There is a quiet yet persistent misconception lurking in the corners of boardrooms and marketing meetings: that artificial intelligence is a playground for the young.
Younger team members are often tapped to “figure out the AI stuff,” while seasoned communications professionals—those who’ve weathered crises, built brands from the ground up, and steered organizations through seismic shifts—are subtly (and sometimes explicitly) left to manage strategy while others experiment with the tools of tomorrow.
This thinking is not only shortsighted, it’s dangerous.
Welcome Your New Team Member
To treat AI as a mere tool is to miss the point. The most successful communications teams I’ve seen treat AI like a colleague—one with specific strengths and limitations, who can offer perspective, generate ideas, spot patterns, and handle the heavy lifting of repetition, freeing up human bandwidth for what we do best: critical thinking, relationship building, and creative strategy.
This mindset shift is crucial. If you only delegate AI use to younger professionals, you miss the opportunity to model what thoughtful, ethical, and strategic use of AI can and should look like. Worse, you miss your chance to help shape the cultural norms and standards governing its role in our field.
AI is already shaping how we analyze sentiment, generate content, test messaging, personalize campaigns, manage crises, and understand audiences with a depth and speed previously unimaginable. If you are a senior communications professional and are not learning how to integrate AI into your workflows, you are not leading; you are lagging.
Not a Shortcut—A Catalyst
One of the most persistent misconceptions about AI is that it “does all the work for you.” As if relying on it is somehow cheating, as though creativity, insight, and strategic thinking can be outsourced. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Using AI effectively as a communicator isn’t about delegating your expertise; it’s about amplifying it. AI can surface unexpected angles, propose novel campaign directions, and even challenge your assumptions—if you let it. It’s not a shortcut around hard thinking; it’s a catalyst for deeper, broader, and faster thinking.
Think of AI as a teammate—one that never tires, brings a wide lens to your blind spots, and responds instantly with a burst of ideas, patterns, or possibilities. Like any good collaborator, it works best when paired with your judgment, creativity, and context.
Experience Alone Isn’t Enough Anymore
The wisdom that comes from decades of experience is irreplaceable. But wisdom without tools is like strategy without execution. AI can’t replicate your instincts, but it can supercharge them. It can’t replace your understanding of nuance, tone, or timing, but it can give you the data to sharpen those instincts in real time. When senior communicators pair their insight with AI’s capabilities, they become exponentially more effective, not less relevant.
Sharpening Strategy, Messaging, and Response
AI’s value isn’t just in content creation but strategic optimization. When integrated into a senior communicator’s workflow, AI becomes a powerful force multiplier:
- Message Targeting: AI can assist in identifying which messages resonate with specific segments of your audience—considering tone, platform, timing, or even emotional triggers—facilitating hyper-personalized engagement.
- Stress-testing responses: Crafting a public statement? AI can simulate audience reactions, anticipate criticisms, and propose alternatives, enabling you to address concerns preemptively.
- Countering criticism effectively: It can analyze sentiment and common objections in public discourse, helping you develop more nuanced, impactful rebuttals or reframing strategies.
- Identifying gaps: AI can analyze your existing communications materials and PR strategies to identify missing elements—whether it’s a neglected stakeholder group, inconsistent messaging, or untapped emotional angles.
- Brainstorming at scale: Are you stuck on a message? AI can generate dozens of variations and delivery vehicles—press releases, tweets, op-eds, videos, email subject lines—allowing you to explore which options align best with your strategy and goals.
These tasks must not be pushed to the bottom of the organizational chart. They represent strategic capabilities that require senior judgment and context.
Leading by Learning
As leaders, we are called to go first. That involves experimenting with AI tools and asking tough questions about bias, privacy, attribution, and ethics. It requires using our judgment to determine when AI enhances our messages and when it detracts from them. It also means guiding our teams not just in how to use AI, but in how to think critically about AI.
If we want to remain credible communicators, we must remain curious communicators. AI isn’t coming. It’s here. The question is not whether you will engage with it, but whether you’ll lead through it.