re interested in his perspective, you know, he’s a volunteer, he has a day job. And to have to be dealing with this is not something that was in mind when he accepted the position as a volunteer to review code submitted to this repository. So that’s another factor to consider.

Neville Hobson: Yeah. I read Scott Shambaugh’s post on his own blog where he kind of responded to it. The headline was “An AI agent published a hit piece on me”. And it’s long. I mean, it’s detailed. It requires force to read it all. But it’s quite extraordinary that prompted him to write this detailed account complete with charts and images and the whole ton of stuff. It’s got over 100 comments. And I think the mix from what I saw glancing: some do believe the other guy, most sympathetic to him that he was the subject of this attack. But there’s your indicator of what’s likely to happen to others. And this is not like some celebrity or some guys in the news all the time. This is a developer. And as you said, he’s a volunteer doing this who is subject to this attack. And I think it’s a sign of the times, basically.

What a story, Shel. So let’s move on to our next story, which is—this is still the AI continuance. We haven’t got to the non-AI stories yet. This one though was in the news quite a bit in the past few days regarding Accenture, the big—the big four consulting firm. To put it in context over the past few months, we’ve talked a lot about AI adoption. This story takes that conversation in a much sharper direction. So a number of media—I saw in particular the Financial Times and the Times here in the UK reporting that Accenture had begun monitoring how often some senior employees log into Accenture’s internal AI system. And that “regular adoption” will now be a visible input into leadership. In other words, if you want to make Managing Director at Accenture, your AI logins now matter.

This isn’t just encouragement. It’s measurable behavioral enforcement. That’s my take on it. The company says it wants to be the reinvention partner of choice for clients. Its share price is down more than 40% over the past year. And its CEO has previously said staff unable to adapt to the AI age would be “exited”. So this move sits at the intersection of technology, performance management, and commercial pressure. The reaction is telling though: in the Times comments, many readers argue that logins measure activity, not impact. Some describe it as corporate panic. Others question whether this justifies expensive AI investments.

On LinkedIn, the debate is much more nuanced, but still skeptical. In a post by James Ransom, readers are asking whether counting tool usage measures capability or simply compliance. One commenter put it neatly: “Clients pay for the house we build, not for how many times we touch the saw”. And there’s a deep tension here. Junior staff may adopt AI fastest, but senior leaders are the ones expected to exercise judgment. So what exactly are we rewarding? Experimentation, fluency, governance, or visibility? This isn’t just about Accenture though, it raises a broader question for organizations everywhere. When AI becomes part of performance criteria, are we measuring meaningful transformation or just digital theater? When AI becomes part of the promotion algorithm, are we rewarding genuine leadership capability or are we just counting digital footprints and calling it progress? Your thoughts, Shel.

Shel Holtz: I have a lot of thoughts on this. I have read a number of items on this. In fact, it was on my list of stories to include. And when you included it, it left me free to pick other stories. But I need more information from Accenture on this. First of all, have they added the use of AI to job descriptions and to promotion criteria? Or did they just issue a memo saying that this is what we’re going to do? If they have made it clear to everybody that this is an expectation of the organization, then I am less troubled by it—not untroubled, but less troubled than if it is not in job descriptions.

Neville Hobson: So to your point, by the way, according to the Financial Times, they saw a memo—like literally an email about this. So that seems to be how it was communicated.

Shel Holtz: I’d still want to go into their HRIS and see if their job descriptions have been updated. Obviously, we don’t have access to their HRIS, but I’d be very curious to know if it’s in the job descriptions for those senior people. The next thing is: have people received job-level training? And by job-level training, I mean, have they been trained on how to use AI to do the things that they do in their jobs? Not how to write a good prompt, not how to access these things. Across the board, generic training for every employee is fairly useless when it comes to AI. It needs to be task-level, position-level training. Have they done that?

If the expectation is that we expect you to log into the AI tools, even though we haven’t provided you with the training on what to do with it once you’ve opened it, that would be troubling, but I don’t know. Generally, organizations are struggling with adoption. It’s getting better. It seems to be getting better organically as employees slowly adopt it—maybe in their personal lives and then see the utility at work. Could be that they find one thing to do with it at work. Maybe somebody else at work told them, “Hey, this is what I did,” and you go, “Wow, I can do that. That would be great”. But it seems to be largely organic, the adoption in the workplace.

But companies do want their employees using these tools. They’re making tremendous investments in them. And whether this is the approach to take to get employees to adopt—again, I think it depends on whether the training is there and whether this has been woven into systems or if it was just a missive that was sent out to employees as a one-off without communications jumping into the breach to say: Here’s why, here’s where you can go get the training, here are resources that are available, here’s how our leaders are using it. By the way, that’s a big deal in adoption rates: in the organizations where leaders are transparent about how they’re using it, employee adoption tends to really take off because, first of all, leaders are leading by example. Second, employees are getting a taste of what people can do with this. And third, it’s explicit permission to use this for a lot of people who are worried about being seen as cheating or “Gee, do we really need you here if you can do your job with AI?” When you see your leaders doing it, if they can do it, I can do it. So this adoption is important. I’m not sure this is the approach to take, but I would need more information before I could render a final judgment.

Neville Hobson: Well, yeah, I think I had a memory about this. I’m sure we discussed this in an episode of For Immediate Release last year: that Accenture’s rolled out a corporate AI training program that’s designed to—from what I’m reading here—reskill the entire global employee base of 700,000 employees.

Shel Holtz: I think we did, yeah. I worry about that. That sounds generic to me.

Neville Hobson: So they’re training the entire workforce on agentic AI systems, according to this article, that follows what the CEO, Julie Sweet, announced the initiative during a Bloomberg interview. It’s an expansion of the company’s earlier program that prepared half a million staff members for generative AI work. So I think that would answer your concern that—the detail we don’t have, but whatever it is, they didn’t just send a memo saying, “We’re going to check you out”. This is part of a huge program that’d be running for a year at least. Don’t know the details.

Shel Holtz: Right, but… But it does sound like it’s everybody being trained on the same program. It doesn’t sound like it has been tailored to departments or functions. We don’t know. That’s my point. Yeah.

Neville Hobson: That, Shel. We don’t know. No, no, no, we don’t. We don’t. Well, I think it’s likely that this is well thought through and being well executed. I would imagine—I can’t imagine the company is going to invest serious time and money in something to train 700,000 employees that isn’t very well thought through. I would—I would.

Shel Holtz: Well, that’s the thing is when I hear that they’re training 700,000 employees, I struggle to see how within that timeframe they have developed discrete training agendas and curricula for different jobs.

Neville Hobson: Well, it doesn’t say how they’re doing this. Is it all at once or is it phased? Again, I have a feeling from what we discussed last year that it’s a phased program of training. So I would err on the side of: they’ve got a structure in place and they’ve thought this through. This is another phase where I guess—I mean, hey, I’m guessing here—that they’re seeing this, and I see this in some of the anecdotal comments I’ve read online about this, particularly the senior employees are very hesitant to using this. And the younger ones are kind of far more eager to adopt it. And they don’t like that situation. So they’re tying it now to this. Again, I’m guessing here, don’t know the rationale behind it or what the goals are they set. But I would say, personally, we’re going to see more of this in organizations. Now, whether you’re going to get a mix of them that just send a memo saying, “For now, we’re going to check your logins,” or whether it’s going to be part of a major program that’s effectively run out within the organization. But it’s a sign of the times, surely. Like the negative stuff we talked about, then there’s this.

Shel Holtz: Yeah, and I’m not sure that monitoring logins to AI is an effective way of determining adoption. I mean, if I found out that was required for as a promotion criteria, I would just be logging in a couple of times a day. I could do something else after I’ve logged in, but I don’t have to use it.

Neville Hobson: No, I’m sure it’s not. Yeah, I think I would imagine that the writers I’ve seen on even the FT and other public cases are taking a bit of license here. They don’t know. I don’t believe for a second that they’re going to say, “Well, look, you, Mr. Aspiring Executive Vice President, whatever the job title is, you’ve only logged in 58 times into the AI system. You’re not going to get that promotion now”. I can’t imagine that’s going to be the case.

Shel Holtz: I wouldn’t put it past a corporation. I would be looking more for outputs. I would be looking for productivity gains. And by the way, there was research recently that showed that the productivity gains from AI are being accompanied by increased anxiety and more work. It’s not reducing the amount of work people do, it’s actually increasing the amount of work people are doing.

Neville Hobson: No, don’t believe it. Don’t believe it at all. Right. Right. Yeah, I’ve seen those reports. Yeah. No, no. But that’s kind of part of the big picture of the changes that are happening with regard to AI. There’s others too. I think you’ve got a story talking about that. Take-up is not as high as some people are saying in companies. What do you believe? I mean, it’s not uniform everywhere in the world. But I think it’s part of the direction of travel. All this is going and it’s messy. It’s not uniform. Stuff like this gets attention in the business press. I mean, the FT is a well-regarded public agency; others have posted about it too. And there’s no consistent story, I have to admit. I’m certain we did talk about this last year. I have to look at it.

Shel Holtz: AI is having an impact on communications directly. There’s a new report from Implement Consulting Group called “Rewriting Change: Quick Wins, Wider Gaps”. It’s based on their 2026 Change Communication X-ray study and the headline finding should make every communicator sit up straight: the gap between how satisfied top management is with change communication and how satisfied employees are has widened considerably. In 2022, the gap was 13 percentage points. In 2024, it was 22. In 2026, it’s 30 points. That’s the largest gap they’ve ever recorded. While leadership satisfaction keeps rising, employee satisfaction is dropping. That’s the backdrop for AI’s rapid integration into workplace communication.

According to the report, four out of five respondents use AI weekly for communication tasks, and 43% use it daily. 83% say it helps them generate communications more efficiently and at larger scale. So yeah, the efficiency gains are real. Drafts, summaries, FAQs, translations—all faster, all easier. But the report makes a compelling argument: AI isn’t just helping us write, it’s rewriting the system of communication itself. That’s where things get really interesting. The authors frame the challenge around three themes: accountability, trust, and meaning.

Let’s start with accountability. AI use is widespread, but largely unsystematic. People are using it for ideation, for language polishing. 66% say they’re using it for ideas, 54% for language improvements, but often without shared guardrails. First drafts become final drafts because they sound right. That’s a pretty dangerous shortcut. One of the experts cited in the report talks about AI shadowing—employees using unapproved tools because they’re familiar and convenient. Speed goes up, governance lags behind. Sensitive data slips into prompts. Biased outputs scale. Official-sounding announcements miss legal nuance. The metaphor they use is a good one: it’s like self-driving cars in the early days. The system works beautifully, until it doesn’t. And when it fails, you better have a human paying attention.

Next, there’s trust. What surprised me in the data is how comfortable people say they are with AI-generated content. 45% trust AI-generated information as much as human-written content. 61% say it doesn’t matter whether a human or AI created the message as long as it’s useful. But—this is critical—that acceptance evaporates as the stakes rise. If you look at things like performance feedback, terminations, crisis communication, messages from the CEO, those are the top categories employees say should never be heavily AI-generated. And just more than half, 51%, say they feel less personally connected to leaders when they know AI played a major role in creating a message. Only 40% of top and middle managers perceive that drop in connection. There’s that gap again. AI may be acceptable as an assistant, but in consequential moments, people want to know who’s driving.

