When CommPRO convened a virtual town hall on May 20 bringing together more than a dozen senior communications, reputation, marketing and AI leaders, the conversation quickly moved past the hype. The question Founder, Publisher and CEO Fay Shapiro posed to kick things off set the tone: What happens when AI systems become the first place stakeholders turn for answers about a company or leader?
What followed was one of the more candid industry conversations we’ve seen yet on what generative AI is actually doing to the business of trust — and what communicators need to do about it.
HAVAS Red’s own Linda Descano, CFA®, Global Chief Integration & Marketing Officer, was part of the panel. A few themes she and her fellow panelists kept coming back to:
Generic, corporate-speak language is losing ground fast. AI systems are increasingly favoring content that is specific, substantive and backed by third-party validation. As Linda put it: “You have to really speak in short, declarative sentences, bring in those stats, and weave in the third-party benchmarks and validations.” The brands still leaning on vague messaging are flying blind.
With research suggesting earned media sources account for the majority of inputs shaping AI-generated responses, credible third-party coverage has never mattered more. The implication for communicators: The work of building authentic narratives and securing meaningful media attention is table stakes for AI visibility.
Keeping pace with this shift is now as much a talent and strategy question as it is a technology question. Linda was direct about the stakes for our industry: “We also need to up-level our teams so they can deliver more business-relevant strategies and contextualized communication results with and without AI.” The communicators who will matter most in this environment are those who can connect the dots between reputation, business outcomes and AI literacy.
The full conversation is well worth a read. Check out the complete CommPRO recap here.
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