For Immediate Release

Neville and Shel dig into a provocative Harvard Business Review article that argues most marketing teams are structurally unprepared for the speed and scale that agentic AI now enables. The bottleneck, the authors contend, isn't the technology; it's the operating model. Neville and Shel connect the piece to conversations FIR has been having for the past year: AI as orchestration rather than automation, professionals shifting from supervisors of tasks to directors of systems, and 2026 increasingly framed as “the year of the agent.” At the center of the Harvard piece is the idea of a “brand code” — a machine-readable knowledge system that lets specialized AI agents continuously create, adapt, test, and optimize marketing in real time. Communications urgently needs its own equivalent: a “narrative code” containing executive voice profiles, message hierarchies, sensitive-topic guardrails, and escalation rules. Whoever builds it first, he warns, will inherit the agentic stack, and if marketing gets there first, comms will be stuck with a system never designed for crisis, controversy, or stakeholder complexity. The episode also includes some concrete examples and early thoughts on Hermes, Wispr Flow, and where human judgment still has to win.Continue Reading → The post FIR #513: Why Communications Must Build the Narrative Code for the Agentic Age appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

The policies are clear and well communicated. The guardrails are firmly established. Every last employee has been trained. And someone in your organization still releases a public document riddled with AI-generated errors. What went wrong has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with internal culture and accountability. In this long-form April episode, Neville and Shel examine a company that seemingly took all the right steps yet still had to apologize publicly for a court filing riddled with hallucinated citations. Also in this episode: Gartner predicts that, by 2028, 75% of employees will rely on an internal chatbot to get the news that matters to them. How will internal communicators need to rethink their role to ensure everyone knows and understands what they should in order to achieve strategic alignment? One of the promises AI executives have made is a leveling of the playing field, giving lower-level employees the opportunity to excel and rise through the ranks. According to one new study, exactly the opposite has been happening. PR hacks have been accelerating the pace at which they churn out press releases and pitches. That has raised the bar for what it takes to earn a journalist's trust (and journalists do still rely on press releases, according to a survey of reporters). Apple's announcement of its CEO transition offers communicators a clinic on how to announce a new top executive. "Slopaganda" from Iran has proven remarkably effective, which means it is undoubtedly coming for your company or clients soon. In his Tech Report, Dan York outlines big changes coming with WordPress's next update.Continue Reading → The post FIR #511: Doing AI Governance Right and Still Getting It Wrong appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Employees have long found ways to use software tools to get the job done, even when those tools are not approved. It's called Shadow IT, but ever since generative Artificial Intelligence hit the scene in 2022, employees have adopted a new version: Shadow AI. The company approves Microsoft Co-Pilot, but employees opt to use their smartphones or personal laptops, along with their personal accounts with ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Midjourney, or whatever best suits their needs. For most companies, this is a problem that needs to be addressed through repeated policy announcements and vigorous crackdowns. One company, though, took a different approach. In this short, midweek FIR episode, Neville and Shel outline what the company did and how communicators might advocate for a version of this approach to aiding in AI adoption and speeding up productivity gains.Continue Reading → The post FIR #510: Should Companies Embrace Shadow AI? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

When bad actors use AI tools to clone a musician's voice and upload synthetic versions of their songs, they can then file copyright claims against the original artist's content — and win, at least initially. That's because the systems platforms use to validate copyright claims are automated and configured to treat whoever files first as the rightful holder. The result: musicians like Murphy Campbell, a folk artist from North Carolina, lose both revenue and control of their own creative identity. The same mechanism works just as well against any organization that publishes audio or video content online. In this midweek episode, Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson break down how the scam works, why it matters to communicators, and what you should be doing right now — before an incident forces your hand. Continue Reading → The post FIR #509: Does Corporate Content Need Copyright Protection? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