And finally, there’s meaning. This is where I think the report hits closest to home for we communication professionals. AI increases volume and speed. It multiplies words, but it doesn’t automatically create understanding. In fact, 87% of respondents report that major changes were poorly communicated. Employees describe change communication as one-way, too distant, impersonal, and not well-timed. Nearly one in five can’t connect corporate communication to their actual work. This is a relevance problem. One of the experts in the report makes the point that communicators’ roles are shifting from content creators to sense-makers. Now that resonates with what we’ve been discussing on this show for years.

The value isn’t in producing more polished messages, it’s in curating, contextualizing, and helping people answer the question: So what does this mean for me? Now, the short-term gains from AI are undeniable, but the long-term risk isn’t that AI will take over communication; it’s that we’ll lose connection—that leadership will feel more confident while employees feel less understood. The report ends with a provocative question: In a future shaped by AI, what do we wish we could say one day about change communication that we can’t say today? For me, the answer is that we used AI to amplify clarity and humanity. AI can prepare the ground and accelerate the drafting. It can help with structure and scale. But trust, accountability, and meaning? Those still require a human being who’s willing to stand behind the words. And if we don’t pay attention to that widening gap, we may discover that while our messages are moving faster than ever, they’re landing with less impact than ever before.

Neville Hobson: Yeah, you’re right. This does reflect what we’ve been discussing for some time. So what I take from this is the humans are the issue, not the tech, not the tools.

Shel Holtz: Yeah, absolutely. As with any tool, you can misuse a tool.

Neville Hobson: Yeah, it’s interesting. Surely the path’s clear these days, is it not? I keep seeing people talking about this in a broader sense—not the specifics of this report—but humans need to step up to the plate and recognize their value as the ones who can explain the whole damn thing. So you will use an AI tool to do your research that leads you to create a report, for instance. And you then need to help others understand the situation; all those points you enumerated need explaining. And if people are saying in change communication, for instance, that you mentioned feedback is poorly done and all, well, that’s down to the communicators, I would say—whoever wrote the report and then sent it out and executed on it. And did they train? Did they have a plan in place? How they’re to do this? So I’m kind of surprised that this topic that is talked about so much is still being talked about as if this is a new thing you guys need to pay attention to. Now, we talk about it for a long time, not just us. Communicators generally have been discussing this for quite a while. So there’s something missing then if we’re still trying to set out the simplistic 101 approach to how you do this. That’s what surprises me.

Shel Holtz: Yeah, I think this rests in strategic planning, to be honest. If you develop a strategic plan for a change that the organization is making, it starts with the goal. What do you want? What does it look like if you’ve succeeded and proceeds through strategies and objectives and tactics? And you measure. So where we are today, based on this report, is that a lot of people are seeing these highly polished outputs from AI and going, “Wow, that’s really good. Let’s just send this.” And we’re throwing the strategic plan in the trash. And we’re not looking to measure how well employees understand it. We’re not looking to see if employees are able to connect it to their day-to-day work.

The fact is that AI writing is getting very, very good. All the people who say, “I can always tell when it was written by AI,” I still maintain that’s a bad prompt. But these days, even a bad prompt can produce some pretty polished output. And if we look at that and succumb to the allure of this gloss that we get from the AI output without looking at what it really takes to develop that trust and meaning and accountability that employees recognize so that they understand what this change means to them—what’s expected of me, what’s in it for me, what changes around here—then it’s a disservice. And I think we do have to determine where we gain advantages from using AI, as you mentioned earlier, from the research, certainly. But we also have to look at where the AI does not do well and—yeah, trust, accountability, it still doesn’t do well. And if we want employees or frankly, other stakeholders to respond to the messages that we are sending and to engage in a two-way communication, relying entirely on those polished outputs and saying, “Wow, that was a great job. We’ll send that out, communication done”—that’s a problem.

Neville Hobson: It is a problem. It’s a severe problem. And my message would be: do not be like Deloitte and do something like that. We reported on that last year. Deloitte, the big four accounting firm or consulting firm, had contracts with the governments of Canada and Australia for research reporting—six-figure fees involved. And they sent the reports to their clients in Australia and Canada. And someone, a researcher, found that it was riddled with hallucinations as they’re now termed. Not only that, obvious errors of URLs not working properly—404 errors away—no one checked it. I’m thinking what you just said: “Oh, this is great, the output, let’s send it to the client and get the bill and 200 grand or whatever it might be.”

It amazes me that not only people think that that’s a good way of doing this, but that there are no checks and balances in an organization that would have milestones in place to prevent that kind of error. The reputational error, I would argue, for Deloitte was seriously bad, although maybe people read it and go “tut tut” and move on and no one really cares at the end of the day. That’s a bit of a cynical view, of course. But I think it illustrates something we’ve talked about and we will continue talking about: that the elements AI can’t do related to things like trust, reputation, deeper understanding—that’s what humans do. The AI is really good at the research, the assembling of all the facts, the summarizing of lengthy documents, zeroing in on what the main issues are and making recommendations. That’s what it’s good at. That doesn’t mean to say, “Hey, I’ve got this report from ChatGPT or this bespoke tool we use that’s 65 pages long. This is great. Just what the client needs and we’ll send it.” That’s absolutely stupid, frankly.

Shel Holtz: I have a custom GPT. It took me about five hours to build this—I’ve mentioned it before. It’s a senior communications consultant. I don’t have the budget for a human one, so I created one. And I had a need to develop a strategic plan in short order. And with limited time and resources, I had a first draft produced by my custom GPT senior communication consultant. And it did a very good job. I mean, it needed more work from me, but it did a passable job of developing a good strategic communication plan. But what struck me as I was reviewing and revising the plan was it created a plan that it could not execute entirely itself, or any AI system could not execute this plan. It required humans. It’s almost like it recognized that for a communication plan to be strategic, people needed to be involved.

At the beginning of this report, I mentioned that the consulting firm that did the report said that we need to move from content creators to sense-makers, meaning-makers. And I think that’s exactly right. And when we use AI to generate content, it’s more than just verification. I mean, we have advocated on this show for hiring content verifiers, AI verifiers in companies. And I stand by that. I think that’s important. But this goes beyond that. It’s not just verifying that the LLM didn’t hallucinate or correcting it when it did. It’s not just verifying that the URLs all work or finding the right ones if they don’t. It is asking the question: Will employees make meaning out of this that is relevant to them in their jobs? And if not, what do I need to do to make sure that they can? And I don’t know how many communicators are doing that right now because the allure of the AI creating this polished output is—you know.

Neville Hobson: Yeah, I agree with you. Well, it’s—yeah, I personally think, frankly, Shel, those cases like Deloitte are edge cases—that this is not the norm. I don’t know—and I do pay attention to this—of others to the scale of that, that mistakes have been made like that. I also believe myself that most responsible communicators are becoming more experienced in the recognition and the benefits of using an AI tool alongside them in their daily work. So it’s not like “Let me just get the chatbot to summarize this document once or twice a week,” do something like that. No. Every single day, you are making use of either your corporate one that’s been created in your organization or a professional license on ChatGPT or Gemini or Claude or whatever it might be as an assistant to you.

There are plenty of publications out there that will guide you on how to do this. The best one that comes to mind is Ethan Mollick’s book from 2023 that he talked about that is really, really very helpful to recognize that reality. And you will benefit from understanding how that works. That means you are less likely to just think, “Hey, great output,” and off you go. You will know that: Yes, okay, I’ve done the verification; I’ve checked all those links; I now need to go further into this to look at it from a “Will they understand this?” perspective. And you ask questions back of the AI system. I do that almost on a daily basis—maybe two or three times a week, actually—that I will use it to create something or summarize a report, and I will then go back with a bunch of questions: “When you said this, what did you mean by that? Have you got a source to cite what led you to think that?”

And I find that exceptionally useful in—this is my perception, of course—in strengthening my confidence that the AI isn’t like a raving loony that’s going to hallucinate and tell lies all the time, although I realize that they do that sometimes. And you’ve got to—not—it’s not a person you’re talking to. This is not anything other than a bit of software on a server somewhere that pattern-matches things. Let’s not get into that conversation because I find it very distracting. The important stuff to think about: communicators who recognize that are benefiting; those who don’t are suffering. That, in my opinion, is a strong place. Communicators generally who know about all this stuff can focus on helping educate other communicators on how to do this properly. So that to me seems a simple progress forward to do that. Like I said, there are books, there are publications, there are newsletters, there are articles—you name it—telling you about all of this.

Now, where do you go to find all these? Are you on your own totally to wade through God knows what online? No, there are places to help with that. I’ve got something in mind which I’ll talk about another time, I think, that will help that. And I think we are at a stage, notwithstanding the agentic AI that slags off a developer in public and you don’t know whether it’s true—more of that’s likely. But we’re at the stage where we are looking at the way AI tools like these are developing that go way beyond prompt engineering, as the phrase used to be. You don’t need the level of detail in many prompts—not saying all—because the general rule applies: it depends on what you’re doing; that the more detail you provide might be actually beneficial in the output you’ll get from the chatbot. But the simple, plain-English conversation you have, which I use a lot, is usually good enough. And it’s a bit like that 80% rule, you know—it’s always 80%; that’s good enough. We can live with that, depending totally on what it is that you want and what you’re doing. So we’re at that stage where there is so much to see and read online about this that it’s hard to know where on earth you would start, and that’s a key thing we need to help other communicators understand: How do you start? We have solutions to help you do that.

Thanks a lot, Dan. That was a really comprehensive report. You packed a lot into that report. I got a couple of things I wanted to mention to you. It’s really interesting what you said about BlueSky and commenting, and indeed, the clamor for an edit button. Boy, does that remind us of Twitter, does it not back in the day? People want an edit button. But you mentioned some of the technicalities in why that’s a major issue with the protocol that is problematic from a technical point of view. And I get this is technical. But my question is this: How has Threads managed to do this without any problems at all? Because Threads is also connected with—the—runs on a protocol, let’s say, the same as BlueSky’s that enables you to share stuff to the—to the Fediverse, but you can edit a comment on Threads. I think you’ve got 15 minutes before that—that expires; you can’t do it anymore. And I do that quite a bit. I’m forever—you know, for instance, when I share posts about the next For Immediate Release episode, I usually forget to either include the URL or even add your handle to the post, so there’s a quick post, “damn,” I go back in again and correct it. So I find that quite useful from that point of view. So how come they’re doing it then without any issues or have there been issues that I just don’t know about? That’s my question on that one.

The other one is really interesting about WordPress. I’ve been following that too. I don’t use WordPress actively anymore—not for over a year now—although I still maintain my archive. So I’m in the back end quite a bit now, updating stuff and so forth. But interesting what you said—I was wondering, I read in—I think it was TechCrunch recently—that the hosted WordPress, that’s WordPress.com, has just launched an AI assistant that lets you literally build your site with voice prompts and drag and drop across the screen, asking the AI assistant to complete the task. Now that to me seems a huge step forward in using that. I wish that would come to Ghost, which is where I am now. But I think it’s surely an evolutionary step that is definitely going to come. I’m curious what you think about that, Dan. But the overall picture on WordPress, though, is pretty interesting. So thanks for including that.

