Sometimes, people contact this newsletter and communicate a point — or points — that go below and beyond the surface of a narrative and what they are saying holds one’s attention and drives curiosity for greater understanding.

“One of the things I’ve been exploring,” Blessing Platinum-Williams wrote to me, “is how much of what we consider ‘miscommunication’ is actually a lack of awareness around tone, patterns and behavioral signals.”

The London-based creator of Tonely AI, an “auto reflect” keyboard and Chrome extension that shows the likely tone and intention behind a message as you type, says that “small patterns in language can compound and create real-world consequences, in relationships, workplaces and online spaces.”

Platinum-Williams has been confident that her “therapy-informed perspective on language, along with a law background… reinforces one belief: words matter.”

She has recognized a clear, troubling pattern and problem that requires addressing.

Which has led her to an unwavering conclusion.

”I believe there’s a strong opportunity to shift the conversation from performance to awareness,” Platinum-Williams optimistically asserted.

She speaks to what she has learned and believes is at the root of the lack of or insufficiency of social, communication awareness, and to what it can most attributed.

“A lot of that lack of awareness,” Platinum-Williams asserts, “comes from how we’ve been conditioned to communicate. Most people were never actually taught how their words land, only what to say or not say.”

The result, she proposes, is a disconnect.

That’s but part of the problem and the gap.

“We’re messaging quickly, responding quickly, thinking less. There’s very little pause,” Platinum-Williams explains. “And without that pause, there’s no space for reflection. So it’s not always that people don’t care, it’s that they’ve never been trained to notice and they’re moving too fast to realize.”

There is a reality, not necessarily a criticism, to understand as well.

“There’s also a deeper layer. A lot of people haven’t done the internal work to understand themselves, so naturally they won’t understand how they come across,” Platinum-Williams says.

“If you’re not aware of your own patterns, your own triggers, your own way of speaking, then you’re going to project that outward without even realizing.”

The task of reliably surfacing awareness before escalation develops is a significantly important, challenging one.

“Advice after the fact is easy to ignore or it becomes something people feel defensive about,” Platinum-Williams says. “But when someone is about to say something, that’s where the real opportunity is. That small window where they can pause and think, ‘is this how I actually want to come across?’”

Simple in theory, complicated in practice, which she realizes.

“Awareness has to feel immediate and personal. Not generic, not theoretical but connected to what that person is doing in real time,” Platinum-Williams says.

When this is happening, a helpful shift becomes possible and more likely.

“That’s where real change happens,” Platinum-Williams respectfully argues. “Not through being told but through seeing yourself clearly.”

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The critical need for understanding, the natural, common overlooking of the gap and either not seeing or not caring about how we’re being perceived, are arguably, social deficiencies.

“We’re not recognizing the need for understanding because we’ve prioritized output for so long,” Platinum-Williams says. “In work, in relationships, even online, the focus has been on efficiency. Say what you need to say, get your point across, move on.”

Time pressure, convenience and habit usually rule supreme, regardless of risk.

She pushes back on a common reaction to offense.

“There’s also an assumption that if your intent is good, then that should be enough. But intent doesn’t protect you from impact,” Platinum-Williams says.

“You can mean well and still cause harm. And until people really accept that, they won’t see the need to close that gap.”

Moving the needle, so to speak, from performance-based communication to a higher-level of awareness and care requires a dynamic change in thinking and standards.

It “starts with changing what we value,” Platinum-Williams easily says.

She proposes something simple, yet not emotionally easy, as a starting point.

Practicality has to be part of the formula for this to work well and reliably.

Awareness, “can’t just be an idea. It has to be something people can actually do. Small, consistent moments of reflection that build over time,” she says.

What we expect of ourselves is a root driver of “better."

There is much to be gained.

“When people realize that awareness isn’t about restricting them but about giving them control over how they show up, that’s when the shift really happens,” she concludes.

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A large part of the public who are using AI may be offloading too much of their decision-making to the technology. That high level of trust and overreliance is a curious development, considering how much humans value autonomy and agency.

That habit could become one that is difficult to break.

These points are ones that Nat Rubio-Licht, a senior reporter at The Deep View, recently examined as she reported on recent research that might surprise most people.

The research was no small sample size. It involved nearly 1,400 people and 9,500 trials.

In other words, it was a significant investment of time, attention, focus and study and scientists learned that people “accepted unsound AI reasoning more than 73% of the time and only overruled models’ decisions about 20% of the time,” Rubio-Licht reported. What happened to the remaining 7% was not mentioned.

Those figures, reasonably argued, are alarming numbers.

Who is most likely to cede this much power of decision-making? “Participants with higher trust in AI and ‘lower need for cognition and fluid intelligence’ tended to fall victim to this more often,” Rubio-Licht wrote.

This, however, isn’t always a negative, Rubio-Licht reported.

“The researchers, however, posit that cognitive surrender may not inherently be a bad thing,” she wrote. “If an AI model is generally better at reasoning and decision-making than the person using it, with fewer mistakes, ‘deferring to a statistically superior system may be adaptive or even optimal.’”

Rubio-Licht ended her article with a viewpoint from what she learned.

“Even if AI is someday capable of doing everything, the dividing line between reaping the benefits and losing ourselves is in what we let it do,” she wrote.

Cognitive surrender, for different reasons, has become commonplace for different reasons, says Uwe Weinreich, a trained psychologist, consultant and the founder at Empowerment Team Berlin, which focuses on building work cultures and environments of the future, where AI and humans complement each other's strengths.

“We as humans are wired that way … to establish emotional relationships with anything that shows even the weakest signals of life,” he explains. “This also happens when we are confronted with AI. It speaks to us, so, we build a relationship.”

The language approach of the technology plays a role, Weinreich adds.

“It’s also the way AI speaks: eloquent yet clear, in a way that’s easy to follow,” he says. “Bang! Convinced.”

Additionally, there is the matter of our emotional and cognitive bandwidth.

“We all have an innate tendency to optimize our energetic spendings,” Weinrich says. “So, why should I question a result that sounds so good? That requires an extra push and extra effort.”

It’s a point to realize and remember.

Reality of responsibility plays a role as well.

“Time management,” Weinreich concisely says. “Ask your favorite LLM a random question, let’s say 15 words, and you end up with an answer that might be 15 pages long. Who can and will read all that?”

The cognitive surrender could be more widespread than thought.

“Already today, some developers are rather orchestrating 5-to-ten coding agents instead of writing code themselves,” Weinreich says. “Who’s gonna check the code? Probably nobody, at least not all of it.”

The years ahead might be more pronounced.

“Some futurists predict that we will have a ratio of 1 in 1000, that is one employee surrounded by 1,000 AI agents. Honestly, it will become impossible not to surrender cognitively,” Weinreich says.

Psychology of connection and relationships are a driving factor.

“The systems are trained to please us,” Weinreich says. “Companies are happy when users are happy and pay happily. The best way to make them happy is to give them what they want. This is way most LLMs are shameless people pleasers.

“When the system gives us an answer the perfectly resonates with what we are thinking and feeling, why shouldn’t we trust it completely — and overly?”

As to the question of whether this could have been predicted, he suggests no and yes.

“It is always difficult to forecast the effects of solutions and systems that nobody has seen before,” Weinreich says. “Warnings had been there but they were criticized to be exaggerated. Understandable.

“Seeing ourselves as submissive to and dependent from a technical system collides with our self-esteem. We are still in an early phase of AI adoption and currently learning how to shape our lives with it.”

There is some pushback about the predictability of ceding a high amount of decision-making authority to AI.

“This was totally predictable,” says Andre Walton, a social psychologist, TEDx speaker and founder at Plan4Change, a new approach to decision-making.

“When we confront a new situation, such as a question that needs answering or a decision that needs making, our subconscious seeks the simplest way of resolving the challenge,” he adds.

“Before AI, it would go to its memory banks to find how we addressed a similar situation in the past. We would use this as a template for the current challenge. This demonstrates the natural human tendency to seek 'mental laziness.’ It saves time and energy.”

Our minds will usually default to this pull.

“Armed with the knowledge that our brains are inherently lazy, it is easy to see why AI provides the easy option and leads to the majority of users showing decreased critical thinking skills,” Walton says.

He implies it’s important to elaborate on the research stated earlier.

“When you state ‘...only overruled models' decisions about 20% of the time' and that people accepted wrong AI answers 73% of the time, it may be that 20% of users were always critical thinkers and 80% — or actually 73% — were always 'cognitive surrenderers.’”

Controlling or overcoming the habit of excessively trusting AI, at least in the stages it is now, could be an uphill climb.

“It is a challenge but it is one to which the answer comes naturally,” Walton says.

“Reversing this blind trust requires re-introducing the kind of thinking that we had as young children,” he adds. “The child's way of addressing new situations requires that we look at the whole picture in order to see how the new information or question fits into what we already know.

“If we introduce this process into our thinking regarding AI output, we can see many more options to our question. This perspective enables us to see that the AI output may be only one possibility and that there may be other options.”

He elaborates as to why that is valuable.

“This process causes us to think critically about all the options, not just the AI offering,” Walton says.

Weinreich says changing how we interact now will be hard.

“The factors mentioned earlier show that it is no easy task,” he admits.

“It will require active learning and establishing acceptable ways of interacting with AI.”

Weinreich adds a final counterpoint to critics’ arguments and the public’s concerns.

“We should care for a society-wide learning process and not demonize technology,” he argues. “So far, humanity has always managed to get along with new developments.”

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How CEOs see the negative impact of mass layoffs on employees plays a large role in how they communicate to and with them. The emotions, psychology, feelings and judgment in response are a product of worker interpretations about the level of concern, care and respect being shown them.

Block co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey laid off 40%­ of his workforce, specifically 4,000 out of 10,000 employees and explained the decision to do it.

“Intelligence tools have changed what it means to build and run a company,” he said, adding, maybe coldly, “A significantly smaller team using the tools we’re building can do more and do it better.”

Dorsey went on to explain the move is necessary for agency in how it wants to achieve financial objectives, “... a smaller company also gives us the space to grow our business the right way, on our own terms, instead of constantly reacting to market pressures,” he communicated.