When workers lose their jobs, many turn to gig work to earn income while waiting for new opportunities. Increasingly, companies that hire gig workers are shifting from delivering food or sharing rides to creating content to train AI systems. This raises various communication and ethical issues. Neville and Shel explain what's happening and discuss the implications in this short midweek episode.Continue Reading → The post FIR #508: Inside AI’s Human Raw Material Supply Chain appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Take a stroll through LinkedIn. You'll find no shortage of posts stridently deriding the notion that anyone should ever use AI to write for them. While that case isn't hard to make for professional writers, there are countless professionals in other fields who struggle with writing, never trained to be writers, yet now have to write everything from emails to reports as part of their jobs. Should they really sweat for hours over wording, time they could be devoting to the core areas of subject expertise, when AI can produce content that is cogent, clear, and direct? In this short mid-week episode, Neville and Shel look at the trends in using AI for writing, despite the plethora of opinions from the pundits.Continue Reading → The post FIR #507: Should Nobody Really Ever Write with AI? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In this monthly long-form episode for March, Neville and Shel tackle a trio of interconnected themes reshaping the communications profession in the age of AI. The conversation opens with Anthropic’s top lawyer declaring that AI will destroy the billable hour. That thread leads naturally into JP Morgan’s controversial use of digital monitoring to verify junior bankers’ working hours, where Shel and Neville question whether surveillance technology can substitute for genuine managerial trust and engagement. The episode also examines Gartner’s widely circulated prediction that PR budgets will double by 2027 as AI search engines favor earned media. Shel delivers a detailed report on the escalating misinformation crisis, citing a 900% surge in global deepfake incidents and new research from the C2PA on content provenance standards. The episode closes with a discussion of Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince’s prediction that bot traffic will exceed human traffic by 2027, and a sobering peer-reviewed study on how social bots hijack organizational messaging — research reported by Bob Pickard, who has experienced bot-driven attacks firsthand. Dan York also contributes a tech report on the state of the Fediverse and Mastodon, as well as on AI developments for WordPress.Continue Reading → The post FIR #506: Battle of the Bots! appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In FIR #505, Neville and Shel dig into Hootsuite's Social Media Trends 2026 report, which argues that social media is no longer just a communication channel — it's morphing into a search engine, cultural radar, and real-time research tool. They explore what it means for communicators when younger audiences treat TikTok and Instagram as their primary discovery platforms, and when Google itself starts indexing social content. The conversation also tackles "fastvertising" — the growing pressure on brands to react to cultural moments within hours — and whether that speed actually translates to bottom-line results or just burnout. The discussion takes a provocative turn when Shel raises Ethan Mollick's warning that public forums are being systematically overrun by machine-generated content, with research suggesting one in five accounts in public conversations may be automated. They weigh the AI paradox facing communicators: generative AI has become table stakes for social media production, yet 30% of consumers say they're less likely to choose a brand whose ads they know were AI-created. Neville and Shel agree that social media can serve as both a publishing channel and a listening tool — but only if human-to-human communication can survive the rising tide of bot-generated noise.Continue Reading → The post FIR #505: Social Media’s Big Shift appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Shel and Neville examine a troubling trend gaining momentum across corporate America: AI washing — the practice of attributing layoffs to artificial intelligence when the real reasons are more complex. The discussion centers on two high-profile cases. Block CEO Jack Dorsey announced a 40 percent workforce reduction, crediting AI tools, despite three prior rounds of cuts that had nothing to do with AI and pushback from former employees who say the moves look like standard cost management. Meanwhile, Oracle is cutting thousands of jobs, not because AI replaced those workers, but to fund a massive data center expansion that Wall Street projects won't generate positive cash flow until 2030. Meanwhile, a new Anthropic labor market study adds context, finding limited evidence that AI has meaningfully displaced workers to date—though hiring of younger workers in exposed occupations may be slowing. Neville and Shel dig into what this means for communicators who may be asked to craft layoff messaging that overstates AI's role.Continue Reading → The post FIR #504: When Companies Blame Layoffs on AI — and Leave Communicators Holding the Bag appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