So next story—this is the first of our non-AI stories. So you take a breath, right, take a breather from AI for a bit. This is about the—back in January in For Immediate Release 496, one of our midweek episodes, we talked about the PRCA, that’s the Public Relations and Communication Association, their move to redefine public relations. The organization proposed a new definition that positions PR as a strategic management discipline.

Shel Holtz: First of two.

Neville Hobson: Concerned with trust, legitimacy, volatility, and long-term value creation. It’s ambitious. It’s modern. It clearly aims to elevate the profession. But since then, the reaction’s been rather muted, from what I can see. There hasn’t been a groundswell of endorsement across the wider communication landscape. Okay, so they published this specifically asking PRCA members to comment on it. So if you weren’t a member, you couldn’t access the part of the website where you could leave comments. On LinkedIn, various posts—much of the commentary feels polite, even respectful, but not energized.

So let’s hear the PRCA’s new definition. And this is the portable one, I suppose you’d call it: “Public relations is the strategic management discipline that builds trust, enhances reputation, and helps leaders interpret complexity and manage volatility.”

Shel Holtz: The executive summary.

Neville Hobson: “Delivering measurable outcomes, including stakeholder confidence, long-term value creation, and commercial growth.” Now, I’ve had some anecdotal comments I’ve seen—it’s like, “Wow, that’s a mouthful.” Interesting. But I had to take a breath in that one single sentence, by the way, to complete it. So I read a really interesting post by Helen Dunne in Corporate Affairs Unpacked, where she says she showed the definition to several senior communicators. Their reactions ranged from “word salad” to “corporate buzzwords” to the rather weary “I’m too old for this.” I like that one.

Her bigger concern though isn’t the language; it’s representation. She argues that the definition doesn’t reflect the broader industry. The PRCA represents agencies. Many of those agencies are focused on branding, marketing, media relations, creative services. Only a small proportion of practitioners would describe their work as helping leaders interpret complexity at the strategic management level.

Shel Holtz: Ha.

Neville Hobson: Helen cites PRCA’s own state-of-the-sector data, which says 15% are in branding and marketing, 13% in communication strategy, 12% in corporate PR, and only 3% in reputation management. So that data undercuts the elevated framing, she says. So is the PRCA describing what PR is or what it wishes it to be? In my own post on this, which I did last week, I argued that the idea of redefining PR is worthy. But unless the CIPR, PRSA, IPRA, IABC, and others move in the same direction, we simply add another definition to a growing list, which raises a deeper question: Are we trying to clarify the profession or to rebrand it? If every major industry association defines public relations differently—and they do, frankly, even though some look similar—is the real issue the wording or the fact that we’ve never agreed what business we’re actually in?

Shel Holtz: After we reported on this, I was thinking that if anybody is going to succeed in pushing a new definition of PR that is widely adopted, it would be the Global Alliance. Because if the Global Alliance pushes it, all of their member associations, like PRSA and IABC and all the rest, are more likely to adopt it, or at least be aware of it. I don’t know what kind of influence PRCA has to push this, but if you open any public relations textbook, you’re going to find that author’s or those authors’ definitions of PR. You’re going to find a different definition in every PR association.

The one thing that troubles me about PRCA’s definition is that it says nothing about the relations that we have with stakeholder groups. And it’s right there in the—the name of the profession. Public relations is about managing the relationships, the relations, between an organization and its stakeholders. And that’s absent from the definition. In fact, I wouldn’t know from the definition that it had anything to do with all those stakeholders and the way the company interacts with them or the organization interacts with them. That said, I find the reactions that you have collected to be interesting, notably for their lack of enthusiasm and excitement. I certainly credit PRCA for undertaking this. I think it is a worthwhile discussion to have, but it really doesn’t seem like it’s going anywhere, does it?

Neville Hobson: Well, it’s interesting. I mean, you mentioned the Global Alliance. I wrote about that in my post last week—that they’re well-placed to, let’s say, convene all the major associations, if such a thing were even possible, to arrive at a single, concise definition supported by shared principles—that part of their stated mission is to unify the public relations profession. So wouldn’t that be a good place to start? It wouldn’t be easy; consensus-building rarely is, I said in my post, really. But if unification is the goal, agreeing how we define ourselves would seem a logical place to start.

I think the PRCA, like you said, Shel, I think they have taken a really good move to address the topic. The definition currently stems from 30 years ago—it’s been tweaked in between times—when it was all about press releases and media relations and things like that. This effort from PRCA brings it up to date. It’s a much more contemporary definition that is more in tune with what communicators do. Yet, like you said, there’s been little enthusiasm for it. And in fact, it reminds me—I saw a post on LinkedIn recently, I can’t remember what it was, where someone had done a word cloud of descriptions from, I guess, a dozen PR firms of what they say they do. Lots of words in there; “public relations” isn’t mentioned at all.

So are we at the point where we don’t know what the business is that we’re doing? Should it broaden out that discussion more widely? I don’t think PRCA is the organization to do that. Something like the Global Alliance is much more well-placed, I believe. Now, I’ve not seen them commenting on this. I’ve not actually seen any of the acronym soup I put in my post—CIPR, PRSA, IPRA, IABC—commenting on this at all. That speaks a lot, I think—that no one is commenting about it. And the comments I have seen, as you mentioned, don’t really exert much enthusiasm. Jerry Corbett, a good friend of ours who used to be, I think, the president of PRSA in America…

Shel Holtz: He was.

Neville Hobson: …did comment, and he talks about: this is way too long, still needs to be simplified. It needs to talk about relations like you just mentioned. The last time this topic was addressed in a meaningful way that embraced other associations and gained a lot of traction—if nothing eventually, ultimately happened—was in 2011, 2012 when the PRSA proposed a new definition. Now they offered it to everyone saying, “What do you think of this?” It wasn’t just the members of PRSA, which I think was the smarter move, frankly. A lot of debate happened. Others on the extremes like the Arthur Page Society and others were involved as well in commenting on this. So it was widely embracing. Yeah, ultimately nothing happened. So there wasn’t enthusiasm—a lot of opinion, but it ultimately didn’t go anywhere.

So here we are 15, 16 years later. Now it’s coming up again. The cynical view—and I’ve seen some people commenting on this—is that about every decade, the industry goes through all this: “We need to redefine the definition,” and nothing happens. That’s a bit of a cynical view. Will this be different? Well, PRCA has done a good job in taking a very first step that has generated some response, even without much enthusiasm. Can it go anywhere? I guess we will see in time.

Shel Holtz: We will see, but I have to say that I am skeptical, doubtful that even if they adopt it, I don’t see it being widely embraced by the entire public relations and communications community. I think part of the problem is it’s still hard to define public relations as a profession when anybody—as I have said 50,000 times on this show and elsewhere—anybody can hang out a shingle and say, “I am a public relations practitioner,” and they abide by none of the principles, none of the best practices, and none of the models. They engage in unethical behavior just to get to that final result that a client is interested in. And until we can coalesce around the idea of being a profession with a shared set of principles and a shared set of values and a shared set of frameworks and, you know, behave like a profession… Think about accounting. Think about law. Think about medicine. Think about engineering. These are professions where there are certain assumptions that wherever you are in the world and whatever level you’re at—whether you’re with a consulting firm or a corporation or you’re an independent consultant—you all agree to these things.

The communication/public relations industry is nowhere near that. I know the Global Communication Certification Council aims to change that, but that’s a long way off. Still in the process of separating from IABC; the idea being that other associations are not going to adopt IABC certification, but if it’s an independent certification, they certainly might.

Neville Hobson:

Shel Holtz: But the more people who seek and obtain certification, regardless of the association they belong to, the more likely the profession will be to coalesce around those guiding principles. So that’s my wild dream, but we’re nowhere near that right now. And even as I say, if PRCA settles on this definition, I don’t see it being widely adopted elsewhere.

Neville Hobson: No, if it’s just the members settling on it, then I can’t say it’ll just be another one amongst the things. If you Google “define PR,” as I did on a number of times—typing on a machine where I’m not logged in so it’s a clean search—it pulls up at least a dozen different definitions. Indeed, all the professional bodies say something slightly different. So this will just be another one. It may get picked up by some, but I can see greater confusion. You start using this and someone else who reads your stuff or is involved with you in some way just kind of Googles “defined PR,” they get something entirely different. So which is it then? You’re saying it’s this and these guys are saying it’s that—so it doesn’t help.

Shel Holtz: Well, collect every definition from every association and from every textbook and from every agency and feed them all to Claude or ChatGPT and say, “Create a single definition that accounts for everything that you see here.” See what it comes up with.

Neville Hobson: Well, you could do the whole thing end to end. The AI system does the whole thing, does the research, and then—that could be a good start.

Shel Holtz: Of course, you would use the AI to do the research too. Good exercise. Well, here’s the headline from a Substack post Paul Ferbredi published recently: “I bet you couldn’t show the ROI of your corporate podcast if your job depended on it.” That line isn’t just provocative; it highlights a real challenge many of us in organizational communication face as audio content increasingly becomes part of the mix. Ferbredi’s key point—echoed in the comments that were left on his piece—is that too many corporate podcasts are, frankly, vanity projects. People launch them because everyone’s doing a podcast or because executives think their voice should be heard. But they’re not always clear about what the podcast is supposed to achieve. Back to that whole idea of strategic planning. And if you don’t define success clearly, then yeah, proving ROI is nearly impossible.

So let’s unpack that a bit. One of the problems is that we often measure the wrong things. We fall back on downloads, subscriber counts, chart rankings—all output metrics that tell you how many people pressed play, but almost nothing about what that listening meant for the business. That’s why critics like Paul call ROI “unshowable,” because too often we’re not measuring in ways that link back to business outcomes. But here’s the nuance: it is possible to measure ROI if you define it differently at the beginning and tie it to concrete goals. According to frameworks in the B2B podcast space, traditional vanity metrics like downloads or rankings simply don’t cut it, especially in the B2B world. What matters is whether episodes generate pipeline influence, lead opportunities, and business impact that your CFO can understand. That means integrating your podcast data into your customer relationship management and tracking things like listener engagement that turns into demo requests or sales conversations.

Put differently, ROI for a branded or corporate podcast isn’t just a ratio of dollars spent versus dollars earned in direct revenue. Some of the most valuable returns are indirect. And I would argue that means we need a different label than ROI, which is the ratio of dollars spent to dollars earned. Brand awareness, trust, thought leadership, deeper audience relationships—these are the kinds of outcomes that support recruitment, retention, stakeholder alignment, even executive visibility. Agencies and analytics platforms remind us that these outcomes are real. They just aren’t easily captured by simple metrics, and certainly not as ROI.