This “just business,” responsibility and belief is common yet with it could come social and mental health costs and risks to society accompanying the significant disruption.

It’s worth considering as well, that society will adapt to some varying degree, as it always has done and thrive in the new reality, out of necessity.

“I would argue that both things are true,” contends Barbara Roos, the founder at Trailhead Communications and previously, a communications-and-change leader for 25-plus years at Intel and other technology companies.

“Society will adapt, new jobs will emerge and the near-term disruption has real costs,” she adds. “The key question is how leaders manage the transition: whether they bring their people along versus treating talent as disposable.”

That challenge and task is important to Roos.

“I launched the firm to focus on helping leaders navigate one of the biggest workplace shifts of our time,” she tells Communication Intelligence.

Roos sees a leadership responsibility that has been discussed publicly yet not widely and not in a way that has noticeably shown itself as yet becoming common practice.

“I think there’s a case to be made that workforce development is a social imperative,” she argues. “Organizations are one of the few institutions that systematically develop adults, so investing in the growth of employees isn’t just a business strategy, it’s a meaningful contribution to society.”

Roos strongly believes that this is a helpful response to the harmful impacts, known and yet considered, on workers and society.

Roos looks ahead and sees what is not yet commonly reported and discussed.

“AI tools are rapidly becoming accessible to everyone, which means the technology itself will not remain a durable differentiator,” she asserts. “What will differentiate organizations is the quality of the humans using those tools: their judgment, experience, relationships, and understanding of complex contexts.”

Which leads Roos to concisely advise leaders of one important point.

“Companies that preserve and develop that human capability may find it becomes one of their most valuable assets,” she says.

It’s important to question how well, if at all, founders and CEOs are communicating what they say is the strategic, financial call to lay off people in larger numbers.

“Unfortunately, few leaders are responsibly and effectively communicating AI-related layoffs,” Roos analyzes. In addition, she sees something very problematic about what is being said that isn’t entirely accurate.

Roos elaborates:

“To my (previous) point, ideally, they would reinvest the gains from AI into the growth and development of their employees and retain the talent versus eliminating it,” she reiterates, “but if that’s not possible, they should explain the business logic plainly and provide time, support and pathways for employees to move forward: internal mobility, training stipends and placement assistance.”

Leadership executives may not be clearly seeing the dangerous costs, at least some of them, involved in a rough handling of the mass deletion of employees.

It’s a natural human response to workplace observation and experience.

“Employees don’t just hear the message,” Roos warns. “They watch the (leadership decision-making and communications) behavior, which means that how leaders navigate these moments becomes the company’s new culture moving forward.”

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Communication Intelligence, a magazine on another platform from 2021-24 and a newsletter on Substack, from 2023-present, is a publication of interviews turned into current event analysis, examinations of important quotes from leaders, features, reports — and a collection of contributed Insights & Advisory.

There is additionally a LinkedIn company page for the newsletter.

Markup AI CEO Matt Blumberg gets excited about the value he has been able to build with AI technology to construct what he calls a “fantasy board of directors,” which for him, has included Warren Buffett, Oprah Winfrey and the late Steve Jobs, to accompany the advice that he receives from his own board.

Blumberg used a mix of ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude to create 5,000 world profiles of each advisor and train them on Markup AI’s business, according to Fortune.

“I’ll say things like: Hey, I’m doing a presentation for our kickoff meeting next week. What do you think are the top three themes I should hit?” Blumberg said. “As a CEO steering a company’s strategy and execution, any additional inputs and learnings and challenges strengthen my work.”

Is he on to something that can work for other business leaders?

Bob Gourley, who runs a cybersecurity consultancy and intelligence platform and is chief technology officer at OODA, sees the value that Blumberg has explained.

“The idea is both efficient and conditionally effective,” Gourley says.

“From an efficiency perspective, no human research approach could equal synthesizing thousands of profiles and contextualizing them to a corporation's plan, in a matter of hours.

“The actual worth is in disciplined perspective generation. These systems provide alternate frameworks that assist a CEO in more wide and fast thinking, as well as helping stress-test ideas and unearth patterns.

“That said, the advantage is mostly augmentative, rather than directive.”

He elaborates:

“As a replacement for lived experience, judgment, or fiduciary governance, this approach functions best as a cognitive sparring partner, helpful for ideation, narrative shaping and decision preparation,” Gourley asserts.

“When used properly, it provides significant leverage. Used naively, it remains shallow.”

“Corporate law, such as Delaware’s General Corporation Law, requires a board of directors to be comprised of ‘natural persons,’” says Ian Cohen, a corporate and business attorney at at his law firm, IRC Legal, where he offers strategic counsel, deal architecture and fractional GC services to companies, founders and investors.

“Therefore, while this is an interesting exercise (of Blumberg’s) and may provide certain useful advice and guidance, it is not a substitute for an actual board of directors.”

Cohen recognizes how and for what purpose this fictional entity is being used.

“Since Blumberg is using this in preparation for his board meeting, with actual people serving as directors, it is a useful way to anticipate questions, sharpen the board deck and drill down on the substantive points that will drive a productive board meeting.

“This is a valid way for CEO’s and other executives to polish their presentations.”

“It’s an interesting idea and very efficient in the sense that it can get the perspective of a number of people and helps give a critical analysis of a problem in a split second,” says Imran Hussain, a fractional CFO and board member, who works with distressed owner-managed businesses to assist them a turnaround.

“AI can look at a problem and give many possible solutions, which the CEO and the board may not have considered. This allows the senior management team to avoid group think or cognitive biases in their decision making process.”

He points to a clear and primary value.

“… the range of solutions AI can provide, without the expense of hiring a huge team to develop these ideas,” Hussain says.

At the same time, there are concerns to dutifully consider.

“I cannot see AI coming up with an iPod or iPhone idea in the manner that Steve Jobs did, because there was nothing like these devices at the time and therefore, AI had no data to work off.

“That type of human creativity cannot be replicated by AI at the moment.”

This brings up a worthy point of discussion about risk prevention and correction for mitigation.

Critical Factor for Success

“Only with disciplined use can the advantages outweigh the risks,” Gourley stresses, adding that, “The major danger is false confidence, treating probabilistic results as definitive wisdom.”

He offers a recommendation for limiting risk with AI use for board purposes.

“One approach to reduce this is to explicitly present AI-created assistance as hypothesis formation, rather than validation,” Gourley says.

“Leaders should examine results against human advisors, domain specialists and real-world data and refrain from sending major decisions without human review.

“A mindset of skepticism, openness about constraints and distinct boundaries, transform this tool into a strength instead of a burden.”

Who is Being Entrusted with Communicating with AI

“Whether the benefit exceeds the risk is dependent on the person using AI for this purpose,” Cohen says. “Using it thoughtfully and strategically can be a great benefit. But using it to create an entire board deck and agenda without oversight or additional input, would be reckless.”

“AI does not currently have the ability to use intuition to spot anomalies in the data, if the data is bias then the outcome will also be bias,” Hussain explains.

“Overreliance on AI could lead to huge errors in decision-making.”

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Communication Intelligence began as online magazine (2021-2024) on another platform and during that time, also became a free-or-paid newsletter (2023 - present) on Substack. The C.I. brand additionally offers individuals and organizations a variety of services, from written communications as well as communication consulting and coaching.

The newsletter is written by a former newspaper reporter, magazine writer, talk show host and communications consultant and advisor.

A story that acted as a catalyst for territorial anger and resentment in parts of Hollywood inspires a bigger, world-wide question: should we be concerned with technology outsourcing more work that requires what we think society needs: us?

Today, the backstory and then, a two-question discussion with three sources.

“A former actress-turned producer, Eline van der Velden, has created Tilly Norwood, an AI performer designed to star in movies without human limitations,” according to the Monday Insights newsletter mention, AI is creating Hollywood’s first digital actress.

“van der Velden spent six months with a 15-person team creating 2,000 iterations to perfect the digital star, drawing on her experience trying to break into Hollywood.

“The project sparked fierce backlash when it went viral in September, with major directors calling it ‘horrifying’ and actors warning it could eliminate jobs and erode cinema as an art form.”

van der Velden was not moved by it. She says she’s signed about 60 Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) for projects ranging from $10 million to $50 million featuring Norwood or similar AI actors, reported Monday Insights.

There is an interested market, she insisted. “AI will drastically cut production costs and create ‘a whole new creative renaissance,’” MI reported van der Velden as saying.

The Backlash is Ignorant, van der Velden Believes

“To those who have expressed anger over the creation of my AI character, Tilly Norwood: she is not a replacement for a human being, but a creative work, a piece of art,” said van der Velden in a statement. ”Like many forms of art before her, she sparks conversation and that in itself, shows the power of creativity.”

She has launched AI talent studio Xicoia, which is designed to create, manage and monetize hyperreal digital stars, reported Tim Dams, writing at Broadcast International.

Could this type of technological capacity potentially help AI replace people in certain professions that we are not yet considering? How likely or not is it, is it a reasonable curiosity as we read, see and hear of what is currently transpiring? In other words, is anxiety reasonable or overblown?

“I think the gutting of industries is going to happen much faster and more brutally than most realize,” says Joshua Crumbaugh, a (ethical) hacker, social engineer and the founder and CEO at PhishFirewall, an autonomous, AI-driven security awareness training and phishing simulation platform.

“I also believe 2026 will be the year of the $100M solopreneur, the first person to hit that valuation, without hiring a single employee.”

The technology is simply so effective and rapid that it will push many people aside. Yet it will also make work far easier and more satisfying, Crumbaugh also argues.

“AI has become a 50x force multiplier for me personally; I can do more work in a week now than I could in a year just two years ago,” he says. “If you aren’t figuring out how to 50x your value, you’re already behind.”

“The surprising one,” says Pavel Sukhachev, founder and CEO at Electromania, which builds AI-first automation systems for banks, startups and small businesses, is “middle managers.”

He elaborates:

“Think about your boss’s boss. What do they do? They track projects. They make reports. They move information up and down. AI does this now. It does it faster. It never sleeps.”

