Communicators in the Driver’s Seat of the AI Era

I grew up in a family that was committed to going on road trips. Seriously – I never set foot on an airplane until I was in the fourth grade, and I had already seen most of the Eastern United States by then. These road trips were a labor of love. Weeks before the first day of the trip, my parents would start preparing, spreading maps and regional guidebooks across the dining room table, tracing our routes and tasking me with the ever-important role of going through the guidebooks to pick out the restaurants and motels where we could stop along our route.

The result was… character building. We would sit through hours of traffic, brave less-than-desirable motels and I’ve choked down more limp fast food dinners than I can count.

I look back on those days with nostalgia now, but a modern road trip couldn’t be more different. I sometimes don’t check my route until the morning of, and my phone’s map app supplies me with the best ways to take, recommendations for the best stops along the way and real time offers to reroute me if traffic is backing up. The technology has removed a lot of friction from the experience, but I still have to drive. It’s up to me to keep my eyes on the road, manage risk and get to my destination.

We can look at AI's role in communications in a similar way. It can certainly help, but we need to stay in the driver’s seat.

Trust and authenticity as the differentiator

I did a little experiment and drafted the first draft of this blog with AI. It was fine. It wouldn’t have ruined my reputation to post it online. But it didn’t sound anything like me, or like anything I would ever say. I went back and forth with it trying to make it sound more authentically me, but each iteration was just as generic as the last.

That’s one of the major limitations of AI tools in communications. It can churn out content at an incredible speed, but effectively everyone can also churn out the same volume of content. The information landscape was already packed enough, and we’ve hit a boiling point.

As communicators, this dynamic has made us even more important. Our role has never been simply producing content. It’s adding context, interpreting meaning and deciding what deserves attention. We use our expertise to make sure AI is enhancing, rather than eroding, the trust and originality that set strong communication apart.

This is why journalism and communications still matter so much today. Reporters seek the facts to establish the record, and communicators provide the context that makes that record meaningful. We give shape to the information AI draws from, and we make sure it reaches the audiences who need it. Without that, AI is working with fragments.

AI heightens demand for trusted sources

In today’s media landscape, it sometimes feels like facts no longer matter. Outrage spreads faster than evidence, and truth seems negotiable. But AI has introduced a paradox: while it has amplified misinformation, it also raises the cost of getting things wrong. Large language models are tuned to prefer information that is consistent, corroborated and well sourced. And with so much money and prestige invested in AI’s success, accuracy has become a competitive advantage.

That reality makes the role of communicators and journalists even more critical. With the rise of Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), credible reporting, expert interviews and clear explainers aren’t only shaping the news cycle, they also become the record that AI models draw from. Without trusted sources and well-documented facts, AI systems are far less useful.

Some question whether PR clarifies or clouds the record. The reality is that organizations need help telling their stories and the public needs help making sense of them. Communicators bring those efforts into the open. Journalists put them to the test. Together, they create the accountability and clarity that society, and now AI, depends on.

What AI cannot do: Decide what matters

Predictions abound for when AI is going to be self-sustaining, and human communicators will be rendered obsolete. Will it be six months from now? Six years? In my view, any prediction is alarmist and out of touch with reality.

Knowledge does not sit still. Records go out of date. Context changes. What was accurate yesterday may be misleading today.

AI can remix information endlessly, but it cannot update reality. That requires people who are actively creating, questioning and explaining what is happening in real time. If humans stop shaping the record, AI has nothing worth learning from.