The president of the International Olympic Committee didn't have an answer to a question posed to her at a press conference on the final day of the 2026 Winter Olympics. Or to another question. Or to yet another. Ultimately, she suggested, on camera, that someone on her communications team should be fired. In this short midweek FIR episode, Shel and Neville look at the fallout, what both the president and the head of communications might have done differently, and the possible long-term consequences.Continue Reading → The post FIR #503: When Your Boss Throws You Under the Bus appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In the February long-form episode of FIR, Shel and Neville dive deep into an AI-heavy landscape, exploring how rapidly accelerating technology is reshaping the communications profession—from autonomous agents with "attitudes" to the evolving ROI of podcasting. The show kicks off with a chilling "milestone" moment: an autonomous AI coding agent that publicly shamed a human developer after its code contribution was rejected. Also in this episode: Accenture's move to monitor how often senior employees log into internal AI systems, making "regular adoption" a factor in promotion to managing director.  The "2026 Change Communication X-ray" study reveals a record 30-point gap between management satisfaction and employee satisfaction with change comms. The PRCA has proposed a new definition of PR, positioning it as a strategic management discipline focused on trust and complexity. However, Neville notes the industry reaction has been muted, with critics arguing the definition doesn't reflect the majority of agency work. Shel expresses skepticism that any single definition will be adopted without a global consensus. Addressing a provocative claim that corporate podcast ROI is impossible to prove, Shel and Neville argue that the problem lies in measuring the wrong things. They advocate for moving beyond "vanity metrics" like downloads and instead tying podcasts to concrete business goals like lead generation, recruitment, and brand trust. As consumers increasingly turn to LLMs for product recommendations, brands are "wooing the robots" to ensure they are cited accurately in AI responses. Neville asks if we are witnessing a structural shift in reputation or just another optimization cycle. In his Tech Report, Dan York explains why Bluesky is having trouble adding an edit feature, Russia's blocking of Meta properties, criticism of Australia's teen social media ban from Snapchat's CEO, YouTube's protections for teen users, and more on teen social media bans. Continue Reading → The post FIR #502: Attack of the AI Agent! appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

AI isn't replacing communicators -- it's amplifying the value of communication, especially storytelling and strategic writing. In this short, midweek FIR episode, Neville and Shel explore how the hottest jobs in tech are increasingly about telling stories, not writing code, with Netflix, Microsoft, Adobe, Anthropic, and OpenAI all hiring communications and storytelling teams at salaries ranging from six figures up to $775,000 per year. Even AI labs themselves are posting compensation packages around $400K for storytelling and communications roles, signaling that they understand the irreplaceable human value of meaning-making in an age of automated content generation. The distinction Neville and Shel highlight between traditional messaging and true storytelling proves critical: conventional communications start with what the brand wants to say, while storytelling starts with what audiences actually care about. The strongest communicators will be those who move beyond prescriptive messaging to tell genuine human stories.Continue Reading → The post FIR #501: AI and the Rise of the $400K Storyteller appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