Sukhachev provides some numbers to continue the discussion.

That’s not the only developing risk.

“The hidden crisis,” Sukhachev adds, is, “entry-level jobs.”

He explains the reasoning.

“Here is the real problem: young people learn by doing boring work. A new lawyer reads contracts. A new coder writes simple code. AI does this now. Companies stop hiring beginners,” Sukhachev says.

He doesn’t believe that every professional has to be concerned or worry.

“News anchors are safe. Professors are safe. Surgeons are safe,” Sukhachev says. “Why? Not because AI cannot do their work. Because we will not let it.

“A robot surgeon sounds scary. Who do you sue if it fails? The FDA will not approve it. Insurance will not cover it. 60% of Americans say they do not want AI making health decisions. Trust is the wall. AI cannot climb it.”

He summarizes his forecast.

“Jobs you can do from your couch will change,“ Sukhachev says.

“Jobs where you must show up, look someone in the eye or sign your name to the risk? Those stay human.”

What AI Won’t be Doing and What It Really Is

Some worry and fear is unnecessary. Clarity can bring peace.

“What is happening much faster is AI is giving people super-power tools that let a small number of people operate them, to do things faster.”

Bajpai points to examples.

“In media and news, AI is not really replacing journalism. Credibility, judgment and accountability still plays an important role and we need strong journalists for that.

“In education, AI does not replace teachers easily, especially in real classrooms, because teaching is not just content delivery and that was a good learning from Covid days where everything went online. It involves motivation, supervision and human judgment.

“Teachers are still needed to set the agenda, supervise quality of instructions and intervene when students struggle,” he says.

Bajpai points to the technology’s greater value.

“In any field, AI will handle repetitive task and scaling, while humans stay responsible for and setting up the overall framework and driving the direction,” he says. “How far automation goes really depends on how accurate AI systems are in that domain.

Forecasting the future, specifically the next five to 10 years is more a thinking exercise, a thought-provoking and important one, than an accurate presumption yet people involved in technology know the landscape and future better than the general public.

“It is hard to make predictions but I am confident that over the next five to 10 years AI will primarily scale human productivity rather than substitute humans,” Bajpai says.

“AI systems will get faster and more capable but they will not consistently make human-level decisions in real-world situations.”

Testing and ethics will determine what’s next.

“The pace of change will depend heavily on how accurately AI tools perform in specific domains and how rigorously that accuracy is evaluated and monitored,” Bajpai says.

“In my experience, robust evaluation and real-world validation are what separate useful AI systems from risky ones. That is particularly critical in high-stakes areas like healthcare and safety-sensitive applications.

Another Viewpoint and Warning

“Honestly? I don’t think there is a (so-called) safe list anymore,” argues Crumbaugh.

“Ten years ago, we thought the trades were untouchable; now, robotics are catching up to the AI brains. People think surgeons or doctors are ‘too extreme’ to be replaced but AI can often diagnose and perform with a precision that humans can’t match.”

What He Sees Coming

“What will change is the nature of celebrity and content,” Crumbaugh asserts. “I expect Hollywood to take a massive hit because the gatekeeping of art is dying.”

He further explains:

“We’re moving toward a world where you’ll go on Netflix, describe exactly what you want to see and it will generate a personalized movie on the fly featuring your favorite actors, who have licensed their digital personalities to the platform,” Crumbaugh says.

The Reality, Like It or Not

“The only thing that won’t happen is a return to ‘normal,’” he adds.

There can still be a protective layer, coming from the human mind and experience.

“The only real defense left for humans in any field, whether you’re watching an AI actress or talking to an AI doctor, is the gut check,” Crumbaugh says.

“If it feels ‘off,’ it probably is. But as these models get more intelligent and capable, that gut check is going to be the only thing standing between us and total digital deception.”

There is, at least for now, encouraging news.

“AI will not replace real feelings,” Sukhachev stresses.

“AI can fake empathy. Humans know. A chatbot named Tessa tried to help people with eating problems. It gave diet tips to people with anorexia. It was shut down in days.

“There is something called the ‘uncanny valley,” he adds. “When AI feels almost human but not quite, we feel creeped out. This applies to emotions too. AI therapists will handle paperwork. Real healing needs real humans.”

Back to AI-Actress, Tilly Norwood

“She never forgets lines. She works for free. She can be in 100 ads at once,” Sukhachev says. “Critics say she has no soul. No backstory. Nothing to draw from. SAG-AFTRA now has rules: if you use a digital copy of an actor, you pay them as if they showed up. This removes the cost benefit.

“AI makes the instrument. Humans remain the conductor.”

AI Still has to be Accountable

“The FDA says humans must check AI medical tools. The FAA bans ‘learning AI’ from flight systems. Insurance companies now exclude AI decisions from coverage,” Sukhachev says.

The Safety Net

Sukhachev says there is a protectant that we may not be remembering.

“The bottleneck is not technology. It is us: our laws, our trust, our need to hold someone responsible when things go wrong.”

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Communication Intelligence began as online magazine (2021-2024) on another platform and during that time, also became a free-or-paid newsletter (2023 - present) on Substack. The C.I. brand additionally offers individuals and organizations a variety of services, from written communications as well as communication consulting and coaching.

The newsletter is written by a former newspaper reporter, magazine writer, talk show host and communications consultant and advisor.

Carmine Gallo recently argued, in his Forbes’ article, Why Every Leader Needs A Simplifier-In-Chief To Cut Through AI Confusion. Could he be the voice in the wilderness that organizations and AI communications experts need right now?

Gallo, a former journalist and currently an author and the president at Gallo Communications Group, wrote “CEOs and leaders know they have to leverage AI to transform their business, but they’re just as confused as everyone else on how best (do it). Their confusion is your opportunity.”

He briefly elaborated.

“When a CEO says they want people who ‘understand AI,’ what they really want is a Simplifier-In-Chief: a person who uses AI and, more importantly, can explain it clearly enough to drive action.”

Media reports show that most CEOs are not satisfied with the current knowledge, degree of application within the workplace, competency with the technology and the earned tangible benefits.

“While 97% of C-suite executives view artificial intelligence as transformational, only 13% of companies report creating measurable business value from their investments, an 84-percentage-point gap between perception and execution,” wrote John Brewton in his Substack newsletter, Operating by John Brewton.

“Organizations purchase AI tools, deploy platforms and mandate adoption, yet fail to build workforce capabilities necessary to leverage these systems effectively,” Brewton added. “The result is expensive technology that generates a minimal return.”

So, is Gallo making a credible call for simplification?

“The workplace needs a simplifier now more than ever,” contends Mary Sahagun, a public relations and communications strategist and the founder at TargetLink.

“In every AI-driven company I’ve worked with, the biggest source of friction isn’t the technology, it’s the gap between what the AI can do and what people think it can do. A simplifier closes that gap.”

She knows why a specialist can prove helpful.

“When someone can communicate AI in a way that feels human, grounded and non-threatening, adoption stops feeling like a chore and starts becoming something people voluntarily participate in,” Sahagun says.

She knows from experience and has been impressed.

“I’ve seen teams shift dramatically once AI is explained with clarity, instead of jargon,” Sahagun reports. “People stop resisting, start asking smarter questions and begin using the technology with actual intention.”

This is because something takes root in people’s minds.

“A simplifier gives employees the confidence to act, not because they suddenly know everything, but because someone finally made the information make sense,” Sahagun explains. “This shift alone can change the pace and quality of how an entire organization embraces AI.”

Heather Page, the chief of staff at TribalScale, a company that identifies strategic opportunities to build, design, and release technology solutions to benefit their customers, isn’t so certain.

“A role like Simplifier-in-Chief or even ‘AI Czar’ is a solution coming out of a misidentified problem,” Page contends.

“Straightforward workforce training on AI basics, when combined with ‘use-case identification’ workshops that help teams identify and test ideas for how to use AI in their job workflows, would be a much better solution.”

She proposes what could achieve CEO goals for more ideal use of AI and the desired and expected financial wins.

“Some organizations can achieve this through their HR or operations function and certainly some of what I’ve mentioned would be best done with a pre-defined outside expert,” Page says.

“Setting up entirely new roles and company divisions is wasteful and unnecessary, because your teams already now what they need to do and if you can empower them with AI, they can figure out where it fits into your business. “

She recommends a specific approach to ensure improvement and growth.

“The key thing is to empower your team members and leverage short, transparent feedback loops,” Page says. “Help teams learn from each other, showcase wins and build a culture of learning by doing. Your ‘simplifier expert’ could also be one of these empowered team members.”

Indra Nooyi was the chairman and chief executive officer at PepsiCo from 2006 to 2018 and in her book, My Life in Full, she communicated that her “skill in being able to “‘simplify problems and communicate them effectively’ proved to be a valued strength,” Gallo wrote.

“She became considered irreplaceable and rose to a respected CEO position. Nooyi was known for asking, “What problem are you trying to solve?”

Questions help teach and create understanding.

This earns respect and trust.

“When an AI expert does the same, they instantly become someone others can rely on,” Sahagun adds. “It builds trust because people can tell the conversation is about their experience, not the expert’s ego. And once trust is built, teams become far more open, curious, and adaptable — exactly what the modern AI workplace needs.”

Page advises deeper engagement with your people

“For best results, you need to meet teams where they are and be willing to get into the weeds and listen,” she says.

“This is why it can be more effective to teach these skills to the teams you want to see benefit from this approach, rather than designing a broad role and scope for someone new.”

She addresses Nooyi’s curiosity to define where difficulty and assistance is needed.

“Questions like Nooyi’s help identify assumptions being made through the design of a service or workflow,” Page says.

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Communication Intelligence began as online magazine (2021-2024) on another platform and during that time, also became a free-or-paid newsletter on Substack. The C.I. brand additionally offers individuals and organizations a variety of services, from written communications as well as communication consulting and coaching.

The newsletter is written by a former newspaper reporter, magazine writer, talk show host and communications consultant and advisor.

More people are turning to AI-powered chatbots for emotional support, some even claiming the technology has saved their lives. Researchers and clinicians however are less convinced about the safety and benefits. Concerns are being raised about the limits, risks and ethical concerns of relying on machines.