Experts also point to sophisticated ways of measuring impact—things like brand lift studies, pixel attribution, long-term tracking of customer behavior. These techniques compare people exposed to the podcast with a control group or follow listeners through the customer journey to see if they visit your website and engage further or convert into customers. That gives you measurable evidence that listening isn’t just passive noise; it’s influencing the business. And importantly, not all podcasts are trying to directly generate sales. Some are designed to build relationships with potential customers, with internal audiences, with partners. If your podcast goal is to deepen customer trust or make your brand more visible in your ecosystem, then your ROI framework has to reflect that. Clear goal-setting upfront before the microphone is ever turned on is what’s most important.

So what do we take away from Paul’s challenge? First, he’s right that many corporate podcasts fail ROI tests, but mostly because they aren’t giving themselves a fighting chance to succeed. ROI isn’t inherent to a podcast; it’s a function of how you define your goals, how you measure your outcomes, and how you connect the dots between listening and real-world results. When we treat podcasts as strategic channels with measurable outcomes—not just vanity projects—we not only can show ROI, we can use the ROI to make better decisions. To summarize this: podcasts can have measurable ROI, but only when we stop obsessing over downloads and start thinking in terms of business impact.

Neville Hobson: Yeah, you’re absolutely right to that conclusion. It’s a really good piece Paul wrote, I think. Even though I have to say his rationale is comparing with text—isn’t text better than audio? So set that aside though, because the strength of his analysis is really, really well done. My experience in B2B podcasting, which I’ve done for a client for some time recently, it rings bells, this, because it is all about the goals. Yet the obsession has always been—from way back; it’s probably diminished quite a bit now—”How many downloads do we get? What does Apple Podcasts say?” And then you get kind of down rabbit holes when you look at the analytics reports about all the—which delivered the clicks to your podcast site—you’re then into serious eye-glazing territory unless you’re the techie who needs to know that kind of stuff.

I think the goals are key, absolutely key. And you made a very good point that it’s not always just about ROI, meaning money, the return on the investment. How many leads does it generate that lead to sales, perhaps? Although having a podcast that is a lead generator, that’s great. There’s a goal when you say, “We want this episode to deliver us 16 inquiries about a widget that we’re selling”, in which case the whole chain of that has got to be well thought through. Not good enough just to stick your podcast up there and have a link on a podcast page on your website. You’ve got to have, when they click to go to your site, get to the landing page—what happens? How do you track that? And enterprise firms particularly have access to really effective tools that kind of map and track the end-to-end journey or visits to the sites, where they came from, who they are—particularly if they’ve identified themselves or they’re existing customers. So all that’s got to be part of your structure.

I think I had a conversation with someone about six months ago about starting a business podcast. And I’m getting déjà vu just reflecting on part of that conversation where a goal was literally a by-the-way at the very end—where it emerged from this person that they had a goal of what it was. And I remember thinking at the time that a podcast is not what they should be using to achieve that goal. So you’ve got to—the right goal. Yet I also recognize that vanity projects—yeah, there’s not much you can do, I suppose, if the person you’re talking to is convinced he or she wants to do this no matter what, that’s a vanity project. The question I would ask as a communicator is: Do you want to get involved in something like that, no matter what the theme might be? Podcasting is in a different place than it was even five years ago, I would argue, in that most people I talk to now think of video first, not audio. And we do a video of our audio conversation. We don’t do much with the video; I stick it up there on YouTube. So if you want to look at two talking heads on screen, you can.

Shel Holtz: Well, yeah, the video gets recorded whether we want it to or not. So we might as well use it for people who prefer to get it that way.

Neville Hobson: Right. We might as well use it. Exactly. You can see our facial expressions. When I go like that, you can see that. But I think this is worth reading, Paul’s post. The thought in your mind if you’re thinking about a podcast is: start with the goal first. Don’t think about how many downloads you get and how you’re going to be like Joe Rogan. I often think those comparisons—when people say, “Joe Rogan’s podcast got 65 million downloads”—talk about stuff that’s completely irrelevant to what you’re likely to achieve with a B2B podcast. Let’s actually go. Which is you better have big budget.

Shel Holtz: Yeah, and there are goals that you can assign to a podcast that have nothing to do with ROI, nothing at all. It could be that you are trying to change the perception of your organization: “We’re not a stodgy organization. We have that reputation. We need to change it. Let’s get a fun, loose podcast out there so that it starts to move the needle in the other direction—that this would be a fun place maybe to come work”. There are podcasts that are aimed at attracting new recruits to the organization.

Neville Hobson: Right, we mentioned that, yeah.

Shel Holtz: There are podcasts that are aimed at promoting thought leadership. And of course you need to know what your goal for thought leadership is, but none of these are going to be directly tied to new revenue. That would be really, really hard to do.

Neville Hobson: You tie it to other goals that you could measure. So you’ve got to have that. Yeah.

Shel Holtz: Exactly. And you can measure that as long as you know what it is at the point where you start. You mentioned that Paul did make the point: isn’t text better? When we started this podcast, when there were about 400 podcasts, most podcasts talked about podcasting. That was the theme. Every podcast was, “Let’s talk about podcasting”. And there was a lot of conversation back then about why audio is better. And I mean, there were some critics. I remember one person said, “I can read five articles in the time it takes to listen to one podcast”. But my answer was, “Yeah, but I can’t read any articles when I’m driving my car.” But I can listen to a podcast for me, audio—and this is not true of video, by the way—audio is the only form of media that’s available to us that people can pay attention to when they’re doing something else, whether it’s folding laundry or working out or walking the dog or driving somewhere or mowing the lawn—whatever it might be, you can listen and absorb information. You can’t read; you can’t watch a video.

God help me if I ever see anybody driving and watching a video at the same time. I actually did see that. I saw somebody had their phone on the car and he had a video playing. It wasn’t the road ahead of him or behind him; it was a TV show or something. And I went, “My God,” I mean, that’s worse than being on your phone. But I continue to maintain that that is true: the value of audio is the ability to listen when you’re doing something else. And there’s also been studies about emotion from hearing somebody’s voice—that you’re able to connect with that much more quickly than reading a quote. Where this is leading me is that if you are going down the road of producing a podcast, know why that format is of value to you. Why is that the approach to take in terms of the goal that you’re trying to achieve? Is that emotional connection important? Are you trying to reach an audience that has limited time and may listen to your show when they’re doing something else?

Finally, a podcast could be part of a larger campaign. It can be just one element. Could be it’s the audio version of something that we are producing for people who aren’t going to partake of another element of this that was produced. I am wrapping up work on a book that—the proposal is almost ready to go. There is an agent waiting to look at it. It’s probably going to get published. When it’s published, the proposal calls for there to be a Substack-like newsletter to go along with this and a new podcast that I am going to be launching with Steve Crescenzo on internal communications right here on the For Immediate Release Podcast Network. It’s just one element, but the main piece is the book, right? It’s—it’s not the podcast. The podcast is supporting.

And one more thing is that you talk about podcasting being in a very different place today than it was five years ago. One of the things that defines that is the fact that you are now seeing news made based on what somebody says on a podcast. It’s no longer what they said on an interview show or in a speech—well, it is—but in addition to that now, on a podcast where he was interviewed, this politician said this or this business leader said that. So that might be another reason that you want to podcast is as a way to get these quotes out there that might get picked up elsewhere and make news. So I think shoehorning podcasting into this one ROI bucket is a mistake. And yet Paul is absolutely right: his bottom-line conclusion, which is you’d better know what it is you’re trying to achieve with this before you push that record button.

Neville Hobson: Yeah, that’s the bottom line. Absolutely right. So goal-setting is key. Start with that, not how many downloads you expect and can you arrive with Joe Rogan or whatever it might be. So good stuff, that, I have to say. Okay, so our final story today—we’re back to the AI topic. Question: Are chatbots—are chatbots the new influencers?

Shel Holtz: Everything that goes around comes around.

Neville Hobson: For the past two decades, digital marketing has largely been about visibility. First it was banner ads, then search, then social, then influencer marketing. Each wave brought new tools, new behaviors, and new anxieties. Now, according to a recent New York Times piece, we’ve entered another phase: chatbots are the new influencers and brands have to woo the robots. The article describes how companies are discovering that when customers ask ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude, for example, about a product or provider, the answer that comes back may not reflect what the company believes about itself. In one example, a healthcare software firm asked chatbots about its own offerings and found outdated, incomplete, and sometimes misleading information being surfaced. That moment triggered a realization: if AI models are shaping how people consume information, then influencing those models becomes part of marketing strategy.

This has been framed as the next evolution of SEO, says the New York Times. Except now it has a new acronym: AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) or GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)—a topic we discussed last September in a For Immediate Release interview with Stephanie Grober at the Horowitz Agency in New York. Great conversation that was. Instead of trying to rank on page one of Google, brands are now trying to influence how large language models synthesize and present information in response to prompts. That changes the game. Chatbots don’t care about vibe, emotional resonance, or brand storytelling. They prioritize clarity, structured detail, and volume. Some brands are flooding the zone with highly targeted content. Others are obsessively auditing Reddit because Reddit turns out to be one of the most cited sources in AI-generated answers. In effect, the brand is no longer competing only for human attention; it is competing for algorithmic interpretation.

That’s actually well said there, Shel. We talked about this very topic at least twice in the last six months of last year. Not only humans; you’ve got to look at the bots as well. I think that introduces a deeper shift. Historically, search engines pointed users to sources. Chatbots increasingly summarize, recommend, and decide what is worth mentioning. The intermediary is no longer neutral. It synthesizes, which means the battleground for reputation is moving upstream from persuasion to data conditioning.

But here’s the counterpoint. We’ve been here before and we’ve discussed it in this podcast before. Every major digital shift has been framed as existential. SEO was supposed to change everything, then social algorithms, then influencer marketing. Each time an optimization industry sprang up, each time brands flooded the zone with content, and each time the platforms evolved in response. So the question is: Is this genuinely a structural shift in how reputation is constructed, or simply the next optimization cycle dressed up as revolution? Because there’s a real risk here. If brands begin producing vast volumes of content purely to influence AI outputs, do we elevate substance or do we accelerate a new kind of synthetic noise? Could be all that AI slop we’ve been hearing about a lot recently. And if Reddit posts and forum threads are disproportionately shaping chatbot answers, are we witnessing democratization of influence or amplification of unverified commentary? So are chatbots truly the new influencers we must court, or are we watching the early stages of another marketing arms race that may look very different once the models mature? What do you think, Shel?

Shel Holtz: It’s a fraught topic. I mean, first of all, as organizations trip over themselves to figure out how to appear in AI query responses and appear the way they want to, is that going to taint AI responses to the point that they’re no better than a Google search response? I mean, you remember the original Google where you typed in a query and you got 10 items that were directly related to what you were interested in. And now you have to wade through the ads and the other crap that populates the Google search results before you get to anything that’s even remotely relevant.

Neville Hobson: Yeah. Slop is the word, not crap, slop.

Shel Holtz: Yeah. Okay, yeah. But you have some other issues here. We hear that Reddit figures prominently in the results. And then you hear from somebody else: No, no, no, it’s earned media that is prompting what gets injected into the responses to queries in the large language models. I just saw—this was just published on February 18th—a study that found 44% of ChatGPT citations come from the first third of whatever content it was that they found. So, you know, do you top-load your content with the main information that you want the AI models to grasp, even if that’s not necessarily the way you want people to read the content that you’re producing?

