As most of us know Artificial Intelligence is playing a larger role in nearly all of our companies, and with that widescale adoption comes uncertainty. In this episode of the Can You Hear Me? Podcast, co-hosts Eileen Rochford and Rob Johnson explore how leaders are (or aren’t) communicating clearly and empathetically about AI—and the effect it’s having on employees’ sense of security and future.
Rob Johnson: [00:00:18] Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of the Can You Hear Me Podcast. I'm Rob Johnson, president of Rob Johnson Communications. [00:00:24][6.0]
Eileen Rochford: [00:00:24] I'm Eileen Rochford, CEO of the marketing strategy firm, The Harbinger Group. Today, we're going to unpack one of the hottest and most sensitive topics in the workplace right now. How company leaders are communicating about artificial intelligence and what that communication or lack of it means for employees and their jobs. [00:00:41][17.0]
Rob Johnson: [00:00:42] I'm really glad we're talking about this because I know we've devoted several episodes to AI, but because it's not something down the road, it's here. It's really important that we discuss the communication around AI. So let's start with what we're seeing right now. AI is no longer a future trend. It's here. It is embedded in workload, tools, even strategy. But not every company is actually talking to employees about what this means. Some companies are rolling out AI tools or automation processes, and employees are finding out only when they notice parts of their work are gone or being done by something else. That is a communication gap. I think we would all agree. When leadership introduces AI, but doesn't explain the why or the how, or most importantly, What's next for people it's going to naturally lead to fear and distrust or worse and open the door to rumors anxiety disengagement, and we know that when people don't feel secure or informed, productivity tanks and culture takes a hit. [00:01:39][56.9]
Eileen Rochford: [00:01:39] It's just, it's the lack of information that I think is causing the worst of all problems. You know, if you ask me it's just the, because that means that fear has kind of set in, people are just allowing rumors to replace facts and even if there aren't many facts available. But there's a whole lot of talk about not long from now when GPT-5 is introduced, that what we've been seeing up until now will be nothing compared to what the world's going to be like with GPT 5. And that's a scary, scary thing. And it should be because, you know, it's the unknown. But I just think that the smarter leaders are going to be thinking big picture and communicating big picture versus, oh, let's just try this tool. And knowing full well that that's going to lead to a change, a change in process, a change in even perhaps how organizations price charge for what they do. Clients are gonna start asking questions. Customers are going to start asking question. If leaders aren't supplying information to employees about the repercussions, the implications of what the introductions of various AI tools could mean for both their company inside and the people who work for them as well as for their customers, they're gonna be in a lot of trouble. There's no doubt about it. It's not just about figuring out how the tools are used in your organization. It's about determining how do I make sure people know how to use them ethically? How do I makes sure our clients and customers' questions can be answered. All those things need to be on the table now, right away. [00:03:13][93.9]
Rob Johnson: [00:03:13] I think the other thing too, Eileen, is sometimes, first of all, I've seen clients, I'm sure you have too. They have marketing departments and they say, hey, we're having meetings about AI, what our strategy for 2026 is going to be. Here are people, say in a marketing department, who are going to have a meeting with their boss about how they're going to roll it out. You have to be excited about, oh, we have all these different tools at our disposal, but nobody's talking about whether your role, whether some of the responsibilities you have or your entire job could be eliminated. Now, you and I have talked before about how we're paid for our ideas and how AI is revolutionary, but there always needs to be checks and balances. And I still feel that way. Several years into this AI journey that everybody's been on, I still that way knowing that some of the capabilities are increasing a thousandfold. There still needs to checks and balance. But can you imagine how awkward that is for that marketing department that I was talking about to be talking about how they're going to use AI in the future and how you may or may not be working alongside it. [00:04:16][62.5]
Eileen Rochford: [00:04:16] So awkward. I mean, God, what is it? The 800-pound gorilla in the middle of the living room, right? Wow. And how thoughtless, frankly, for any organization to be having conversations like that without having first explained, here's our intent for the use of AI and what the repercussions might be for our staffing. Yeah, that's pretty thoughtless. So yeah, the looming question, will I be replaced? That's totally not irrational. [00:04:45][29.0]
Rob Johnson: [00:04:46] Right, right. [00:04:47][0.5]