“The number one use of AI in 2025 is companionship and therapy,” says Rachel Wood, who has a PhD in cyberpsychology and who specializes in how AI shapes mental health, relationships and the future of mental health services.

“While some are optimizing their workflows with AI, others are bonding with it, deeply but one of the more insidious risks is the potential for the atrophy of bi-directional relational skills.”

She explains what that means in layman’s terms.

“When you are relying on an always-on, always-agreeable chatbot, healthy relational skills such as patience, negotiation and conflict resolution can slowly erode over time for a lack of practice,” Wood says.

There are parts of relationship understanding that technology doesn’t fully grasp.

“Think about a time when someone sacrificed something for you or, you for them. That's a powerful experience,” Wood explains, adding, “Chatbots will never be able to give or receive that level of relational depth.”

A high cost could possibly or likely result from an overreliance on AI.

“This could potentially translate to lack of these skills in our human relationships due to over-use or extended use within the asymmetrical dynamics of a chatbot relationship over time,” Wood points out.

She has observed the landscape and it inspires questions and forecasts challenges.

“The artificial companion platform Character AI has 20-million monthly users, over half of whom are under 24-years old,” Wood says. “Think about how future generations will have inherently different relational muscles due to AI interaction being an engrained facet of their emotional ecosystem.”

It’s important to look forward and accurately as possible, determine what mental health care could or will look like, the positives and dangers, involving technology.

“We are in nascent stages with AI. This is only the beginning of the beginning,” Wood says. “With rapid advancements and adoption of it, I think the future is evolving quicker than even experts can keep up with.”

Positives

“At this point, the positive I see with AI in therapy is the administrative tools that help clinicians do their work with greater efficiency,” Wood says. “This, of course, comes with a caveat because even tools like therapy-note transcription and summarization hold potential risk of hallucinations and algorithmic bias.

“However, when these types of tools are used to aid in the therapist's reflection and insight, it can be a very powerful multiplier.”

She sees more that she deems helpful.

“AI chatbots are increasing access to mental health support in an unprecedented way, which is very positive,” Wood says. “I regularly hear stories of individuals who have found AI useful as reflective tool or interactive journaling space.

“AI tools that are developed with safety and ethics in mind are helping those who would otherwise not seek therapeutic support, find the courage to embrace difficult parts of their life and eventually even go to see a human therapist.”

The Blind Spot and Developing Gap

Wood stresses that the AI tools that are developed and being improved require ethical standards and close observation is needed. What she doesn’t see, at least yet, is a significant move away from therapists to technology for services from licensed professionals. There is a different, larger risk, that has her attention.

“I think we have an entirely new issue that will continue to present itself in our practices: AI attachment, over-dependence and psychosis,” Wood says. “Though these are edge cases right now, it is something I believe a majority of therapists will encounter in their practice within the coming years.”

Protective fences through proactive actions, more than responsive ones, can help society with where it is and is headed.

“We need widespread AI literacy, addressing both the benefits and the limitations” of the technology, Wood advises. “On the AI-development side, we need to be thinking about the following types of components as a minimum baseline for ethical design:

“Frameworks for crisis intervention, escalation, access to human help lines, consent and disclosures reminding users of AI non-personhood and cultural competence for bias mitigation. Of equal importance are issues such as data privacy, independent audits and incident response plans.”

She circles back, in conclusion, to her initial point.

“We want these systems to empower users to connect with other humans and practice important skills such as bi-directional boundaries and beneficial friction,” Wood professionally argues.

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AI isn’t ideal or recommended for every communication purpose and exchange.

It likely will become more tempting and used even when there is risk involved.

Harvard Business Review addressed this important concern in an article in its May-June issue: Why CEOs Should Think Twice Before Using AI to Write Messages.

Interesting and useful findings from a study included:

“When people thought an answer was created by AI, they rated it as less helpful even if it came from a human.

“Conversely, when they thought a CEO had given an answer, they found it more helpful even if it was from AI.”

Knowing this upfront may help you make adjustments if you use AI to increase the probability of having your communication judged credible and beneficial.

A woman I used to know liked to say, “people are funny.” After I heard her say it a few times, including once about me, I had a hunch and asked her about it.

“When you say funny, do you mean that people are weird,” I inquired.

“Yes, that’s what I’m saying,” she replied.

The same applies here about people and their convictions about AI. If you don’t like the interpretation of weird, you can think, “different” or “funny.”

Our minds believe human answers, in more situations than not, are more honest and better than AI-generated ones. Whether that conclusion is factual or perceived, what people naturally assume or presume is what is often more important.

The new reality is that most leaders will, according to the publication, “use gen AI in some form or fashion.”

Research backs that up: “Fifty percent of U.S. CEOs say their companies have already automated content creation with it, according to a 2024 Deloitte survey,” and that “Seventy-five percent say they have personally used or are using the technology.”

It makes sense for efficiency sakes. It also means that poor judgment will be exercised.

Risks will be taken, sometimes recklessly, so Prithwiraj Choudhury, a Harvard Business School professor, offered three guidelines for CEO AI messaging use.

1. Be transparent

“If your employees discover that you’ve outsourced your communications without telling them, they may start to believe every message you send is drafted by a bot,” HBR wrote.

“Transparency is essential to building trust and allaying people’s aversion to gen AI.”

People still want to know who really is talking to them, especially if you’re putting your name on that communication or if its about a sensitive matter.

2. Use AI for impersonal messaging

“The technology is more effective for formal communications, such as shareholder letters or strategy memos, according to Choudhury’s research,” per HBR. “Avoid it for personal communications, especially with people who know you well.”

This is a small, yet important, reminder. Less is expected from people with AI communications when it’s used for highly-formal communications.

Personal communications are different because people may feel you are not treating them as human beings worthy of your time and a genuine, interpersonal interaction.

3. Triple-check your work

“Rather than simply copying and pasting AI’s responses into a document, review and fact-check every word, especially for important and sensitive messages,” HBR recommends.

Choudhury explains what is top of mind at this point.

“Gen AI is a great tool that will save CEOs a lot of time but I don’t think you can let it run completely on its own,” he stated. “Even if it answers only one question incorrectly, you will suffer huge unintended consequences.”

As someone who has missed needed edits at times, it can be a big embarrassment, whether in media or business communications. It doesn’t reflect positively on us and as a CEO, the expectations are much higher and the stakeholders more critical.

AI in all or even some communications may not viewed as ethical. It might be harshly judged and possibly, prove highly upsetting. It’s not worth the risk to credibility, trust and relationships. Judicious use is smarter and safer and is good risk management.

If using AI, labeling it as such is a form of respectful transparency that may prevent backlash. Consider that errors not caught are additionally going to be a bad look and bring who knows what sort of costs your way. Fact check. Precisely.

AI is a tool, one that can be respected, if applied correctly and responsibly used or it can cause serious, self-inflicted problems.

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Some people work within cultures where the standard is that of highly-ethical beliefs, practices and conduct and where deviations from them are promptly identified and properly corrected. This, to no surprise of anyone, is not every workplace.

Anne Glaberson is the founder at Pathos X, which equips individuals with the tools they need to survive inhospitable workplaces and the creator of DecodifyAI, which provides insight and critically-necessary evidence to give “bad bosses and bullies no place to hide,” the company website communicates.

She says that the technology service offering is the first AI-powered "proof engine" for workplace harm.

“In a climate where half of employees have fled toxic workplaces and trust in HR is low, DecodifyAI provides what workers need most: proof,” Glaberson asserts.

“It meticulously scans workplace communications: emails, chats and meetings, transforming them into objective evidence of harmful behaviors like manipulation, exclusion and bias.”

She elaborates to show how this is accomplished.

“It captures these patterns in hard data, validating what people often feel but struggle to show,” Glaberson explains, adding, “Employees can go beyond gut feelings and see precisely what’s happening, turning fleeting impressions into solid evidence they can use to make informed decisions or push for change.”

She has written that it was “built it to empower individuals by analyzing the written and verbal communications they’re already part of."

Glaberson talks about how that can be beneficial in practice.

DecodifyAI serves employees best interests “by translating the subtleties of workplace communication into clear, data-backed insights,” she says.

“Rather than relying on vague feelings or half-remembered conversations, users gain private, objective evidence of the dynamics at play, identifying who's driving certain behaviors and how these patterns evolve over time.”

This results in meaningful understanding and increased confidence to move forward.

“This not only validates their perceptions, turning suspicion into certainty, but also offers them the power to act,” Glaberson says.

“With these insights, employees can decide whether to escalate concerns to HR, recalibrate their own strategies or set firm boundaries, all while feeling confident they’re acting on solid ground rather than guesswork.”

She wrote that "For whistleblowers, this means they're no longer stumbling through their story alone. They have behavioral clarity. They can show the pattern — who did what, when and how often and most importantly, they can back it up.

“When everything is designed to silence or discredit you, having your own forensic analysis in your hands isn't just validating, it’s survival."

This likely will be encouraging and helpful to a person’s emotions, psychology and well-being. Glaberson discusses how the technology works for employees to responsibly and ethically utilize the assistance.

It “is built to give whistleblowers a discreet, data-driven way to protect themselves and validate their claims,” she says. “It keeps everything private and in the user's hands. Employees run DecodifyAI on their personal devices, away from company monitoring, and they decide which communication channels to analyze.”

Glaberson briefly delves into how the technology runs.

“The platform encrypts all data and stores reports securely, focusing on behavior and language patterns like power dynamics and tone shifts,” she explains. “Federal law and the National Labor Relations Act protects employees documenting potentially hostile working conditions, overriding state laws and company policies.

It “is built to safely gather real evidence of workplace harm and ensure employees aren't left to fight invisible battles alone.”

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Coming forward is a dangerous act in multiple ways and requires courage.

"Whistleblowing has always been a lonely act of truth-telling against power,” Glaberson has written. “We’re giving people the one thing they’ve always lacked: leverage."

When asked about what that looks like, she was quick with an answer.