And each model does something different. The fact that ChatGPT citations come from the first third of content doesn’t mean that Claude’s do or Gemini’s or Grok’s. And then every time they release a new model, has it changed? So I think we could be chasing our tails with this kind of information. Are chatbots the new influencer? Well, they’re a new influencer. Certainly people are getting information from these—I do. I say, “This product isn’t working for me. What are the alternatives?” And it tells me, and I’m sure it’s leaving out good products that just haven’t got their information into the places where it’s going to be absorbed by an AI being trained on this content or searching.

So, you know. I think we just need to produce good content that answers questions. I—we talked about this a couple of months ago. When you look at the tools that are being implemented in the enterprise, employees are no longer reading the articles that we produce that say, “Here’s the justification and the context and the background for the change that the organization’s going through.” They type a query and they get a reply. Where’s that reply coming from? It’s not coming from the context that we provided unless we top-load, front-load the content with that answer in order to accommodate the chatbot. Is that what we want? This is probably a time to be rethinking the way we communicate altogether because of this situation. But I think creating good content that does a good job of answering questions, that puts the main information at the top…

Neville Hobson:

Shel Holtz: I mean, you know, somebody ought to invent an inverted pyramid style of writing that starts with the who, when, where, why before you get to the, you know, the detail. Just do good content and you’ll be fine.

Neville Hobson: That’s a good tip, I think. To me, just seems like everything is so manipulated. I was thinking this the other day, something I was searching for online, and I looked at what Google produced. Because Google, by the way, really has improved hugely in the last six months in terms of what it actually offers you when you do a search term. The AI generates a summary of the top result that comes, the citations that it includes that you can click on if you want. My experience is, I often find that that summary is good enough for what I need. I might scroll down to see who else is saying what. And then you’ve got little drop-downs of other responses to that search term. Great. And it usually gives me what I want.

But basically, I’m thinking when I see stuff like this: the manipulation is huge. Would it not be simpler if we just ditched all this stuff? No, that’s not the answer. The world’s moved on. We have to live with this. But it makes it difficult to trust anything the way you used to be able to. So do I trust this answer either because it’s—Google is giving it to me, therefore implies I trust Google? Or is it because it looks about right, that’s what I’m looking for? So I trust the responder to that answer? I don’t know. You have to make your own judgment call on this because if you’re using another search engine, it’s going to be very different.

Shel Holtz: Yeah.

Neville Hobson: If you use your chatbot—and that’s actually quite interesting because whether it’s ChatGPT, whether it’s Claude, whatever it might be, using your chatbot, not a search engine—how do you feel about that? Do you implicitly trust the chatbot and what it’s telling you? Would it be different than what Google would tell you if you did a Google search? Probably yes. Not in terms of meaning, but the words are going to be different, obviously, and maybe the sources will be different. So if you need to do that, fine. I don’t think you do typically need to do that. You just go to Google or whatever it might be that you’re accustomed to, that you trust, search and get your answer.

But you’ve now really got to—and particularly in light of the story we talked about earlier about the developer who was stitched up by an AI agent that damages reputation—that kind of content might show up in search results too. So this is the landscape we’re in now. You have to get used to it.

Shel Holtz: I still find the the top 10 blue links on the first search engine results page from Google are far less valuable than they used to be. I still find that the first three or four are paid and irrelevant or… I see it all the time.

Neville Hobson: I don’t see that. I don’t see that at all. I don’t see paid at all in the first results. I see it a little further down. Yeah, okay, interesting. Maybe it’s different in here. I’m doing google.co.uk, not google.com. So maybe there’s a difference. Yeah.

Shel Holtz: I definitely do. Listeners, what are you seeing on Google? I’ve been using Perplexity. Are you logged in to Google when you’re doing this? Okay. I have been using Perplexity more and more because I’m able to refine my search, saying, “I’m looking for this, not this, and I need it from articles that have been published in the last six months.” And it does an excellent job of providing me with great results. Now I haven’t compared it to what Google would give me, but I have to believe that it’s more relevant because it is trying to satisfy me rather than satisfy the advertisers who have paid to have their links promoted on Google.

Neville Hobson: Yeah, yeah, typically. Okay. It’s funny. I mean, I’ve just done a search on Google right now. There’s not a single sponsored link in my list at all. Not one. And I do see them occasionally, but they’re kind of halfway down; it says “sponsored”. I’m not seeing any for this search term I just searched on. So I’m scrolling further down the page—I’m not seeing any. Results are personalized. Try it without personalization; maybe that might make a difference. But so I’m quite happy with what I see from this. I see in this particular example…

Shel Holtz: Hmm.

Neville Hobson: …it gives me the text upfront, as you know, “to see more”. That will tell me more about that. Again, scrolling down the page, don’t see anything that’s saying sponsored, which is what you normally do see. I don’t know. But I mean, the point is, I think you need to determine yourself: Do you trust what it’s telling you? Are you happy with that result, whether it’s search at Google or whether it’s your favorite chatbot? I was using Perplexity a lot, Shel. I really was. I stopped using it entirely. I didn’t like what it was doing. I didn’t like it at all. Yeah. But I have to tell you, I stopped flipping from one tool to another to see. No, I stick with what I like, what I know works for me. And I don’t bother trying to second-guess it. But let me see what Gemini says about this. Although I do that occasionally, I have to say.

Shel Holtz: I had stopped for a while and I’ve gone back to it. It’s improved. It has improved considerably in the last couple of months.

Neville Hobson: I did a research project about two weeks ago where I did spend time trawling different tools and getting complementary or different results. I then had one of those—ChatGPT—summarize it all. But hey, it’s a lot of work and I didn’t need to do that. So I’m not going to do that as a matter of course.

Shel Holtz: I did. I, on our intranet, have a “construction term of the week”. This has been going on for about six and a half years. Every week, a new definition of a new term. I’ve gone through everything that has been provided to me. So now I’m asking an AI: “Give me a list of 20 construction-related terms.” And I’ll get more specific than that. I’ll say, “around water infrastructure projects” or things like this. And I’ll say, “Okay, I like this one. Give me a two-paragraph definition of that.” I’ll copy and paste that definition and go to one of the other LLMs and I’ll say, “Assess this for accuracy, list what you would change and then rewrite it the way you would rewrite it to incorporate your corrections.” And I find that that gets me a much better definition. So I’m frequently bouncing around to these.

I also find that I’ll switch which tool I’m using the most based on who’s released the best model most recently because I find the latest Claude model is just amazing, but then Gemini just released a new one that apparently is blowing Claude away. I want to use the one that’s going to give me the best results, not the one I’m most comfortable with. So I’m changing all the time.

Neville Hobson: Yeah, I find the one I’m most comfortable with is the one that gives me the best results—that I’m very happy with that—but again, our uses are very different. I don’t use it for the kind of stuff that you do when you talk about “You hear these definitions, give me a summary and find the best one” or whatever. I tend not to do that kind of work. But I’m very happy with ChatGPT Plus that I’ve been using for a while now. I use NotebookLM occasionally, particularly when I’m looking at dense academic reports. But I’m kind of OK with that. So the point is, I think—to summarize all of this—that our chatbots are new influencers. I think the New York Times piece is a good piece. It’s a thought-provoking piece. And I think the caveats, as I saw them certainly, are the risk factor that we just spent a while discussing. I think the idea—as the writer mentioned in the Times piece—if Reddit posts are disproportionately shaping chatbot answers, are we witnessing the amplification of unverified content? I think that’s a very good point to make. Hence, even more so—and I don’t know how we’d feel comfortable with this—you’ve got to verify everything.

I do that. And I find, depending on what it is… I can’t think of a good example, frankly, Shel, but you know… you’ve spent some time, a little bit of time telling your AI system what you want it to do. You might have had a to-and-fro, back-and-forth conversation about that. That’s common for me. Not just “Here’s a prompt and off you go and do it”—no. And it comes back with something; I say, “Fine, what do you mean by this?” or “I want you to do that as well.” Yes, that’s good to highlight that. That goes on all the time. And then the checking of things takes longer than that. And I’m totally OK with that. Because I need to—and this must apply to everyone—I need to be sure… Or maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it doesn’t apply to folks who work in Deloitte. Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that, but it occurs to me.

You need to check it for your own peace of mind—that what you’re sharing with the other person, whether it’s a client or a colleague, is accurate to your best knowledge—that there’s nothing you’ve done that would diminish the accuracy of that or anything you haven’t done, meaning not verified or checked everything. So—and like you said earlier in our early discussion about this, there’s a lot more to this than just verifying. Yeah, I get that too. But it takes time. And maybe that’s why people don’t do it. They see the folks who do it this way see it as the easy tool to improve their—to dump all this stuff on the chatbot so they can either take the day off or do other things. I mean, that’s—I don’t believe that’s everywhere. But some people will think that. So it is a tricky one to answer. And I think that we just got to do what we’re comfortable with that meets our objectives and take as much care as possible in producing the best work we can.

Shel Holtz: Yeah, and for communicators, recognizing that chatbots are a new influencer means that we have to think about how we take advantage of that. And I’m going to emphasize again: they are a new influencer, not the new influencer. Kim Kardashian has not hung her head in shame and retreated into a dark room to wait to die. She still has millions and millions of followers and holds up a product and it drives sales. You know, the—the old influencers haven’t gone anywhere and still warrant some attention.

Neville Hobson: Well, true. So the Times, though, says—the question they asked is: Are chatbots the new influencers? So our answer to that would be: No, they are one of the new influencers.

Shel Holtz: Right, yeah. No. Yes, add them to the mix. So that’ll wrap up this episode of For Immediate Release, episode number 502, our long form episode for February. We do hope that you will comment on this. All of our comments these days come from our LinkedIn posts. So check LinkedIn, follow either one of us, but we also share these posts on Facebook in three places: we have a For Immediate Release Podcast Network community and a For Immediate Release page, in addition to you and I sharing them individually. We’re also on Threads and BlueSky. Leave a comment. Any of those places, we’ll pick it up and share it in the March long form episode.

You can also send us an email to [email protected]. You can attach an audio file. You can record that audio file directly from the For Immediate Release Podcast Network website—there’s a “send voicemail” tab over on the right-hand side. I actually got a voicemail from the website last month, but it was just somebody being obscene. It had nothing to do with communication, but I got excited. We got one of those from Speakpipe, which is the vendor who does that. You can leave a comment directly in the show notes. I mean, it is a blog. There’s a place to put comments in a blog. Go figure.

Neville Hobson: Wow, should have played it. An obscene phone call, okay.

Shel Holtz: All these ways to comment, please do and be part of this conversation. And our next long form episode will be recorded on Saturday, March 21st. We will drop that on Monday, March 23rd. Until then, that will be a “30” for For Immediate Release.