Eileen Rochford: [00:04:47] We've already seen examples where AI, it's automating many parts of our marketing jobs. Certainly things like coding and the worst, in my opinion, customer service, the number of places that I've personally interacted with as a customer recently who say, oh, this is surely your AI assistant. How can I help you when you call? Yeah. Has skyrocketed in the last even two months. So that transition to customer service is very, very real, but particularly in the jobs that you and I do and the company that I run. Writing, more I'm seeing, and we see it just on social, the terrible writing that AI is producing and that people are thinking this is acceptable and they're using it in their marketing. It's astonishing to me that that would be permitted just to save. On some staffing time. So at the end of the day, though, yes, jobs are going to change. I think what we should be talking about thinking about is job transformation. [00:05:44][57.1]
Rob Johnson: [00:05:45] That's right. [00:05:45][0.1]
Eileen Rochford: [00:05:45] It very well may change what our roles look like, the skills we each need to have, to bring to the table when we're doing our job, even the people we collaborate with to do our job. So there's a lot to absorb. People definitely need a lot of time to reflect, support, but mostly adapt. You know, the speed that this is, um, meaning these tools are being incorporated into our jobs are not allowing for just human beings to adapt and organizations to adapt. So there's definitely, you know, kind of a, um a storm brewing, um in that respect, if you ask me. Um, but most of the, if we, if leaders just start communicating regularly with empathy and being very clear clarity is essential when, you change is happening. Those people are going to leave everyone to connect the dots on their own. And let's face it, when humans fill in the blanks, they tend to assume the absolute worst is going to happen. [00:06:36][50.6]
Rob Johnson: [00:06:37] See you in nature. [00:06:37][0.3]
Eileen Rochford: [00:06:37] Yeah, it is. It's just it's human nature. There's so much more to think about than just, oh, how can I save time, create efficiencies, save money by using AI? If you intend to do that, then thinking through the repercussions of your choices and informing your people, here's what it's going to mean. We may be shifting you to other departments. We maybe creating new jobs for you because there's an opportunity for us to provide higher levels of service, more creativity and strategy time versus before when we were pressed for time to be able to do that by allowing AI tools to bring more efficiency, lower value. Additive tasks so that more creativity, more strategy, more ideation can take place. Phenomenal, that's great. But tell everyone that's what you're gonna do. Not just leave that void or fear to fill it. [00:07:33][55.6]
Rob Johnson: [00:07:33] I'm really glad you brought up customer service and writing when you were talking about some of the tools where AI has been common in various companies. And I would say this, that customer service, yes, I'm your AI assistant, this and that, that is like the exact opposite, I think, of what people want. They know they call and they get a call center and whatever the case is, and it might be overseas or this or that. But I still think in certain instances, you're looking for efficiencies and you're going to find them. I understand that. I don't know that that's a real differentiator right now in a positive way. And when it comes to the writing, you're absolutely correct. That I see some of the writing and I see people all the time. Some might be clients, some might be people I come across in business and they're like, oh, I just plugged it in AI. It cranked out all this and it's like, yeah, but it's got to look at it. It's okay. [00:08:20][47.0]
Eileen Rochford: [00:08:21] Just, uh... [00:08:22][0.6]
Rob Johnson: [00:08:23] It's very vanilla. And I would say this, I love writing and I feel blessed that it's really easy for me to do. I love that process of writing. And, I know that when I'm writing for clients, something specific. That I'm going to give more detail and more authenticity to their messaging than AI is going to, even though I know AI can be a huge time saver in other areas. So I'm glad you brought those things up because I know, yeah, chat GPT-5 is coming and it's going to revolutionize everything. And it's already revolutionized so many things out there from a productivity standpoint, a content standpoint. But if you think that you can just turn it all over to AI to solve all problems, you are still, I think, sorely mistaken. [00:09:07][44.5]
Eileen Rochford: [00:09:08] I agree with you 100%. I don't think there's a marketer out there who has seen anything produced that's written through an AI tool at the first crack that's worth much at all. It doesn't matter how good your prompts are, or the research that you feed it, it still is going to contain mistakes, it's going to maintain a lack of creativity, personality. Even if you tell it, here's my brand guide, here is my tone, here are the words we don't use, the words that we do use. All of that can be fed into an AI tool and it still will not in any way match what a great human writer can do. That's just the truth. Yeah. I agree. Organizations that embrace that will end up being the winners because they'll reshuffle to leverage some of the efficiencies that AI can bring, particularly in marketing. And that's great. But by doing so, they'll win if they shift all of that additional resource into great human writers because they will stand out every single day against the morass of generic writing and [00:10:10][62.2]