It is done “by turning the invisible into the irrefutable. It transforms gut feelings and isolated incidents into clear, data-backed evidence of systemic problems,” Glaberson says. “No more hazy stories.

“DecodifyAI delivers concrete, time-stamped proof of recurring harm like discrimination, undermining and manipulation.”

Order and timing are important in most all strategy and it’s no different with this technology to help people protect and defend themselves when something needs to be said and brought into the light.

“It's best to begin documenting as soon as troubling patterns are noticed,” Glaberson recommends. “Early use lets individuals build a robust record over time, giving them insight and leverage before issues escalate.”

The “real risk” these days, she warns, “is being unprotected.”

There is comforting news.

“Employees can build a case without ever confronting a boss or involving HR, sidestepping the very real threat of retaliation,” Glaberson says.

“While DecodifyAI watches in the background, they gain leverage for negotiation, legal accountability or liberation.”

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The uses for artificial intelligence (AI) in workplaces are expanding and an executive implemented it in her work to help with communication and conflict exchanges.

Moderna chief human-resources officer Tracey Franklin recently talked about it at the Fortune Workplace Innovation Summit, saying that she uses AI to predict scenarios with coworkers before they happen.

She described her thinking and how she goes about it.

“We have a lot of personality tests that we use in the organization so I've created profiles in a GPT of our executive committee,” Franklin said. “I have scenarios of when two people are maybe at conflict or when I have to go in with an opinion or recommendation and how might the group react to my recommendation."

She also uses AI for helping her emotionally and psychologically.

“Or if I'm having a really bad day and I need to understand myself and why I'm triggering, I actually have an interactive coach, therapist and teammate for me that I use all the time. It's been my favorite thing.”

Franklins prepares for uncertainty through the use of technology as a trusted assistant.

“And I've said, here's the situation, how are these two people going to react? Or this is what happened, why did these two people react this way? And how best can I coach the reconciliation,” she explained in detail.

She has been impressed by how much help she has gained from this assistance and her preparation.

“I will tell you, I think I am pretty good with people but it gives me an advantage that I didn't have before because I don't fully understand someone's innate, human personality response like the GPT allows me to do,” Franklin expressed.

“Using AI like a smart sounding board that analyzes people’s personalities and helps guide difficult conversations adds a whole new layer to how leadership and conflict resolution can work,” says Roman Eloshvili, the founder at ComplyControl.

“Artificial intelligence can offer a fresh perspective, helping leaders consider angles they might have otherwise missed, helping cut down on what is usually a time-consuming and mentally-draining process. As a result, problems can be addressed faster and solved in a better manner.”

He is a believer in how the technology can help processes across the board.

“If leaders are thoughtful about how they use AI, it can genuinely improve how teams work together,” says Eloshvili.

“I do think this kind of use will become more common, as AI itself grows more user-friendly. Right now, most companies view it as a tool for operational efficiency first and foremost, but when this tech gains broader trust and acceptance, its use in people-related situations will also follow.”

“Practicing difficult conversations by role-playing is a time-tested means of preparing for them,” says Ann Gregg Skeet, senior director of leadership ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University.

“Using a chatbot instead of a person to prepare might reduce an executive’s self-consciousness about role-playing and frees her from having to find someone willing and available to participate.”

She’s quick, however, to communicate caution.

“But turning to AI for things to replace things that make us uniquely human — like our emotions, our unpredictability, our feelings, is concerning as it can create a cycle where humans become increasingly isolated from one another, seeking solutions to challenges from machines rather than other people,” Gregg Skeet says.

She elaborates as to why this can be problematic.

“The human brain is wired to connect with others and practices that reduce that connection run the risk of changing human brains,” Gregg Skeet says.

"There are demonstrated, researched risks and harms of using conversational AI systems to simulate human relationships,” she adds. “Such AI systems can lead to the development of emotional dependence on machines or manipulation by them, and can introduce privacy risks and biases.”

Gregg Skeet figuratively points to Franklin’s use of the technology to assist her in communication and conflict preparation.

“In this example, the executive is feeding sensitive information into an unpredictable AI system, which exposes that data to risk of future access or of being used to train AI systems further,” she argues.

“How will she feel if the profiles and personality descriptions she has provided about her team become public,” Gregg Skeet rhetorically asks? “How would her team feel if they knew their responses to conversations were being shared with an AI?”

She does believe that Franklin’s desire to be better informed is noble, yet warns that there are dangers involved.

“Attempting to improve one’s conversational abilities is virtuous but executives should
consider the potential ethical risks of doing so using AI, including how it impacts the rights of others,” Gregg Skeet says.

“While companies like Microsoft have been working on using AI to analyze team performance through applications such as Microsoft Teams to give leaders insight into what hours work best for who, call times, chat etiquette, etc., what you’ve described focuses more on developing deep, interpersonal relationships,” says Nizel Adams, CEO and chief engineer at Nizel Co.

“I’ve always advocated that psychology be a part of the regular curriculum starting in grade school since understanding each other and how we all function is a crucial survival skill,” he adds.

“Unfortunately, most people aren’t psychologists, therapists, behavior and body language experts, counselors, etc. so they tend to have a poor skillset in reading others and responding appropriately.”

He is an advocate for technology that can improve how we interact, problem solve and work.

“This tool bridges that gap and hopefully with enough use, the user of it will start to naturally develop these skills themselves,” Adams says.

“Understanding each other leads to less conflict, higher morale and increased efficiency. AI could also provide insight for leaders that don’t realize an employee may have a learning disability or mental illness and guide them through the appropriate way to interact with them in order to help them be as successful as possible.”

He anticipates greater adoption for interpersonal use.

“As the results from use start pouring in, more companies will definitely start incorporating it,” Adams says.

AI for Self Understanding and Self Care: Yes or No?

Franklin values the use of AI to help her when she feels her emotional well-being has been shaken and she is feeling off balance. Franklin has found the technology can be used for self care as well as conflict repairs and relationship healing.

This could be useful for executives and any employees if it caught on, as an aid for stress relief. Yet it might not always be the best assistance for everyone.

"There is a robust executive coaching industry available to executives wanting to improve self-care and their conflict resolutions skills and heal professional relationships,” Gregg Skeet says.

“AI offers perhaps a more cost-effective and ever-ready remedy but does not provide executives with the opportunity to connect with other humans to think and practice together strategies for improvement.”

She further explains the concerns.

“There are well-documented harms associated with using AI to simulate human relationships,” Gregg Skeet says. “Executives will have to be comfortable with those potential harms and the privacy risks associated with putting sensitive information
into AI systems for the use of AI as executive coaches to become more widespread.”

She favors traditional professionals and approaches for risk management and ethical purposes..

“Effective coaches and therapists teach people how to understand themselves, what is triggering them and how to appropriately respond,” Gregg Skeet says. “People relying on instant-access AI to address such skill gaps may never fully develop those skills.

“We have come to understand a host of negative, unintended consequences associated with social media,” she points out. “We should apply some of that learning to AI and be prudent in how we choose to use it."

This Type of Use will Require More Time

"The AI technology itself needs to gain more trust,” Eloshvili asserts.

“One of the core obstacles that currently stands in the way of broader adoption, on any level, is the fact that many people are simply not comfortable with it.

“I don’t just mean the perspective of an average worker who may feel like this tech might diminish their value and make them obsolete. Leaders, to my mind, can also be hesitant to adopt AI.”

He brings up people’s natural human natural instinct to elaborate.

“They fear making decisions based on something they don’t fully understand,” he says. “That’s not an unreasonable concern.”

“A person has to feel comfortable and safe in order to say something like (what Franklin said in talking about having a bad day). And you can’t be emotionally open when talking to an AI if you feel it’s just a cold, unfeeling calculator,” Eloshvili explains.

“So that perception needs to change first. And honestly, I feel that if more leaders openly talk about using AI in this way, the more others will follow. It will simply take time for us to get there."

Maybe AI for Low-Level Therapy is Helpful

“Someone once said that a highly successful person goes home and breaks themselves down at the end of the day,” Adams recalls. “They analyze what they did wrong and figure out areas of improvement.

“This critical and often brutal tearing down of oneself is important to not only keep improving but to stay grounded. Essentially this particular AI is giving the user (Franklin) the ability to understand others while also taking a step back and analyzing themselves.”

It won’t work as needed for everyone.

“To use such a thing would require someone with a temperament that grants them the ability able to handle feedback,” Adams says.

“Someone with a narcissistic or selfish mindset would most likely reject it wholeheartedly as they wouldn’t care about others and can’t fathom looking inward.”

AI is not a tool and technology for everything human.

“It’s important to note that AI is not a replacement for emotional intelligence, so it can’t be relied on to provide all the answers you need,” Eloshvili says.

“Leaders will still be the ones driving interactions with their teams but AI can offer greater clarity on how to approach situations in a way that de-escalates tension.”

He provides a bit of advisory.

“The key, as always, is to approach this matter with care and thoughtfulness,” Eloshvili says. “Remember: human feelings are not something you can automate."

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Errors aren’t always costly when understanding, trust or uncertainty are present yet that doesn’t mean that they can’t suddenly, shockingly become highly problematic when surprising, disappointing or upsetting ones materialize.

Many people are excited about AI’s presence, development and implementation, while others are more skeptical, cynical and resistant. Trust matters to that second group. AI has to prove itself to them, over and over, consistently, to earn and maintain credibility.

They may be scrutinizing the quality, ready for mistakes, to satisfy confirmation bias about the technology and it’s ever-increasing growth in use.

Recent research from the University at Buffalo School of Management “reveals that framing the competence of AI systems can significantly influence user perception, yet that only goes so far if those systems fall short of promises and expectations,” wrote Kevin Manne, the associate director of communications at the college.

It’s a point that Sanjukta Das Smith, PhD, the chair and associate professor of Management Science and Systems at the UBSM, talked about with Manne.

“If AI makes a small mistake, users tend to be more forgiving — especially when it has been framed as competent,” Smith said. “But when AI makes a major mistake, trust plummets, and no amount of positive framing can recover it.”

That particular finding maybe was to be expected.