AI has shifted from being purely a productivity story to something far more uncomfortable. Not because the technology became malicious, but because it's now being used in ways that expose old behaviors through entirely new mechanics. An article in HR Director Magazine argues that AI-enabled workplace abuse -- particularly deepfakes -- should be treated as workplace harm, not dismissed as gossip, humor, or something that happens outside of work. When anyone can generate realistic images or audio of a colleague in minutes and circulate them instantly, the targeted person is left trying to disprove something that never happened, even though it feels documented. That flips the burden of proof in ways most organizations aren't prepared to handle. What makes this a communication issue -- not just an HR or IT issue -- is that the harm doesn't stop with the creator. It spreads through sharing, commentary, laughter, and silence. People watch closely how leaders respond, and what they don't say can signal tolerance just as loudly as what they do. In this episode, Neville and Shel explore what communicators can do before something happens: helping organizations explicitly name AI-enabled abuse, preparing leaders for that critical first conversation, and reinforcing standards so that, when trust is tested, people already know where the organization stands. Continue Reading → The post FIR #500: When Harassment Policies Meet Deepfakes appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) responded to member requests for a statement about the federal immigration crackdown in Minnesota with a letter explaining why the organization would remain silent. In this short midweek episode, Neville and Shel outline the key points in the letter, where they disagree, and how they might have responded.Continue Reading → The post FIR #499: When Saying Nothing Sends the Wrong Message appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer focuses squarely on "a crisis of insularity." The world's largest independent PR agency suggests only business is in a position to be a trust broker in this environment. While the Trust Barometer's data offers valuable insights, Neville and Shel suggest it be viewed through the lens of critical thinking. After all, who is better positioned to counsel businesses on how to be a trust broker than a PR agency? Also in this episode: Research shows employee adoption of AI is low, especially in non-tech organizations like retail and manufacturing, and among lower-level employees. CEOs insist that AI is making work more efficient. Do employees agree? Organizations believe deeply in the importance of alignment. So why aren't employees aligned any more today than they were eight years ago? Mark Zuckerberg changed the name of his company to reflect its commitment to the metaverse. These days, the metaverse doesn't figure much in Zuckerberg's thinking In his Tech Report, Dan York reflects on Wikipedia's 25th anniversary. Continue Reading → The post FIR #498: Can Business Be a Trust Broker in Today’s Insulated Society? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

The latest BCG AI Radar survey signals a definitive turning point: AI has graduated from a tech-driven experiment to a CEO-owned strategic mandate. As corporate investments double, a striking "confidence gap" is emerging between optimistic leaders in the corner office and the more skeptical teams tasked with implementation. With the rapid rise of Agentic AI — autonomous systems that execute complex workflows rather than just generating text — the focus is shifting from simple productivity gains to a total overhaul of culture and operating models. In this episode, Neville and Shel examine this evolution that places communicators at the center of a high-stakes transition as AI moves from a pilot phase into end-to-end organizational transformation.Continue Reading → The post FIR #497: CEOs Wrest Control of AI appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Neville and Shel dive into the ambitious new definition of public relations proposed by the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA). Sparked by a two-and-a-half-page draft that reframes the discipline as a senior strategic management function, Shel and Neville debate whether this comprehensive document serves as a vital "PR for PR" or if its length and academic tone move it closer to a manifesto than a practical, portable definition. The conversation explores the proposal’s emphasis on organizational legitimacy, its explicit inclusion of AI’s role in the information ecosystem, and the ongoing challenge of establishing a unified professional standard that resonates across the global communications industry.Continue Reading → The post FIR #496: A Proposed New Definition of Public Relations Sparks Debate appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In which Neville and Shel take a few minutes to acknowledge FIR's 21st birthday. Continue Reading → The post FIR 21st Anniversary Celebration appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Reddit, the #2 social media site in the US, just surpassed TikTok to assume the #4 slot in the UK. It has no algorithm forcing you to see what's most likely to keep you on the site; just users upvoting what they think is most interesting, valuable, or relevant. Every topic under the sun has a subreddit. Several organizations, from Starbucks to Uber, have taken advantage of it. So why is it absent from most communicators' list of social media platforms to pay attention to? Neville and Shel look at Reddit's growing influence in this episode.Continue Reading → The post FIR #495: Reddit, AI, and the New Rules of Communication appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In the long-form episode for December 2025, Neville and Shel explore the future of news from two perspectives, including The Washington Post's ill-advised launch of a personalized, AI-generated podcast that failed to meet the newsroom's standards for accuracy, and the shift from journalists to "information stewards" as news sources. Also in this episode: WPP founder Sir Martin Sorrell argued that PR is dead and advertising rules all. Is AI about to empty Madison Avenue Should communicators do anything about AI slop? No, you can't tell when something was written by AI In Dan York's tech report: Mastodon's founder steps back, and new leadership takes over; the UN reaffirms a model of Internet governance that involves everyone: and Dan talks about what he'll be watching in 2026, including decentralized social media, agentic AI, and Internet technologies. Continue Reading → The post FIR #494: Is News’s Future Error-Riddled AI-Generated Podcasts, or “Information Stewards”? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