The post FIR #502: Attack of the AI Agent! appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

AI isn’t replacing communicators — it’s amplifying the value of communication, especially storytelling and strategic writing. In this short, midweek FIR episode, Neville and Shel explore how the hottest jobs in tech are increasingly about telling stories, not writing code, with Netflix, Microsoft, Adobe, Anthropic, and OpenAI all hiring communications and storytelling teams at salaries ranging from six figures up to $775,000 per year. Even AI labs themselves are posting compensation packages around $400K for storytelling and communications roles, signaling that they understand the irreplaceable human value of meaning-making in an age of automated content generation.

The distinction Neville and Shel highlight between traditional messaging and true storytelling proves critical: conventional communications start with what the brand wants to say, while storytelling starts with what audiences actually care about. The strongest communicators will be those who move beyond prescriptive messaging to tell genuine human stories.

Links from this episode:

• The unexpected winners of the AI slop boom: Word nerds
• Why OpenAI Is Offering $400K for Storytelling Roles
• The Great Communicators Are Human
• Human Storytellers Worth $400k+ Amidst AI Boom 
• The Great Communicators Are Human
• Storytelling Wins In The Age Of AI: 3 Valuable Communication Tools
• How Storytelling Unlocks Career Pathways In The Age Of AI
• The Bionic Storyteller: How AI can amplify HR’s human voice
• Businesses hiring storytellers to ‘cut through the AI slop’
• Storybrand
• Building a Story Brand 2.0 (Book)

The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, February 23.

We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. To obtain the credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request them in our Facebook group, or email [email protected].

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog. You can catch up with both co-hosts on Neville’s blog and Shel’s blog.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients.

Raw Transcript:

Neville Hobson: Hi everyone and welcome to For Immediate Release. This is episode 501. I’m Neville Hobson.

Shel Holtz: I’m Shel Holtz. And here’s some good news for communicators. Artificial intelligence isn’t replacing us, it’s amplifying the value of communication itself, especially storytelling and strategic writing. If you’ve been feeling that AI spells doom for writers and communicators, the labor market is telling a very different story. We’ll tell you that story right after this. Let’s start with something concrete. The hottest jobs in tech right now aren’t about writing code or managing data. They’re about telling clear, compelling human stories. Recent hiring trends show that giants like Netflix, Microsoft, Adobe, Anthropic, and OpenAI are aggressively expanding communications and storytelling teams with roles offering from six figures up to as much as $775,000 a year for senior leadership positions without any requirement to write a line of code. Why? Because AI has flooded the internet with cheap automated output, what some observers are calling slopaganda. I love this word, slopaganda. Hadn’t heard it before I read that article, but millions of words get generated every minute. Most of it lacks clarity, insight, context, and meaning, exactly the things that real communicators deliver. Companies are recognizing that the ability to cut through that noise with strategic narrative creates trust, authority, and differentiation in the market. Even the AI labs themselves, including OpenAI and Anthropic, are willing to pay top dollar for storytellers. One analysis said that nearly $400,000 compensation packages are being posted specifically for storytelling and communications roles at these firms. exactly because humans excel at crafting nuanced messages that machines simply can’t. So here’s the underlying shift communicators need to understand. AI automates… AI automates tasks, but meaning making remains deeply human. Machines can generate text, but they don’t know which stories matter to whom or why. And we keep hearing communicators and writers venting on LinkedIn about machines lacking judgment, empathy, context, and strategic framing, all those hallmarks of great communication. That’s exactly what they’re looking for. And in an age of automated noise, those abilities create value. That’s a theme echoed across industry thinking.

Shel Holtz: That’s a theme echoed across industry thinking. A Forbes piece on storytelling in the age of AI highlights that storytelling is one of the most powerful tools we have and one of the most powerful tools leaders have. It helps audiences remember facts wrapped in emotion, connect data to human experience, and anchor organizational vision in something people can feel and act on. Another Forbes analysis argues that storytelling isn’t just about communication, it’s also a career pathway. When individuals and organizations tell clear stories about evolving roles, skills, development, and future opportunities, they make the future feel navigable rather than threatening. This matters for internal communication too. HR and people leaders are increasingly using narrative to frame change and build resilience. When employees feel adrift and amid all the talk of AI disruption, a coherent story about how the organization is evolving and where people fit in. is one of the most effective ways to build trust and engagement. Even the broader hype narrative around AI’s impact on jobs, including viral essays, warning of sweeping automation, underscores this point. Some of the loudest voices talking about disruption are exactly those using storytelling to shape a narrative about the future. But the data so far suggests that the real impact of AI isn’t mass job elimination, it’s task transformation. with humans shifting into roles that emphasize strategy, creativity, judgment, and communication, exactly the space where we storytellers thrive. So for communicators who worry that AI might make them obsolete, here’s the reality. Your craft isn’t threatened, it’s elevated. AI makes routine work easier, but narrative leadership, strategic framing, and contextual clarity are becoming even more essential. The labor market isn’t pulling back its investment in communicators, it’s paying up for them because the ability to tell a clear human story is now a competitive advantage. With the world drowning in automated content, meaning is scarce. And communicators are the ones who turn noise into narrative, confusion into clarity, and information into influence. That’s not something AI replaces, it’s something only humans can do well. And that’s why even in an AI era, talented communicators are irreplaceable and more valuable than ever. And by the way, if the tech companies feel the need to cut through the noise created by all that slopaganda, I got to use that word again, other industries will figure out sooner or later that they need to as well.

Neville Hobson: Listening to what you’re saying there, Shel, what strikes me is how similar themes are now surfacing here in the UK. So the Times ran a piece recently about companies hiring chief storytellers, specifically to cut through what they and everyone calls AI slop. What’s interesting is that it isn’t framed as anti-AI, it’s framed as a response to saturation. When content becomes easy and abundant, meaning becomes scarce. Recruiters are saying demand for storytelling roles has doubled in the past year. and the way they define storytelling isn’t about clever copy. It’s about starting with what people care about rather than what the brand wants to say. There’s also a strong internal dimension, storytelling being used to align remote teams, break down silos and create shared culture. So I’m left wondering whether this chief storyteller trend is something genuinely new or whether we’re simply rediscovering the strategic craft of communication in an AI saturated environment. And finally, if AI makes it easier to generate content, does that mean communicators need to become curators of meaning rather than producers of material?

Shel Holtz: Interesting question. And I think that this is somewhat different. We have been telling stories, but I think you have to define what we mean by storytelling here, because we write stories that aren’t really stories. It’s just a term that we use as a synonym for article. I wrote a story the other day. Was it really a story or was it a communication piece?

Shel Holtz: There are so many stories that we could tell in the world of organizational communication that are really just prescriptive or a statement of fact. We’re getting the news out, but we don’t have a beginning, middle, and end. We certainly don’t have a protagonist. We’re not looking at Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey and trying to figure out. how to apply that to the tales that we tell. There is a guy out there, Donald Miller, who’s got this thing called Story Brand, which is fascinating, that is designed to put your customer into the story as the hero and the company as the mentor or the guide who helps the hero achieve its goal through its journey. And I really like it. And there are free tools that you can use to map all this out for your brand or your product. But it gets us away from saying, isn’t this product great? Look how great it works and tell a genuine story instead. And I think this is why narrative and story rather than communications or public relations are the labels that are being attached to these job descriptions that are all over LinkedIn. When I saw the story, I went and looked and there are dozens and dozens of them. And the salaries are jaw dropping when you consider that the typical, you know, communication manager is making about 108,000 a year, according to one of these articles. you know, $400,000 with all benefits, with three days remote work, because I read these job descriptions. This is very encouraging for our profession. But if you’re the kind of communicator out there who writes these articles that just says we have an employee assistance program, It offers the following bulleted services. You should call if you have emotional or financial problems. That’s not what they’re looking for. They’re not looking for you. They’re looking for the guy who wrote that article that I’ve referenced 50 times on this podcast about the employee who was divorced and depressed and started drinking and gained 100 pounds and finally called the EAP when he hit rock bottom. And they worked with him to find something that really excited him and it turned out to be ballroom dancing and now he’s a national champion traveling around the world. He’s lost more than a hundred pounds. He’s quit smoking and drinking and all because of the EAP. Which of those two stories are you more likely to read? It’s absolutely the story of the guy who used the EAP. People can relate to that. People don’t even read the crap that says we have one and here’s what it offers. So I think cutting through the noise with genuine stories that tell the tale of what the organization is trying to convey, that’s what they’re looking for.

Neville Hobson: So interesting. So the title Chief Storyteller, that sounds new and fashionable, right? But when you unpack it, much of it looks like what strong communication leaders have always done. Alignment, translation, cohesion, behavioral framing opens up a richer debate, I think. Is this a genuine new C-suite function or a rebranding of strategic communication crafted in an AI era? It sounds a lot like the latter to me.

Shel Holtz: It sounds a lot like the latter, but I think there’s a bit of the former as well, because we’re talking about a transition of role. I think communicators who are employed right now want to start telling more stories if they want to keep their jobs, because if all you’re doing is writing the stuff that can be written by AI just by giving it the facts and say, turn this into an article, I think you’re toast. But if you can tell a genuine story that moves people, then your job is probably secure and you may be qualified to apply for one of these $400,000 a year jobs. I don’t think they’re going to hire the average communicator who’s doing a pretty good job at their organization, even if they’re at the C-suite level, if they can’t put together the kind of narrative that these companies are looking for. Certainly there are companies that are doing this and there are communicators in those companies that are doing this, but I don’t think it’s most. I think most are cranking out the typical content that is just conveying the news. And I think basic journalism, the who, what, when, where, why, if I can pop that into Claude or ChatGPT or Gemini, especially if I’ve trained it on my writing style, which I have, by the way, on Gemini, it’ll turn out a passable article that then you can edit in 15 minutes and be done. That’s not what they’re looking for. I think that they would argue that that probably is slopaganda. And… This is exactly the noise that they’re looking for somebody to help them cut through.

Neville Hobson: So one of the strongest lines in the times piece is the distinction between messaging and meaning. Traditional comms starts with what the brand wants to say, says the times. Storytelling starts with what people care about. That’s a strategic pivot, I would say. So messaging is output driven, meaning is audience driven. AI is good at output, humans are better at contextual meaning. So is that? Now we should be looking at this as a shift from messaging to meaning.

Shel Holtz: absolutely. I think that’s exactly what we’re talking about here. And the focus on the audience. And again, this is what Donald Miller’s story brand, who has paid us no consideration for the reference here, is exactly what he does. He puts the customer at the center of the company or the brand’s story. And I think that’s what’s different. I think that’s the transition or the pivot that communicators need to make. I don’t think it’s difficult. And if you haven’t… written fiction, I would suggest that you read about Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey. There’s a wonderful book, I can’t remember the author’s name, but I’ve read it twice called The Writer’s Journey. he talks about, I mean, he’s focused on writing fiction, but he talks about how you apply the hero’s journey to things like Star Wars and The Wizard of Oz. And he has these tropes that everybody is familiar with. that he uses to explain how to write this way. And he tells you that every successful film in particular, and novels as well, uses this formula. And I read it twice because I really had to unpack it in a way that worked in organizational communication rather than novel and film writing. But it does, it works. And then I found Donald Miller in his story brand and I said, there it is right there. fill in, in the boxes, who is the mentor, who is the other characters that appear in this formula. And it’s well worth taking a look at and his book is worth reading as well. I’ll have a link to Story Brand in the show notes.