Rob Johnson: [00:10:11] It's so generic. There's just not it's like a [00:10:14][3.6]
Eileen Rochford: [00:10:13] It's like you feel so sad. [00:10:15][2.0]
Rob Johnson: [00:10:16] It's like swimming in a two-inch pool, two inches of water, it's like it's so shallow. [00:10:20][3.7]
Eileen Rochford: [00:10:20] Yeah, so there's that. I mean, I just think that there's going to be kind of a boomerang, hopefully, of coming back, because organizations are going to realize, God, this sounds awful. And if we really want to capture people's imaginations and hearts, we want a human to do that content. And we will just stand out and look better every time. [00:10:40][19.8]
Rob Johnson: [00:10:40] Absolutely. And so we've identified the issue here, and I think we framed it pretty well, but the question people who are listening may be asking themselves is, what should leaders be doing now? So let's start here. Honesty and transparency. Heard it before? Yeah, because we talk about it all the time. If AI is going to impact roles in your company, you have to talk about it early. You can't wait until there's a riff, a reorg, a layoff, whatever, and you have to add context. Don't just say, we're adopting AI. Say, we are bringing in this tool to streamline expert. Here's what it means for the team. Here's how we're supporting you as we make the shift. That brings us to another point, which is focused on people development. You've talked about it a little bit already, Eileen. Employees want to hear, we're investing in upskilling. Believe in your ability to grow alongside the technology, not be replaced by it. The companies that are doing this well are offering training sessions. They're creating internal AI literacy programs. They are actively mapping out how roles may evolve, and they're not just talking at people, they're holding forums, they are getting actual feedback. How about that? [00:11:40][60.3]
Eileen Rochford: [00:11:41] Yeah, that's the way to do it. Absolutely. So if you haven't started down that path yet, incorporate all of those steps and things should turn out much better for you. [00:11:50][9.0]
Rob Johnson: [00:11:51] Yeah. And again, the point I was just making too, you can't just sit here and just clam up when people are searching for information. And I know that when you're in leadership at a company, you can give them all the keys to the kingdom. You're not going to tell them every single thing that's going on. But to the degree that you can, you must communicate meaningfully and openly and transparently with everyone. And, again, don't wait until the other shoes drop. And there's a layoff, and you're like, oh, here it is. You need to be taking people along with you on this ride. [00:12:24][32.9]
Eileen Rochford: [00:12:25] And if, if there ever was a time to push the envelope in terms of what can you communicate, what could you communicate? I suggest now is that time versus playing everything, you know, close to the vest. Like you said, sometimes you have to do that. You can't tell everyone everything, but this is the time when you probably should be sharing a bit more. Meaning, yeah, if things are going to shift, if you're going to be creating new departments where people can be, you know, their talents can be. Up skilled and moved into a new, perhaps higher service level department that you're creating, tell them that. They may even be super, super excited about it. Like, oh, this is great. I get to do more of the things that I'm exceptionally good at. Wonderful. And you're going to teach me how to incorporate some of these tools to help me be able to do this work even more effectively than I'm able to on my own. And that'd be really exciting. [00:13:17][52.3]
Rob Johnson: [00:13:16] That's very exciting. Don't you like being able to use it in ways that make your organization more efficient, more nimble? I would say that I don't incorporate it for every single thing I do, but I do incorporate it in certain areas. I really like it. I do. But I like it with fences up. [00:13:39][23.2]
Eileen Rochford: [00:13:39] So many fences and deciding, you know, what tasks, what higher value things that you do that you are compensated for are human first versus AI first. You know, make those decisions because there are a lot of things that just sound good. But when you actually start with AI first, you end up having to do more work because the, you It's a. It's a jumble of information that, you know, a human could have synthesized and organized pretty quickly and gotten you a lot closer to your bullseye than you got. So you have to decide what are the things that are better to do with humans first. I love it for... Knowledge sharing, example, when we have weekly meetings with clients and we discuss very specific things on our agendas, it doesn't make any sense to have every team member who might work on that account attend that hour long meeting every single week and then charge the client for that. That's bananas. We don't do that. We use tools. Tactic is the one that we use. It recaps the meetings and then anything can do this. Zoom. There's a billion of them. Everybody's heard of them? The ability to just ask questions using the AI assistant within our, the one we use, Tactic, means that I can within 10 minutes of that meeting ending, create the synopsis, identify the important insights, like lightbulb moments that came out of the meeting. So highlight those so people can see, oh, we just learned this thing. Don't use this word or don't do this new thing that the client told us. Great. Call those out and then very specific assignments by person and function. Here are the next steps. Move these things forward in these ways. And I can click a button and then that creates a son of tasks out of it. So it's an incredible, you know, fusing of those two platforms that that's like three hours of work saved out of the gate every single day. [00:15:32][113.0]