“This is not terribly surprising to me,” Smith tells Communication Intelligence, “as the condition that we tested for in this specific case was that of a major error. We are now digging into this phenomenon further at the moment to see if people tend to blame AI more than the analyst using it, or vice versa.”

The study showed how emotions and psychology are factors determining confidence and acceptance.

“A portion of the public might have a fragile notion of trust in AI to begin with, and so a major mistake ends up doing irreparable damage,” Smith says. “We also suspect algorithm aversion plays a role here: some people instinctively distrust algorithms, regardless of prior performance.”

Organizational leaders should know that the technology won’t likely gain simple, full acceptance from everyone, at least at first.

“Employees won’t automatically trust AI, even if it’s widely used,” stated Laura Amo, PhD, assistant professor of Management Science and Systems at the school and a collaborative author of the research findings, “but emphasizing the reliability and accuracy of AI can encourage the adoption of the technology.”

“Effective communication about AI capabilities should be coupled with genuine competence to ensure long-term trust and user error tolerance.”

With its powerful strengths, potential and the excitement surrounding its use, it’s recommended and wise for leaders to pause and consider how they will protect their — and the AI’s system they utilize — credibility, by not exaggerating and overpromising its technological competencies.

“It’s important to not overhype the capabilities of what AI can do,” Victoria Gonzalez, a PhD candidate at the school and fellow researcher and author on the study, told Manne, ”because if employees feel misled about its capabilities, trust will be difficult to rebuild.”

Being forthright in persuasion regarding change management will benefit buy-in and the employer-employee relationship.

Precisely what constitutes a major mistake becomes an important question.

“Since we are looking at a purely professional — office work — setting,” Smith says, “an error would constitute scenarios where the AI’s output shows significant conflict with, or runs in opposition to, the ground truths, such as market conditions, etc., or new information that has come to light.”

AI, like human thinking, cannot be relied on as being above doubt and question.

“The thinking here is that no model is perfect, and often we discover these errors, minor or major, only after the model has been deployed in the wild,” Smith explains. “While minor errors are inevitable in any model, major discrepancies raise red flags that can cause trust to collapse.”

She speaks to a vital focus of leaders when depending on AI in their organizations.

“The lesson from our study has more to do with managing expectations of the users or consumers of these model results,” Smith details.

She elaborates as to the value of this time investment and approach.

“If employees understand how models work and why errors happen, they’re less likely to overreact when mistakes occur,” Smith explains.

Once a major error happens however, gaining patience, some benefit of the doubt and time to mitigate distrust and uncertainty while making improvements, could be challenging.

“The experiments we have run so far show that the positive effects of ‘promoting’ AI to the users affect their initial trust in AI and their intention to act in accordance with what it suggests,” Smith says. “That effect, however, disappears once errors come to light.”

Thinking more about it, her professional gut instinct tells her something.

Fearful, impulsive leadership reaction or short-sighted, measured response leading to communication that gives off that impression is unlikely then to be helpful.

“A better approach,” Smith contends, “is to be proactive in training all employees in at least foundational AI literacy, so that knee-jerk reactions to errors are avoided when they do happen.”

She elaborates on how this can be a better plan and priming of the mind.

“These types of training may allow them to hold more measured, pragmatic viewpoints, considering the performance of the model in the past,” Smith forecasts.

“Still, some individuals may draw a hard line after a major error and view any explanation with skepticism, making it all the more crucial to build resilient trust from the outset.”

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It can be reasonably assumed that some critically-needed apologies that will be given will be a product of AI. There are ethical questions about it and some possibility of blowback and consequences, especially in heated conflicts and crises.

It’s a point that Christopher David Kaufman, Ed.D., an adjunct professor at Westcliff University and Southern California State University, points out, providing an example from two years ago, in 2023: Vanderbilt University apologizes for using ChatGPT to write mass-shooting email.

“Even as someone who runs several startups in the AI space, I feel that emotional intelligence is something uniquely human, and that we should deal with our emotions in a sincere way, unmediated by chatbots,” says Catalin Zorzini, the CEO at Fritz AI, a technology that analyzes tools, apps and websites under their supervision, ranking which ones are best and most ethical.

“I find chatbots extremely helpful for many things but we need to cross the line somewhere, in order to preserve the authenticity and sincerity of communicating with other people.”

There are holes in the approach if an overreliance on AI develops for what humans expect coming from each other.

“I think apologies are something intimate, that come from the depth of our being, from a feeling of regret, which cannot be manufactured by a chatbot,” Zorzini says.

“If I would receive an apology that I know it’s AI-generated, I would still appreciate the gesture, but it would not bring the same level of relief that we normally feel when the gesture is sincere and real.”

AI will be used. It’s easy, helpful and tempting.

Yet, it doesn’t have to be a negative if a better understanding of what risks and dangers might be present and people respect them.

“AI, including generative AI, is a tool. It is quite likely that it will be used to address many needs people have, including crafting apologies,” says Doaa Taha, Ph.D., an assistant professor of analytics at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology.

“Apologies pertain to very particular and sometimes personal circumstances, so the first risk is that the generated content will not be appropriate and could compromise the authenticity that is so necessary in a heartfelt apology.”

That’s not the only concern that Taha recognizes and forecasts.

“There is also a risk that the AI-generated response will be identifiable as such and create awkwardness or even worsen the situation,” she says.

This presents a choice about the utilization of AI when an apology is needed.

“This can be mitigated by simply not using AI or by using it as a tool to spark inspiration,” Taha suggests. “It is also recommended that the apologizing party conduct any necessary research, if the apology is related to a complex or technical matter.”

Moving deeper into the types of troubles that humans experience, AI can help people communicate during highly stressful times, just not without potential landmines.

“From a legal and crisis management standpoint, using AI to generate apologies can be seen as efficient for certain large-scale contexts, such as mass error notifications,” says Braden Perry, a litigation, regulatory and government investigations attorney and partner with Kansas City-based Kennyhertz Perry.

“However, it raises concerns about authenticity and human empathy, both of which are fundamental to genuine relationship repair.”

People’s expectations and standards and failing them or falling woefully short means harsh judgment and escalated problems.

It bears watching to learn how society will view, experience and intensely judge such apologies that don’t appear to be human to human.

“The question of AI-generated responses being socially acceptable or not may depend on the recipient, how the AI is being used, and whether the use of AI is assumed or detected,” Taha explains.

“Some people may find the use of AI for this purpose unimportant, while others may come to feel that AI-crafted apologies lack enthusiasm or authenticity.

“With it being used for generative purposes so widely, it may become acceptable and even normalized to issue apologies in this way.”

“Employing AI in conflict resolution may risk sidelining the human elements of empathy and genuine dialogue, which are crucial for restoring trust,” Perry warns.

“Ethical conflict management requires transparency, accountability and a willingness to address and rectify harms — elements that a purely AI-driven process may fail to convey.”

There are other factors that merit consideration.

“Moreover, feeding dispute details into AI can raise ethical and privacy questions,” Perry asserts, “as sensitive or confidential information could be misused or inadvertently exposed, thereby compounding trust issues rather than resolving them.”

Whether it works as intended or hoped depends on the recipient’s expectations.

“Its effectiveness largely depends on people’s individual philosophies when it comes to judging the ethics involved,” Taha says.

She explains her reasoning.

There are greater long-term dangers.

“The main risk lies in becoming overly reliant on AI to manage our relationships instead of using it as a tool or precursor,” Taha states.

“It is increasingly necessary for organizations to develop clearly-defined expectations regarding how it is used to generate content, inform an audience or conduct quality control, in ways that ensure the optimal, ethical and social healthy use of AI.”

She offers guidance.

“People need to decide when it is needed and when it is not,” Taha begins, adding that, “AI can be helpful to analyze information on a complex conflict but it is best used in conjunction with one’s own critical judgment when it comes to navigating conflicts or resolving crises.”

Perry points out possible legal concerns.

“Organizations face potential exposure if AI-generated content unintentionally violates regulations or includes discriminatory language,” he says. “This risk is heightened because AI tools rely on training data and may produce outputs lacking cultural or situational nuances.”

There is also the trust and relationship factor to input into decision making.

AI is Best as a Communication Assistant

“It is a tool that, with the right methodology, can optimize how we access and organize useful information,” Taha says. “But it also exerts an influence on how we communicate with one another and the humanity — real or perceived — of those exchanges.”

Perry agrees with Taha that the technology can be useful as part of the communication process yet may not be needed or beneficial as a crutch.

“Rather than relying solely on AI, individuals and organizations should use it as a preliminary tool — helpful for drafting and brainstorming — but always ensure that a human element remains central,” he says.

“In critical conflicts or crises, personal communication, whether face-to-face or through direct contact, carries far more weight in demonstrating empathy and accountability,” he adds.

In consumer issues, Bob Bilbruck, the founder and CEO at B2 Group and Captjur a strategic consulting and business services firm, says one belief is that the outcome is what matters.

“At the end of the day, resolution to satisfaction of the consumer is the point of a good customer service system or process. If AI does this better then a human, which I would argue is probably the case… it’s good,” he proposes.

Taha offers a reminder.

When work, business and life get more complicated and complex, other approaches and skills are preferable.

Who Are We?

“Tools are who we are,” says Kaufman, a specialist in organizational learning and leadership who consults businesses.

“If we use stoves, skillets, olive oil and garlic, we are probably a Mediterranean chef. If we use hammers, wood and nails, we are probably a carpenter. If we use AI to express our deepest regrets, then who are we?

“Are we as leaders trying to squeeze productivity as a value above responsibility and compassion? If we want the latter, then the tools must follow, even if they are not as productive. Handcrafted still means something.”

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Artificial intelligence is developing quickly. It is attention getting and growing in use in the present and the future. It does come with significant concerns however.

Some of those being “privacy, bias, accountability and the unintended consequences that continue to surface,” Hessie Jones — a strategist, entrepreneur and investor covering AI — wrote at Forbes.

Those are issues that have to be planned for, with reliable safeguards implemented and monitored and prompt corrections made, to show and prove responsibility along the way to progress, stratospheric success and grand financial profits and influence.

A pressing question is how will AI systems prove themselves “ethical, trustworthy and inclusive” as “not just a technical challenge but a moral imperative,” Jones wrote.

