www.mixternal.com/p/ai-first-c...

🔮 An AI-forward memo like the two I compare is likely in your future.

🔬 Let’s see what happens when AI strategy meets communication strategy, & why getting the tone wrong can undermine a smart business move.

🔖 The most revealing difference appears in how each CEO justifies the AI transformation.

Over 80% of executives surveyed in tech and media anticipate reduced hiring over the next two years because of AI.

And most companies are backfilling workers with AI rather than replacing them.

¯\_ (ツ)_/¯ WIFM, you ask? Chances are your team will manage some heavy (consequential) messaging about AI’s effect on your workforce. A recent report from MIT says that ~27% of jobs could be replaced by AI in the long term.

I analyze how 2 tech leaders handled identical strategic announcements with vastly different results, including 🧑‍🏫 four key lessons for comms pros managing AI transformation messaging

As usual, I share the full memos.

The difference was the messaging. While both CEOs announced fundamentally similar strategic shifts, their communication approaches reveal crucial lessons about navigating AI transformation in the mixternal era.

Duolingo's CEO published his memo publicly on LinkedIn, then had to walk it back 3 wks later after employee backlash & negative headlines. (There’s a lost in translation joke in there somewhere.)

Shopify's CEOsent his memo to employees first, shared it publicly later, and faced minimal controversy.

It’s time to abandon the notion of authenticity in comms and redirect the energy to fights that actually matter.

www.mixternal.com/p/authentic-...

I’m arguing that authenticity is a conceptual impossibility in an industry whose primary function is to craft strategic messages that serve corporate interests, organizational narratives, and business objectives, regardless of what’s happening behind the scenes.

An inconvenient truth in corporate comms is that “authenticity” is impossible to achieve because—from day one in 1904—it never existed in our industry. It’s not that authenticity is difficult to achieve in corp comms.

4/4 Stakeholders don’t have time to meet with so many people who are supposedly on the same team.

A single source of truth—a cornerstone of mixternal strategies— can help.

#mixternalcomms #PR #comms #internalcomms

www.mixternal.com/p/increase-c...

3/4 It’s also embarrassing and annoying. Three or four members of the comms department pick off our unsuspecting stakeholders, demanding they answer questionnaires, fill out templates, and agree to a 45-minute meeting where they talk about the same things they told your teammate last week.

2/4 Maintaining artificial barriers between internal and external comms wastes resources, dilutes messaging, and misses opportunities.