Rob Johnson: [00:15:33] I'd love the efficiencies to it it's very helpful and i have my own meeting note-takers well i think everybody does i have showed and it really does help to have a transcript of it that video of it to be able to to get the action items that need to come out of that meeting i just love having that that is uh... Huge time saver and i agree with that [00:15:52][19.3]
Eileen Rochford: [00:15:53] One thing I'll just say though, I mean, sometimes we run, I actually game it, like we have three different things working for us, three different AI platforms like Gemini NoteTaker and the transcript from Tectic and something else, forget what the third is, but when we compare them and see, there are some drastic differences in what gets captured and what conclusions are drawn by those different tools as what were the important outcomes from this meeting. It can be drastically different, which just in and of itself tells you. [00:16:24][31.3]
Rob Johnson: [00:16:24] Kind of fascinating. [00:16:25][0.5]
Eileen Rochford: [00:16:25] Yeah. Well, it's like if three different humans, I guess, you know, attended a meeting, their notes might be, you now, significantly different. Some could be better, some could really suck or be just inaccurate. So you have to check. And so I always bake in time immediately following anything to look at it. And X out slash out anything that's just embarrassingly wrong because often those get shared with your clients who participated. So I was trying to make sure we correct them before just taking it as gasple because they're not right 99% of the time. They're not 100% right. Of course. Really, really important thing. Let's get back to this thing about how do we communicate about this. [00:17:02][37.3]
Rob Johnson: [00:17:02] Oh yes, yes, oh yeah, oh, yeah, that. [00:17:04][1.8]
Eileen Rochford: [00:17:04] That's what we said. It's what promised to our listeners. So you did a really nice job before I took us off on a tangent. I'm excellent at that. Framing the right way to communicate. Let's now examine some of the bigger mistakes that we're seeing. So first up, all of jargon-laden, buzzword-heavy communication, like... We're leveraging generative AI to enable enhanced synergies. What? Okay, sure, I guess. No one's gonna understand you. They will have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. [00:17:39][34.9]
Rob Johnson: [00:17:39] That's not saying anything. [00:17:40][0.6]
Eileen Rochford: [00:17:41] Now, the translation might be in their heads. We're not sure yet. Maybe. I like these words because they make me sound smart, I think. Yeah, we know that's not right. Another huge mistake is silence. Some leaders think, well, we don't really know what our full AI plan is yet. So we can't say anything until we're 100% certain. Also a huge mistake. Absolutely. If you don't say anything, silence in itself, as everybody knows, that's still communication. And usually it communicates that fear issue that we've already raised in this combo. It also communicates avoidance. It communicates lack of strategy or just you don t know what the heck you're doing. That's anything. You want to shut down speculation. Last example is any communication that lacks empathy, because this is a very human moment, even though it's an AI moment, because there's the tension between them. AI, the adoption of it anyway, like just a tech upgrade instead of this is a massive impact on people and in some cases, a wholesale shift. Of entire industries and the jobs that people were doing. So anybody who just kind of leaves that part out, they're missing the emotional side of the equation. And that makes me sad. And it's a big, big, bigger in my opinion. [00:19:02][81.5]
Rob Johnson: [00:19:02] It's been one of the areas we've talked about since day one relative to AI Eileen, which is, you have this machine that's doing all this machine learning and they're making things more efficient and they can crank out things at a moment's notice. Doesn't mean it's right, doesn't mean you do lose that human connectivity. And I think that when you do that, you're getting away from, if you're a company that cares about the emotional side of the equation, you're losing some of the humanity. And so if that matters to you, then that's going down the wrong path. If it doesn't matter to you, then knock yourself out. Just follow the lead of something that may or may not be correct, it may or may not in the context that you want it written or said in, and good luck. [00:19:46][43.5]
Eileen Rochford: [00:19:47] Yes. Good luck. The chickens will come home to roost as they always do. [00:19:51][4.2]
Rob Johnson: [00:19:52] Yes, they will. Yes, they will, but does that make sense though? I mean, because you're bringing up something very important, which is, and again, it's why we think that there are roles for people like us and other marketers in the AI world, because you can learn new skills, or you can hone the ones you already have, or you can adjust and shift, but it's more than just a, hey, that's going to replace that person. Right now, it hasn't proven its ability to do that. [00:20:19][27.0]