This is not yet fully known. With any “good” development in technology there will be noticeable, problematic and maybe critically dangerous gaps between expectations, standards and performance. There will additionally be failings and yes, nefarious participants in the field. How can “issues” be prevented and mitigated?

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Ethical leadership, top down, will be a critical requirement, as will be commitments to governance, compliance and tight oversight, just because of the risk involved for dangerous outcomes.

AI is a gold rush. When massive profits are available for the taking, there are going to be bad decisions, bad actors and abuse present, not necessarily as the norm, but still there and always lurking.

How will the ethical leaders and companies (and they exist) sniff them out early and come together to protect their companies and the industry’s well being?

One way is the intent focus on the greater good, even if it means less obsession on billions or trillions of dollars. Transparency and self control has to be unwavering commitments.

Continuous trust building and maintenance in any company or the industry cannot be secondary in decision analysis and decision making. It has to baked into planning and execution.

“That includes informed consent, clear disclosure of synthetically generated content and information about when and how an individual is interacting with an AI system,” Rebecca Finlay, the CEO at Partnership on AI (PAI), told Jones.

Informed consent: This, like the following two points, is a matter of ethics. Not all companies in any industry or organization, for their rationalized reasons, exercise them yet it’s critical for “good” business, relationship building and maintenance and long-term sustainability.

Clear disclosure: This can be, yet should never be, in the “fine print.” Don’t give users a legitimate reason to question your ethics, character, intent and trustworthiness. It can be painfully difficult if not impossible to regain trust.

Information about when and how: People don’t like being purposely misled and they like it even less when you rationalize the behavior or displace blame by pointing the finger. It’s costly behavior.

It’s an exciting new frontier yet people are watching closely for slip ups and malpractice of leadership and technology. Exceed expectations and pleasantly surprise.

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Communication Intelligence columns are written by this newsletter’s writer and publisher or contributors

Artificial intelligence (AI) in business is constantly developing and increasing the capacity of what it can do and offers.

There are questions surrounding it that Communication Intelligence wanted to ask and learn about, such as what are 1) AI’s most notable strengths 2) what are its current shortcomings to be further developed 3) how can the gaps between what customers/clients/users want and expect and what is being offered to them now be narrowed or bridged and 4) where is the technology likely to be in 1, 3 and 5 years.

The answers to those questions are in this Communication Intelligence Special Report.

“The greatest strength of AI today,” says Erik Severinghaus, founder and CEO at Bloomfilter, which makes software development measurable and efficient, “is its ability to process large amounts of information and respond almost instantaneously.

“Whether it's answering customer service questions, helping a sales team prioritize leads or even managing routine emails, AI can handle simple, repetitive tasks, which often take a lot of time… when it's installed properly, it looks seamless.

“In fact, when a customer receives a personalized response in real time, the speed alone can create a sense of satisfaction that they don't even realize is powered by AI.”

The technology can make challenges less arduous.

“AI helps businesses get access to information in real time which makes problem solving much easier,” says Oindrila Mandal, a senior game product manager at Electronic Arts, a video game company.

“It can simplify and accelerate routine tasks such as note taking, summarization, search, data analysis, making presentations, content generation and more. Another great advantage of AI is that it can perform consistently and dependably with high levels of accuracy. This leads to consistent and predictable stakeholder interactions.”

There are shortcomings, areas of development where AI is not yet as strong as it can be and will be.

“One of its weaknesses, in my opinion, is actually the fault of humans and that is the fact that it is often used ineffectively,” says Edward Tian, the CEO at GPTZero, an artificial intelligence detection software to identify artificially generated text.

“It doesn’t need to be used for everything. You can send a quick chat to a coworker without putting a prompt into a generative AI platform in order to write out your message.

“It can be more valuable to personally write messages to your investors so that they don’t feel less prioritized. Sometimes using generative AI actually isn’t more efficient — or it can be negatively received.”

“AI is not without its limitations,” says Ghazenfer Mansoor, founder and CEO at Technology Rivers, a software development agency.

“One of the significant challenges is its inability to always grasp the emotional nuances of human communication.

“If you're feeling frustrated or down, AI might not pick up on that and could come across as a bit too robotic. AI can sometimes struggle with complex or multi-step problems. It's like using a calculator to solve a complex puzzle, it needs a more human touch to get it right.”

The talk about the emotions of communication is regularly brought up by sources.

“The primary shortcoming of today’s models for communication revolves around sentiment analysis,” says Jeff Oskin, the founder at NewLogiq, which helps small-to-midsized companies improve operations.

“The spoken or written human word has sentiment — emotion — embedded in the words or phrases that are chosen. Today’s AI models struggle to pick up on these nuances, which in turn degrades the experience of the recipient.”

“Despite its strengths, AI as a communication tool has several shortcomings or areas in need of development,” says Matt Rosen, founder and CEO at Allata, a company that helps clients to craft unique customer experiences, identify revenue generating opportunities, and improve operational efficiencies.

“One major limitation is its difficulty in understanding nuance. AI often struggles with grasping subtleties and emotional tones in communication, which can result in misunderstandings.

“Additionally, AI lacks deep contextual awareness, leading to responses that may be irrelevant or inappropriate. Its effectiveness is heavily dependent on data, requiring large volumes of high-quality data and if biased or poor-quality data is used, it can significantly affect performance.

“Furthermore, AI exhibits limited creativity, as it may struggle with creative problem-solving and generating novel ideas.”

The technology, while helpful and valuable, still requires work to become more widely respected, utilized and approved.

“AI still has a long way to go to truly communicate with humans on a deeper level,” Severinghaus says. “I mean sensitivity, nuance, context — what makes us human. Think about it: When someone is frustrated by a delayed order, they don't just want to know when it arrived, they want someone to acknowledge that the delay has ruined their plans. Currently, AI often fails to achieve this goal.”

Communicating factually is not enough when you are interacting with humans and their complexity of emotions and psychology.

“I once saw an AI that gave a technically correct answer, but looked like a robot,” Severinghaus says. “It does not have the ability to adapt to the emotional context of the situation. Artificial intelligence can't even detect subtle signals like tone or frustration in a voice.

“Of course, some systems are starting to look into this area with sentiment analysis, but it is still in its early stages.”

He commiserates with a too-common experience involving frustrating user interactions, which is a call for improvement.

“Another area where the AI ​​fails to maintain a stable and ongoing relationship,” Severinghaus begins, adding that, “If you've ever had an AI-assisted interaction where you had to explain the same problem multiple times, you know what I'm talking about.

“AI often treats each interaction as an isolated event.”

Not everyone is at the point where they feel sufficiently comfortable with the technology to where they believe it will help them.

“It is still hard to completely trust AI, especially dealing with complex tasks or research,” says John Rich, founder at A Rich Opinion, a public relations and marketing firm. “To an extent, high-value outputs should be validated by a human,” he contends.

Impatience and annoyance can emerge with people when AI is considered to be missing the mark.

“Users can get frustrated when the AI can’t understand them in the same way a human would, especially in scenarios that require a more thoughtful or creative approach,” says Aaron White, CEO at Outbound.com, a marketing platform that utilizes AI to automate advertising for small businesses. “That’s an area where I think we’ll see a lot of improvement.”

“The major shortcomings of current implementations of AI is that it works in limited context. AI use cases typically are small and very specific,” Mandal says.

“While AI is great at completing the specific task it was trained for under the ideal conditions of operation, it fails when these conditions are not met or when the request deviates even slightly from what the AI knows.”

She proposes a response.

“One clear area of improvement for AI is creating algorithms and solutions that are widely applicable or that can be easily plugged into a new business context,” Mandal says.

There are additional challenges with the technology.

“AI cannot think, it merely does what it was trained to do,” Mandal points out. “This is why in Generative AI we see the issue of AI hallucination where the AI does not know the exact answer so it starts generating random, incorrect output.”

It is important to understand what can happen — and what remains necessary for better or ideal outcomes.

“Hence for communication use cases, AI might get stuck if complex decision-making is involved,” Mandal reminds leaders. “AI still needs a human in the loop to address the edge cases in communication solutions for stakeholders.”

Price remains an obstacle.

“Another shortcoming is the cost of AI. AI compute and infrastructure costs create a high barrier to adoption,” Mandal says. “Resources must become more affordable to be able to generate a meaningful ROI so that businesses can justify AI adoption.”

The question that reasonably emerges is what needs to be done with to where the gaps are narrowed between what stakeholders expect of AI as far as fullness and thoroughness of communication.

“Laws and regulations need to be created regarding AI usage. We are very behind in this regard,” Tian says. “Until we know what guidelines we can safely operate within when it comes to AI usage, many businesses and stakeholders are going to be apprehensive about using AI.”

It’s important to know to go to the root to work on the tasks to drive improvements.

“First, we must work on language processing (NLP). This makes AI (better) at information, not just the phrases humans use, but also the emotions at the back of them,” Mansoor writes. “It could be notable if AI could not only deliver accurate answers but also understand that you're having a tough day.

“Another aspect is making AI more remarkable adaptable. Right now, it can get thrown off via sudden conditions, so we need to make it more flexible and capable of coping with a broader range of interactions.”

Not everyone is a believer that full AI is the answer in business communications.

“I think the crux of person-to-person communications will remain inherently human,” Rich asserts. “Unless explicitly stated, as soon as a customer finds out he or she has been communicating with a robot, they will lose trust in that brand. I think creating more efficiency in conversations is where AI communications tools will go.”

There could be a deeper issue to tackle, at the foundation of the technology.

“While the AI models will continue to improve and become more sophisticated, the major limiter for most organizations is the cleanliness and centralization of their data,” Oskin states.

“Nearly all models deployed in a corporate setting to support interactive communication require access to data from which the models learn how to behave and interact.

“Voids or inaccurate data will cause the models, no matter how sophisticated, to miss expectations as they will produce inaccurate or misleading responses to user queries.”

Returning to how humans process and function is a critical area for development.

