How should leaders talk about AI, and how should staff talk back when the future is uncertain?

The issue is not AI adoption. It is the fear, confusion, and breakdown of trust that happens when people cannot tell whether AI will expand their work or erase it.

That is why the “We Must Act Now” statement published on 13 July is so important. More than 1,700 experts and signatories warned that AI may become radically more powerful within a decade and that leaders must build the incentives, guardrails and institutions needed to steer it toward complementing humans rather than replacing them.

This is not fringe alarmism. The signatories include major economists, researchers and thinkers at the forefront of AI.

AI and the human test

My speech at Mumbrella’s Commscon in March started from a simple but uncomfortable idea: AI will not just change tools. It will change the human meaning of work. In corporate affairs, marketing, research and reputation management, the organisations that survive will be the ones that put trust, truth, transparency and judgment at the centre.

If I were a junior in a marketing firm, an accounting firm, a law firm, or in journalism, I would be asking whether I would still have a job in two years. I am certain that in the communication profession, marketing, research and writing are being undermined permanently. Many junior roles will vanish.

Even now, the marketing strap line for your bank (“More than money”) or phone provider (“Yes”) or grocer (“Fresh food people”) is irrelevant. All that matters is performance,........

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