Eileen Rochford: [00:20:19] No, absolutely it doesn't. No, it doesn t. And there's so many questions that most of us have, should have, like, so how are we going to check for the errors? How is that being done? Basically, quality control. It's like the introduction of anything into manufacturing or other realms like that. Where's your quality control? How will you know is that accurate? What's the double check? What were the sources? Really have to tell your people, here are the, you know, three things that we are going to utilize consistently across the board in our processes to ensure that the information that comes out of any artificial intelligence tool is accurate. You know, you owe that to anyone you're working with, that you put that in place. So teaching everyone how they can do that and will do that is a big part of the communication, in my opinion. [00:21:10][51.3]
Rob Johnson: [00:21:11] I agree, I agree. Well, you know, Eileen, here, can you hear me? We always identify the issue, we just said what we thought were the right and the wrong ways to go about it here, but we also like to offer what? Solutions. [00:21:22][11.7]
Eileen Rochford: [00:21:23] Always. Yeah. [00:21:24][1.0]
Rob Johnson: [00:21:24] We're forward thinking. What can leaders do to improve how they're communicating about AI? Start with listening, which is always a great idea, no matter what you're talking about, AI or otherwise. What are your people worried about? What don't they understand? Then meet them where they are. Be an adaptive leader. Next, you need to map out your messaging. Where are you today with AI? Where are headed? How will it impact people in each department and communicate consistently? This is not AI. It's not a one-time announcement. Ta-da, here's what we're doing, and then it's over. You have to make it part of the ongoing dialog about your strategy and your values and your culture. Employees don't expect you to have all the answers, but they do know when they see transparency. They do expect honesty. And if they can get a seat at the table as change happens and be part of the solution, that's even better for them, right? [00:22:12][47.7]
Eileen Rochford: [00:22:13] Absolutely. Some have argued that this shift is akin to, frankly, any change management adoption in an organization. That being the case, frequent, consistent, transparent communication is essential for your success. You're going to need to go down this path. Anyone who has been in business long enough. Particularly in communications, knows that it's almost at, we're at the point where communication to those of us who are charged with adopting these different tools, these different ways of doing things, if we don't have the information that we need to be successful, the whole thing's gonna fall apart. [00:22:55][41.4]
Rob Johnson: [00:22:55] That's true. It really is. [00:22:56][1.0]
Eileen Rochford: [00:22:57] Yeah, because at the end of the day, AI is any AI that you adopt is just a tool. It's not much more than that. And how we choose to talk about it and how we support our people through it, even our customers and our clients through it is what will define the future of work. And whether, you know, I think it's going to separate the organizations that are successful from those who aren't, you know, during this massive shift. And that's a leadership opportunity, not just for C-suites and tech leads, but for anyone who's guiding a team through change. [00:23:28][31.3]
Rob Johnson: [00:23:29] And you're talking so eloquently about change management, and this is just one example of it. Change is hard to talk about in an organization. And... If you're not out front communicating, whether it's AI or otherwise, other changes going on in your organization, you're going to get left behind. You're not going to have the maximum impact that you want to have for your organization because people who don't feel like they're part of the solution, people who don't like they are in on decision-making and in on the future, and some of them might not be, but a lot of them may be, you are going to blunt your impact for trying to guide change in your organization. [00:24:05][36.0]
Eileen Rochford: [00:24:05] Yeah. So stop whatever you're planning for AI and start to think about how am I going to communicate about AI? Let's try that. [00:24:13][7.3]
Rob Johnson: [00:24:13] I think it's so important. Well, we've given you a lot to think about here today, and truly, that's one of the fascinating things about AI, as we talked about earlier, there's so many different areas that you can bring it up and discuss it, where it's relevant in your place of work. But I hope that some of this was helpful to you. I hope you got some good ideas. I hope we leave you with some action items that will help you be successful communicating the AI change in your organization, right? Well, that's going to do it for another edition of Can You Hear Me? I'm Rob Johnson. If you would like to comment on the podcast or suggest a topic, please contact us at our Can You hear Me? Podcast page where you can find it on LinkedIn. [00:24:51][37.9]
Eileen Rochford: [00:24:52] I'm Eileen Rochford. If you like what you heard, please consider giving our show, Can You Hear Me? A positive review wherever you get your podcasts like Apple or Spotify because your reviews help other listeners discover our show. Thanks so much for listening. [00:24:52][0.0]
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