“To narrow the gaps in AI communication, it is essential to enhance its understanding of context and emotion by developing systems with improved natural language processing capabilities,” Rosen says. “This involves creating more conversational AI that supports dynamic, two-way interactions with humans.”

He goes deeper to discuss a core responsibility

“Ethical data use should be prioritized to ensure AI models are trained on diverse and unbiased datasets, thereby improving their reliability and fairness,” Rosen advises.

“Encouraging cross-disciplinary collaboration among AI developers, linguists, psychologists, and ethicists can contribute to crafting a more human-like AI communication experience.”

Severinghaus advocates for it too.

“We need more advanced emotional AI,” Severinghaus advocates. “The technology can begin to recognize not only what a person says, but also how they feel when they say it. Think of it as AI gaining emotional intelligence.

“The more AI understands feelings —whether a person is happy, angry or confused — the more effectively it can respond in a way that feels human.”

He believes the macro is as important in its own right as the micro.

“Beyond emotional intelligence, AI must better see the big picture,” Severinghaus states. “It's not just about answering questions once but about creating a conversation that extends over time. AI systems must use a broader context, ranging from a person's previous interactions to their long-term relationship with a brand or company.”

The reasoning is clear.

“In this way, the AI ​​not only deals with this problem, but also takes into account the relationship and the general history,” he says.

Fluidity should come with time and skill. It needs to do so.

“AI is still pretty rigid,” White contends. “It works best when it follows predefined scripts or algorithms. To meet stakeholder expectations, it needs to become more flexible and capable of handling unexpected or nuanced situations.

“This will likely involve advancements in natural language processing and emotional intelligence within AI systems, so they can better gauge a user’s intent and provide more meaningful, human-like responses.”

People should not excluded even when the technology becomes advanced.

“One way to narrow the gap between stakeholder expectations is to build AI solutions with a human-in-the-loop where a human expert can step in when the AI performance starts deteriorating,” Mandal advises.

“Another way is to ensure the AI is trained on large volumes of high-quality contextual data that is clean, accurate and labeled effectively so that the AI solution can answer all edge cases.”

Companies should remain engaged with users, at least presently.

“An interim solution is to also provide training to customers, clients and business stakeholders on how to use the AI and get the most effective answers from it.”

The near future could bring rapid improvement and capacity of function.

“I strongly believe AI will become the de-facto mode of customer communication in the next 5 years,” Mandal says. “With AI models becoming more advanced and compute infrastructure becoming inexpensive, AI will get much better at addressing customer and client concerns.

“There will be less and less need for human-in-the-loop solutions as organizations improve data quality and labeling. I think AI communication solutions will be able to satisfactorily address most edge cases and complex customer problems within the next 3-5 years.”

Other sources who spoke to C.I. see similar progress coming.

“In the next year, AI is expected to better understand context and provide more relevant responses. It will be more like conversing with someone who truly knows you,” Mansoor forecasts.

“In three years, AI might even start exhibiting more empathy, thanks to advancements in emotional intelligence. Imagine an AI that not only answers your questions but also empathizes with how you feel.

“And in five years, AI could handle complex conversations almost as adeptly as a human. It will be able to tackle specific issues while still maintaining a personal and engaging tone,” he adds.

As this happens, there will a changing out of technology.

“Over the course of the next year or two, leading organizations will look to replace existing chatbot or IVR technology with AI chatbots or AI voicebots,” Oskin says, going on to explain the reasoning and impetus behind it.

“These tools are inherently more flexible than traditional chatbot-IVR technology that required each question and resulting response to be scripted. In this paradigm, if a user asked a question that was unknown to the technology, it would not be able to respond, which in turn frustrated users.

“AI chatbots or AI voicebots differ in that they are completely unstructured and therefore do not require scripted questions for each and every scenario a customer may pose. Rather these tools simply require access to historical data such as ticketing systems and from the data are able to dynamically respond to user queries.”

Within three years, Oskin predict there will be further evolution within workplaces.

“AI technologies will mature to the degree that they sit ‘side-by-side’ with employees, also known as AI teaming,” Oskin says.

“This collaboration will aim at enhancing productivity, where AI handles routine inquiries, data processing and provides real-time insights, allowing human employees to focus on more complex problem-solving and personal customer interactions.”

Further down the road, he sees even more assistance for businesses and their people.

“AI will be able to take on full business processes such as sales and sales demonstrations,” Oskin says.

“Imagine the sale of software where the entire experience, including demonstrating user-specific scenarios, proposal development, contract negotiations, etc. is handled by an AI agent. Similar approaches can be done for other industries,” he details.

Communication that now may seem inadequate or poor will develop to an acceptable or excellent level.

“Within a year, we can expect improved chatbots that offer more natural and contextual interactions, along with better integration into customer service workflows, as well as enhanced analytics tools providing more predictive insights and automated reporting,” Rosen says.

“Looking ahead to three years, AI is anticipated to achieve advanced personalization through refined communications tailored by real-time data analysis and predictive behavior models, combined with seamless integration across various business platforms to enhance operational efficiency and customer experience.

“In five years, AI is projected to reach augmented communication capabilities, assisting in real-time translation, summarization and complex report generation with minimal human input, while also attaining near-human levels of understanding and empathy, achieving human-like interactions with improved creativity in communications,” he adds.

Potential is significant.

“I think we are on the verge of something really exciting,” Severinghaus says.

“In the coming year, AI will become more conversational. It will be able to answer more complex questions and anticipate needs better than today.

“In three years, we will probably start to see AI that can detect signals. Imagine a customer interaction service where AI can not only detect frustration, but also change its tone accordingly, giving a more empathetic response when things go wrong, so if you are faced with a more complex problem like scheduling an appointment or solving an invoice error, the AI ​​will be able to handle it more easily.”

“I think that in five years, AI will begin to blur the line between human and machine interaction. We will see hybrid systems in which AI takes care of routine tasks and humans intervene when more complex or emotional situations arise.

“And in some cases, AI can even outperform humans in data analysis and analytics. It wont just react to problems; it proactively offers you solutions before you know there is a problem.”

As much as A.I. offers currently, progress could prove exponential.

“We are only scratching the surface of what is possible,” Severinghaus says. “The technology is efficient and scalable but it lacks some essential elements that make human communication so powerful: empathy, context and continuity.

“In the coming years, I am convinced that we will close these gaps and that AI will not only meet our expectations, but exceed them, becoming an essential part of how companies interact with customers and their stakeholders.

“As exciting as this journey has been so far, I am confident that the best is yet to come.”

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Seventy-nine percent of Americans say that they are concerned that AI will lead to dehumanization and weaker social ties, and with it, worse communication. Others worry that trust in communication will be compromised as more people will question and doubt whether they've reached a human or a bot masquerading as a human.

Bruno Nardone, global head of healthcare and life science at Quantiphi, happens to disagree with those understandable, emotional beliefs.

He contends something different is happening and will continue to happen, that being that the technology is “bolstering communication, improving health equity and combating the curse of knowledge (an expert's assumption that everyone shares their foundational level of knowledge),” Nardone says.

He provides an example to explain.

“A medical provider may need to discuss a situation with a colleague one moment and explain it to their patient with no medical background the next,” Nardone says. “With AI, the curse of knowledge can be essentially eliminated, bridging patient communication gaps, stemming from socioeconomic status and-or preferred language barriers, that previously added to the larger health equity crisis.”

Communication always has had problems in organizations as well as healthcare settings. Improvements have been needed and necessary. He infers, contrary to popular conclusions, that they are happening and there is greater humanization.

“AI bolsters communication by leveraging non-traditional health information to help determine what other needs a patient may have beyond healthcare, like access to public transportation or healthy fresh foods,” Nardone says.

He argues that overall care is getting better.

“Using generative AI, the care team may opt to alter discharge recommendations, connect them with community services or counsel them on government benefits that could help them personalize care plans tailored to their unique needs,” Nardone says.

The curse of knowledge takes place in society and can significantly and negatively impact communication, understanding and decision making.

AI can prevent or mitigate it.

“Ultimately, more providers are leveraging the power of generative AI to optimize overall healthcare communications and address communication breakdowns with their patients,” Nardone asserts. “Patients and providers can reserve more time to connect and deconstruct complex medical terminology, ask smart questions and roadmap treatment plans, effectively combating the ‘curse of knowledge’ that can exist during a patient-provider exchange.”

Because of the types of interactions that these exchanges are, this is vitally important.

“Often, too, these kinds of conversations are happening during high-stakes, emotionally-charged moments,” Nardone says. “Having a physician speak in medical jargon that is not well understood by the patient adds to that fear and confusion.”

That can lead to a dangerous lack of necessary communication, unclear explanations and learning that leads to troublesome lack of comprehension.

“Patients can also be too embarrassed to ask additional questions or even for minor clarification,” Nardone says. “Part of compassionate care should be communicating effectively with patients and their families in a language that is well-understood.”

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The encouraging news, he says, is that, “Generative AI is bridging this gap.”

The technology has unique capabilities to serve patients and healthcare professionals.

“Gen AI systems can also help physicians tailor communications to the individual cognitive and education levels of their patients and even alert them when messaging might be victim to the curse of knowledge, based on the nuanced understanding of a patient’s profile,” Nardone explains.

This is a benefit and need that might not otherwise be available.

“Patients can seek a deeper understanding of their physicians' and care teams’ guidance by exploring treatment options or recommendations using layman's terms and have responses tuned based on the vernacular used in questions,” Nardone says. “Capabilities like these ultimately allow for tuning the message for the recipient and mitigating the risk of miscommunications that the curse of knowledge can create.”

He responds to his claim that, "Implementing generative AI can improve population health initiatives through better communication."

“We’re able to analyze incredible amounts of health data, identify patterns and predict outcomes that ultimately lead to health empowerment through knowledge,” Nardone says. “Specific to population health, GenAI can enable far more granular risk assessment, health trend prediction and personalized care planning than traditional approaches allow.”

In short, this will and does lead to “higher confidence to achieve desired outcomes,” he adds. “It also allows health systems to better determine where resources for high-risk populations should be best applied, whether new clinics, facilities or services should be built and what kind of community partnerships should be developed at the city or neighborhood level to support population management goals.”

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