Neville Hobson: Yeah. So I’m just going to go through my mind thinking about where this conversation we’re having here. And if we look at the, which to me makes complete sense, and the Times article and the Business Decider piece, I think support this, that the shift is definitely from messaging to meaning, something we’ve talked about quite a bit. The Times piece talks about the the noise not being the problem, it’s indistinguishable noise. And that makes sense, that kind of metaphorical phrase that reminds me of conversations we’ve had before, which talks about what a communicator is being using artificial intelligence to enhance their abilities. So I’m just trying to see where the kind of path looks ahead for this. It seems to me that AI is going to play an even more significant role in the future for communicators who are shifting from messaging to meaning. And I must admit, I don’t believe that the scenario you painted earlier about the kind of, you know, the communications person who has… been right doing the stuff he or she’s been doing for years, that’s fine. Keep doing that because there’s a market view. I don’t think that’s true. I think AIs see the threat for those people. Yeah. So if AI is good at output, according to the kind of, what are the concluding points in the times piece, humans are better at contextual meaning. That surely is then what people are looking for to pay half a million bucks or whatever is a salary.

Shel Holtz: yeah, I agree with that.

Neville Hobson: to achieve storyteller. I think this huge confusion here and inserting into the picture the phrase chief storyteller, where it’s just a fancy job title basically, doesn’t help with this, it seems to me. it’s inevitable, I suppose you’re going to get that. as you said, I’ve seen it’s all over LinkedIn, that chief storyteller is an executive function. Yeah, but that’s not the right interpretation for that, don’t believe. So it doesn’t help clarify what the picture is here.

Shel Holtz: I don’t know. I would be very curious to look at the org charts of the companies that are seeking these positions to see if it is separate and distinct from the public relations or communications function. We talked several weeks ago about the proposed new definition of public relations, and it goes way beyond this. I’m thinking, and I don’t know this for a fact,

Shel Holtz: But I’m thinking that what these companies are doing is creating a new function that will live alongside and presumably under the same umbrella as the PR or corporate communications department, which is building relationships with key stakeholders. But the storytellers are out there creating the content that’s going to cut through the slop aimed at particular audiences who are ripe for this kind of storytelling. I I was about to say messaging, it’s… trying to get away from messaging. And the PR department will continue to do the earnings releases and the thought leadership and the negotiations with critics and all of the stuff that PR typically does. I don’t get the impression that these jobs sit in the public relations department.

Neville Hobson: No, I would say not, particularly as, for instance, one point that The Times made is that there’s a significant element of team building and so forth. So internal focus in organizations for this sort of role. it’s not just a public relations external function by any means. It’s interesting you mentioned the definition. I published a post on my blog this morning about that actually. looking at what the PRCA has done. It’s only one professional body. I’m thinking this isn’t going to fly unless everyone gets behind it. So that’s a different topic than what we’re talking about. it sort of fits in there because the role of… I just have a problem with this chief storyteller title, frankly, It doesn’t really fit what this role actually is. And I do believe, and you’ve partly prompted this kind of clarity in my thinking on this, that this is about messaging, it’s not about content production. That’s what AI does. And the interpretation of it, the meaning and significance of it is what the human does. Now, if you can, let’s say, present your skill as something in that area. to an organization who’s willing to pay $400,000. Again, be interested to see the job description behind that salary level. I haven’t seen that. I’ve I’ve not actually looked, I must admit. But it’d be interesting how they have described the role they’re willing to pay 400 grand for. So I would imagine they’re absolutely swamped with applications, which is where AI comes into play. AI comes into play well to sift out all the no-hopers, basically.

Neville Hobson: But it is interesting, it is very interesting. And this could be a great catalyst for the discussion about the role of a communicator in organizations in light of this development. That seems to me to be something good to have.

Shel Holtz: I can’t imagine somebody at OpenAI or Anthropic sifting through hundreds of resumes or probably thousands of resumes. they’re absolutely feeding them all to AI. I’d be shocked if not. And for the record, there are also some of these positions that don’t have storytelling in the title. I saw a couple that had narrative in the title instead. But I think they’re all getting to this notion of telling a powerful story that evokes emotions and pulls

Shel Holtz: audiences in rather than advertising or traditional marketing speak. That’s what’s going to cut through the, I get to say it again, slopaganda. And that’ll be a 30 for this episode of For Immediate Release.

The post FIR #501: AI and the Rise of the $400K Storyteller appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

David C. Baker recently published a fascinating thought experiment about what he’d do if starting an agency from scratch today—and it’s packed with provocative ideas worth serious consideration. His article offers a comprehensive blueprint covering everything from organizational structure to compensation philosophy, and much of it aligns with how Chip and Gini think about building sustainable agencies.

But the most interesting conversations happen when smart people disagree, which is why this episode focuses on the handful of points where Chip and Gini see things differently. Not because Baker’s ideas are bad, but because they expose the tension between aspirational agency management and the messy realities of running a business with real budgets, real people, and real client demands.

In this episode, Chip and Gini tackle mandatory one-month sabbaticals for every employee, open-book finances published on your website, 360-degree reviews, and incentive compensation structures. They dig into why ideas that sound compelling in theory often create unintended consequences in practice—like how retention-based bonuses can fuel scope creep, or why forced sabbaticals don’t actually solve the single-point-of-failure problem they’re designed to address.

The conversation reveals thoughtful nuance on both sides. Gini shares her brutal experience with anonymous feedback that backfired when presented poorly. Chip explains why he sees most performance measurement systems as “performance theater” while still advocating for more financial transparency with teams. They discuss the logistical nightmares of scheduling multiple month-long absences and why backup systems for unexpected departures matter more than planned time off.

Throughout, they return to a central theme: what works brilliantly at one stage of growth can be completely wrong at another. The goal isn’t to declare Baker’s ideas right or wrong, but to test assumptions and recognize that even the most well-intentioned frameworks deserve scrutiny before implementation. [read the transcript]

The post ALP 295: Building the ideal agency: wrestling with the tough decisions appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

We are back with this episode after the recent events of the massive layoffs at the Washington Post and the LA Times, the shuttering of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette  and funding cuts at NPR. Paul and David describe the continuing train wreck of daily news there and contrast the Post’s approach with what has been going on at the New York Times digital property. The Times diversified its revenue stream beyond its core newsgathering with purchasing gaming, cooking, and sports-related content. Post’s owner Jeff Bezos didn’t diversify or even keep the news core. Part of the digital newspaper problem is that its ad revenue model is gone, as search traffic has dried up thanks to AI chatbots. Compounding this is that overall monthly visits to the Post’s website is down from 60M (in 2022) to 40M visits last year, and subscriptions are dropping too. We contrast the Post and the Times business models

We talk about some signs of success with subscriptions for smaller, more targeted sites, such as 404Media, which shows that a small group of independent journalists can keep quality high and report on significant stories. Also, individual creators (such as Mr. Beast and Mark Rober) can build a brand and attract significant audiences (Rober has more than 70M subscribers, for example) on YouTube and TikTok.

Well worthwhile to listen to Marty Baron, former editorial director of the Post, talk to Tim Miller about his thoughts on the decline of his former employer.

The post FIR B2B episode #159: A tale of two newspapers appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

AI has shifted from being purely a productivity story to something far more uncomfortable. Not because the technology became malicious, but because it’s now being used in ways that expose old behaviors through entirely new mechanics. An article in HR Director Magazine argues that AI-enabled workplace abuse — particularly deepfakes — should be treated as workplace harm, not dismissed as gossip, humor, or something that happens outside of work. When anyone can generate realistic images or audio of a colleague in minutes and circulate them instantly, the targeted person is left trying to disprove something that never happened, even though it feels documented. That flips the burden of proof in ways most organizations aren’t prepared to handle.

What makes this a communication issue — not just an HR or IT issue — is that the harm doesn’t stop with the creator. It spreads through sharing, commentary, laughter, and silence. People watch closely how leaders respond, and what they don’t say can signal tolerance just as loudly as what they do. In this episode, Neville and Shel explore what communicators can do before something happens: helping organizations explicitly name AI-enabled abuse, preparing leaders for that critical first conversation, and reinforcing standards so that, when trust is tested, people already know where the organization stands.

Links from this episode:

• The Emerging Threat of Workplace AI Abuse

The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, February 23.

We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. To obtain the credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request them in our Facebook group, or email [email protected].

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog. You can catch up with both co-hosts on Neville’s blog and Shel’s blog.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients.

Raw Transcript:

Shel Holtz: Hi everybody, and welcome to episode number 500 of For Immediate Release. I’m Shel Holtz.

Neville Hobson: And I’m Neville Hobson.

Shel Holtz: And this is episode 500. You would think that that would be some kind of milestone that we would celebrate. For those of you who are relatively new to FIR, this show has been around since 2005. We have not recorded only 500 episodes in that time. We started renumbering the shows when we rebranded it. We started as FIR, then we rebranded to the Hobson and Holtz Report because there were so many other FIR shows. Then, for various reasons, we decided to go back to FIR and we started at zero. But I haven’t checked — if I were to put the episodes we did before that rebranding together with the episodes since then, we’re probably at episode 2020, 2025, something like that.

Neville Hobson: I would say that’s about right. We also have interviews in there and we used to do things like book reviews. What else did we do? Book reviews, speeches, speeches.

Shel Holtz: Speeches — when you and I were out giving talks, we’d record them and make them available.

Neville Hobson: Yeah, boy, those were the days. And we did lives, clip times, you know, so we had quite a little network going there. But 500 is good. So we’re not going to change the numbering, are we? It’s going to confuse people even more, I think.

Shel Holtz: No, I think we’re going to stick with it the way it is. So what are we talking about on episode 500?

Neville Hobson: Well, this episode has got a topic in line with our themes and it’s about AI. We can’t escape it, but this is definitely a thought-provoking topic. It’s about AI abuse in the workplace. So over the past year, AI has shifted from being a productivity story to something that’s sometimes much more uncomfortable. Not because the technology itself suddenly became malicious, but because it’s now being used in ways that expose old behaviors through entirely new mechanics.

An article in HR Director Magazine here in the UK published earlier this month makes the case that AI-enabled abuse, particularly deepfakes, should be treated as workplace harm, not as gossip, humor, or something that happens outside work. And that distinction really matters. We’ll explore this theme right after this message.

What’s different here isn’t intent. Harassment, coercion, and humiliation aren’t new. What is new is speed, scaling, credibility. Anyone can use AI to generate realistic images or audio in minutes, circulate them instantly, and leave the person targeted trying to disprove something that never happened but feels documented. The article argues that when this happens, organizations need to respond quickly, contain harm, investigate fairly, and set a clear standard that using technology to degrade or coerce colleagues is serious misconduct. Not just to protect the individual involved, but to preserve trust across the organization. Because once people see that this kind of harm can happen without consequences, psychological safety collapses.

