The Importance of Communication in AI Success

Communication is one of the most underrated skills in AI/ML. Not just storytelling, but effective, clear communication with different teams and stakeholders. It's a critical component that determines the success of any strategy. There's a growing sentiment among a few technologists that AI will automate everything, with agents building things autonomously. In contrast, some business leaders are questioning the business value of such deep investments. These are two opposing views, and the truth lies somewhere in between. Engineering and product teams are focusing heavily on models and platforms, while sales teams are pitching them with rosy promises. Business leaders are pushing for tangible impact, and actual users are often left clueless. This disconnect arises from either a lack of communication or misdirected messaging. Few teams take the initiative to translate technology into simple language and guide ground teams in adopting it. It's not the novel technology that has made some GenAI projects successful, but the clean messaging (internal and external). Nickle LaMoreaux, IBM’s CHRO, highlighted some of these issues in a recent Fortune article, detailing how a technical tool launch failed. Business leaders often advocate for change management, while technical leaders push for no-code to low-code platforms. Meanwhile, end users might just need an extension for their Excel sheets—a simple "co-pilot" or "assistant." I've learned the hard way that as you grow in your career, clear and impactful communication becomes even more crucial than technical skills, regardless of your job role. Think about the best senior engineers you've worked with. Did you admire them for their coding prowess or for their powerful documentation that made development easier? There is no substitute for "communication". Learn it or suffer. #ExperienceFromTheField #WrittenByHuman #EditedByAI

Your AI strategy is useless if you can't communicate it. In this week's #LeadingDisruption, I'm challenging leaders who create brilliant AI strategies but let them gather dust because they can't bring them to life for their teams. With only 39% of Americans believing AI will be beneficial, how you share your vision determines whether people embrace or resist the change. I break down the real work of building trust through transparency, making technical complexity understandable, and having honest conversations about AI's impact on jobs. Plus, why Shopify got praise and Duolingo faced backlash when both CEOs shared the same "AI-first" message publicly, and what it reveals about tailoring your message to different audiences. The best strategy in the world means nothing if people don't understand it.

If I were at a bar with a CIO or CEO, talking about how to prepare for an AI-first world, here’s what I’d say after a decade in communications and serving on an AI Council: The #1 barrier to AI adoption? Hands down.. behavior change. Most AI initiatives fail because they require employees to change how they work (the catch-22). But communications is already a workflow. People talk, message, meet, and collaborate.. it’s work as usual. This makes it an incredible foundation for AI that actually gets adopted. For decades, businesses have struggled with the same operational challenges.. >CRM records are always out of date. >Data hygiene is a constant uphill battle. >Teams rarely have full context. >Business intelligence is not trusted. Why? Because these processes depend on manual human effort. They require people to log calls, take notes, update fields, remember next steps… and they will always be a step behind reality. Instead of seeing communication as just calls and messages, treat it as an AI engine… a source of truth, never ending data source, that continuously feeds intelligence into your business. In genAI… the data you can feed it is what makes it purpose-built for your business. Sooo… >> Unify communications wherever you can, ideally into one or two governed platform. (Versus 5-10… which is very much the norm) >>Capture every multimodal interaction (voice, chat, video) with AI to build a living memory bank.. one that isn’t limited by human error, forgetfulness, or manual updates. >> Enable agentic workflows that trigger at the speed of conversations. This literally means.. Sales teams don’t have to update the CRM. AI captures the call, extracts insights, and updates records automatically. Customer support doesn’t scramble for context. AI surfaces past interactions, past tickets, and suggested responses instantly. Business intelligence isn’t lagging behind. AI transforms human conversations into structured, real-time insights. This is automation + augmentation. Communications isn’t just a pipeline connecting employees. It’s data. It’s intelligence. It’s action. Leaders who get this will operate on an entirely different level. The ones that don’t will be stuck in the past… moving too slow, always feeling like they don’t have enough budget for headcount, and never fully trusting the charts and graphs in their PPTs.