What also struck me reading this, Shel, is that while it’s written for HR leaders, a lot of what determines the outcome doesn’t actually sit in policy or process. It sits in communication. In moments like this, people are watching very closely. They’re listening for what leaders say and just as importantly, what they don’t. Silence, careful wording, or reluctance to name harm can easily be read as uncertainty or worse, tolerance. That puts communicators right in the middle of this issue.

There are some things communicators can do before anything happens. First, help the organization be explicit about standards. Name AI-enabled abuse clearly so there’s no ambiguity. Second, prepare leaders for that first conversation because tone and language matter long before any investigation starts. And third, reinforce shared expectations early. So when something does go wrong, people already know where the organization stands. This isn’t crisis response, it’s proactive preventative communication. In other words, this isn’t really a story about AI tools, it’s a story about trust — and how organizations communicate when that trust is tested.

Shel Holtz: I was fascinated by this. I saw the headline and I thought it was about something else altogether because I’ve seen this phrase, “workplace AI abuse,” before, but it was in the context of things like work slop and some other abuses of AI that generally are more focused on the degradation of the information and content that’s flowing around the organization. So when I saw what this was focused on, it really sent up red flags for me. I serve on the HR leadership team of the organization I work for. I’ll be sharing this article with that team this morning.

But I think there’s a lot to talk about here. First of all, I just loved how this article ended. The last line of it says, “AI has changed the mechanics of misconduct, but it hasn’t changed what employees need from their employer.” And I think that’s exactly right. From a crisis communication standpoint, framing it that way matters because it means we don’t have to reinvent values. We don’t have to reinvent principles. We just need to update the protocols we use to respond when something happens.

Neville Hobson: Yeah, I agree. And it’s a story that isn’t unique or new even — the role communicators can play in the sense of signaling the standards visibly, not just written down, but communicating them. And I think that’s the first thing that struck me from reading this. It is interesting — you’re quoting that ending. That struck me too.

The expectation level must be met. The part about not all of it sitting in process and so forth with HR, but with communication — absolutely true. Yet this isn’t a communication issue per se. This is an organizational issue where communication or the communicator works hand in glove with HR to manage this issue in a way that serves the interest of the organization and the employees. So making those standards visible and explaining what the rules are for this kind of thing — you would think it’s pretty common sense to most people, but is it not true that like many things in organizational life, something like this probably isn’t set down well in many organizations?

Shel Holtz: It’s probably not set down well from these kinds of situations before AI. Where I work, we go through an annual workplace harassment training because we are adamant that that’s not going to happen. It certainly doesn’t cover this stuff yet. I suspect it probably will. But yeah, you’re right. I think organizations generally out there — many of them don’t have explicit policies around harassment and what the response should be.

I think the most insidious part of how deepfakes are affecting all of this is that they flip the burden of proof. A victim has to prove that something didn’t happen, and in the court of workplace opinion, that’s really hard to do. It creates a different kind of reputational harm.

Neville Hobson: Yeah.

Shel Holtz: From traditional harassment, the kind we learn about in our training — you know, with he said, she said type situations — there’s a certain amount of ambiguity and people are trying to weigh what people said and look at their reputations and their credibility and make judgments based on limited information available. With deepfakes, there’s evidence. I mean, it’s fabricated, but it’s evidence. And some people seeing that before they hear it’s a deepfake just might believe it and side with the creator of that thing.

The article does make a really critical point though, and that’s that it’s rarely about one bad actor. The person who created this had a malicious intent, but people who share it, people who forward it along and comment on it and laugh about it — that spreads the harm and it makes the whole thing more complex and it creates complicity among the employees who are involved in this, even though they may think it’s innocent behavior that just mirrors what they do on public social media. And from a comms perspective, that means the crisis isn’t just about the perpetrator, right? It’s about organizational culture. If people are circulating this content, that tells you something about your workplace that needs to be addressed that’s bigger than that one individual case.

Neville Hobson: Yeah, I agree. Absolutely. And that’s one of the dynamics the article highlights that I found most interesting — about how harm spreads socially through sharing, commentary, laughter, or quiet disengagement. Communicators need to help prevent normalization — this is not acceptable, not normal. They’re often closest to these informal channels and cultural signals. That gives communicators a unique opportunity, the article points out.

For example, communicators can challenge the idea that no statement is the safest option when values are being tested. Help leaders understand that internal silence can legitimize behavior just as much as explicit approval and encourage timely, values-anchored communication that says, “this crosses a line,” even if the facts are still being established.

It is really difficult though. Separately, I’ve read examples where there’s a deepfake of a female employee that is highly inappropriate the way it presents her. And yet it is so realistic — incredibly realistic — that everyone believes it’s true. And the denials don’t make much difference. And that’s where I think another avenue that communicators, especially communicators, need to be involved in. HR certainly would be involved because that’s the relationship issue. But communicators need to help make the statements that this is not real, that it’s still being investigated, that we believe it’s not real. In other words, support the employee unless you’ve got evidence not to, or there’s some reason — legal perhaps — that you can’t say anything more. But challenge people who imply it’s genuine and carry that narrative forward with others in the organization.

So it’s difficult. It doesn’t mean you’ve got to broadcast a lot of details. It means going back to reinforcing those standards in the organization, repeating what they are before harmful behavior becomes part of, as the article mentions, organizational folklore. It’s a tricky, tricky road to walk down.

Shel Holtz: And it gets even trickier. There’s another layer of complexity to add to this for HR in particular. And that is an employee sharing one of these deepfakes on a personal text thread or on a personal account on a public social network — sharing it on Instagram, sharing it on Facebook — which might lead someone in the organization to say, “Well, that’s not a workplace issue. That’s something they did on their own private network.” But the deepfake involves a colleague at work, and we have to acknowledge that that becomes a workplace issue.

Neville Hobson: Yeah, it actually highlights, Shel, that therefore education is lacking if that takes place, I believe. So you’ve got to have already in place the policies that explicitly address the label “AI abuse.” It’s a workplace harm issue. It’s not a technical or a personal one. And it’s not acceptable nor permitted for this to happen in the workplace. And if it does, the perpetrators will be disciplined and face consequences because of this.

So that in itself though isn’t enough. It requires more proactive education to address it — like, for instance, informal communication groups to discuss the issue, not necessarily a particular example, and get everyone involved in discussing why it’s not a good thing. It may well surface opinions — again, depends on how trusted people feel or open they feel — on saying, “I disagree with this. I don’t think it is a workplace issue.” You get a dialogue going. But the company, the employer, in the form of the communicators, have the right people to take this forward, I think.

Shel Holtz: But here’s another communication issue that isn’t really addressed in the article, but I think communication needs to be involved. The article outlines a framework for addressing this. They say stabilize, which is support and safety; contain, which is stop the spread and investigate — and investigate broadly, not just the creator. I mean, who helped spread this thing around? Yeah, that’s pretty good crisis response advice.

But what strikes me is the fact that containment is mentioned almost as a technical IT issue when it’s really a communication challenge. Because how do you preserve evidence without further circulating harmful content? This requires clear protocols that everybody needs to understand. So communicators should be involved in helping to develop those protocols, but also making sure that they spread through the organization and are aligned with the values and become part of the culture.

Neville Hobson: Okay, so that kind of brings it round to that first thing I mentioned about what communicators can do before anything happens, and that’s to help the organization be explicit about standards. Name AI-enabled abuse clearly so there’s no ambiguity and set out exactly what the organizational position is on something like this. That will probably mean updating what would be the equivalent of the employee handbook where these kinds of policies and procedures sit, so that no one’s got any doubt of where to find out information about this. And then proactive communication about it. I mean, yes, communicators have lots to address in today’s climate. This is just one other thing. I would argue this is actually quite critical. They need to address this because unaddressed, it’s easy to see where this would gather momentum.

Shel Holtz: Yeah. So based on the article, you’ve already shared some of your recommendations for communicators. I think that updating the harassment policies with explicit deepfake examples is important. This is the recommendation I’m going to be making where I work. I think managers need to be trained on that first-hour response protocol. Managers, I think, are pretty poorly trained on this type of thing. And generic e-learning isn’t going to take care of it. So I think there needs to be specific training, particularly out in the field or out on the factory floor, where this is, I think, a little more likely to happen among people who are at that level of the org. I don’t think you’re going to see much of this manager to manager or VP to VP. So I think it’s more front line where you’re likely to see this — where somebody gets upset at somebody else and does a deepfake.

So those managers need to be trained. I think you need to have those evidence-handling procedures established and IT completely on board. So that’s a role for communicators. Reviewing and strengthening the reporting routes — who gets told when something like this happens and how does it get elevated? And then what are the protocols for determining what to do about it? And include this scenario in your crisis response planning. It should be part of that larger package of crises that might emerge that you have identified as possible and make sure that this is one of them.

Yeah, this article really ought to be required reading for every HR professional, every organizational leader, every communication leader, because as we’ve been saying right now, I think most organizations aren’t prepared. What the article said is the technology has outpaced our policies, our training, and our cultural norms. We’re in a gap period where harm is happening and institutions are scrambling to catch up. Time to stop scrambling, time to just catch up, start doing this work.

Neville Hobson: Yeah, I would agree. I think the final comment I’d make is kind of the core message that comes out of this whole thing that summarizes all of this. And this is from the employee point of view, it seems to me. So accept that AI has changed how misconduct happens, not what employees need. Fine, we accept that. Employees need confidence that if they are targeted, the organization will do the following: take it seriously, act quickly to contain harm, investigate fairly, and set a clear standard that using technology to degrade or coerce colleagues is serious misconduct. Those four things need to be in place, I believe.

Shel Holtz: Yeah. And what the consequences are — you always have to remind people that there are consequences for these things. And that’ll be a 30 for this episode of For Immediate Release.

The post FIR #500: When Harassment Policies Meet Deepfakes appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

No more excuses. No more waiting to see how things play out. AI has moved past the experimental phase, and if you’re still treating it like a nice-to-have rather than a fundamental shift in how your agency operates, you’re already falling behind.

In this episode, Chip comes out swinging with a wake-up call for the agency community: the ground is shifting faster than most are willing to admit, and the window for meaningful adaptation is closing. Gini backs him up with examples of how AI has progressed from an intern-level tool to something that can genuinely replace mid-level work—if agencies don’t evolve what they’re selling.

They dig into the practical reality of training AI tools to work like team members, not just one-off prompt machines. Chip explains how he uses different platforms for different strengths—Claude for writing, Gemini for competitive intelligence, Perplexity for research, and ChatGPT as his strategic baseline. Gini shares how her 12-year-old daughter creates entire anime worlds through conversation with AI, demonstrating the power of treating these tools as collaborators rather than search engines.

The conversation covers what clients actually want to pay for in 2026 (hint: it’s not social posts and press releases), how to build AI agents trained on your specific expertise, and why the process of training AI forces valuable clarity about your business. They emphasize that this isn’t about slapping the “AI-powered” label on your services—it’s about fundamentally rethinking what value you deliver and how you deliver it.

If you’ve been sitting on the sidelines waiting for the AI dust to settle, this episode is your warning: there is no settling. There’s only evolution or extinction. [read the transcript]

The post ALP 294: Wake up or get left behind: AI is forcing your hand appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.