For somebody who posts on X or other social media platforms to become recognized by the media and other offline institutions as a significant, influential voice worth quoting, it usually takes patience and hard work to build an audience that respects and identifies with them. There is another way to achieve the same kind of reputation with far less work. According to a research report from the Network Contagion Research Institute, American political influencer Nick Fuentes opted for the second approach, a collection of tactics that made it appear like a huge number of people were amplifying his tweets within half an hour of posting them. While Fuentes wields his influence in the political realm, the tactics he employed are portable and available to people looking for the same quick solution in the business world. In this short midweek episode, we'll break down the steps involved and the warning signs communicators should be on the alert for.Continue Reading → The post FIR #493: How to (Unethically) Manufacture Significance and Influence appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In this short midweek episode, Shel and Neville dissect the communication fallout from the $13.5 billion Omnicom-IPG merger and the controversial pre-holiday layoff of 4,000 employees. Among the themes they discuss: the stark contrast between the polished corporate narrative aimed at investors and the raw, real-time reality shared by staff on LinkedIn and Reddit, illustrating how organizations have lost control of the narrative. Against the backdrop of a corporate surge in hiring "storytellers," Neville and Shel discuss the irony of failing to empower the workforce — the brand's most authentic narrators — and analyze the long-term reputational damage caused by tone-deaf leadership during a crisis.Continue Reading → The post FIR #492: The Authenticity Divide in Omnicom Layoff Communication appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Big Four consulting firm Deloitte submitted two costly reports to two governments on opposite sides of the globe, each containing fake resources generated by AI. Deloitte isn't alone. A study published on the website of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) not only included AI-hallucinated citations but also purported to reach the exact opposite conclusion from the real scientists' research. In this short midweek episode, Neville and Shel reiterate the importance of a competent human in the loop to verify every fact produced in any output that leverages generative AI.Continue Reading → The post FIR #491: Deloitte’s AI Verification Failures appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Studies purport to identify the sources of information that generative AI models like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude draw on to provide overviews in response to search prompts. The information seems compelling, but different studies produce different results. Complicating matters is the fact that the kinds of sources AI uses one month aren't necessarily the same the next month. In this short midweek episode, Neville and Shel look at a couple of these reports and the challenges communicators face relying on them to help guide their content marketing placements.Continue Reading → The post FIR #490: What Does AI Read? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In the long-form episode for November 2025, Shel and Neville riff on a post by Robert Rose of the Content Marketing Institute, who identifies "idea inflation" as a growing problem on multiple levels. Idea inflation occurs when leaders prompt an AI model to generate 20 ideas for thought leadership posts, then send them to the communications team to convert them into ready-to-publish content. Also in this episode: A growing number of companies are moving branding under the communications umbrella, detouring around Marketing and the CMO. It's all about safeguarding reputation. Quantum computing has been a topic of conversation in tech circles for years. Now, its arrival as a commercially viable product is imminent. Communicators need to prepare. AI's ability to generate software code from a plain-language prompt has put the power to create apps in the hands of almost anyone. There are communication implications. Share some photos of yourself with an AI model, or companies that provide this as a service, and you can get an amazing likeness of yourself. But is it okay to use it as your LinkedIn profile? Research finds that leaders not only handle change management badly, but it's also having an impact on employees who have to endure the process. Communicators can help. In his Tech Report, Dan York reports on WhatsApp launching third-party chat integration in Europe; X is finally rolling out Chat, its DM replacement, with encryption and video calling; Mozilla has announced an AI "window" for the Firefox browser; WordPress 6.9 offers new features, collaboration tools, and AI enhancements; Amazon has rebranded Project Kuper as Amazon Leo; and Open AI says it has "fixed" ChatGPT's em dash problem. (We dispute that it's a problem.) Continue Reading → The post FIR #489: An Explosion of Thought Leadership Slop appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

For the second year in a row, Coca-Cola turned to artificial intelligence to produce its global holiday campaign. The new ad replaces people with snow scenes, animals, and those iconic red trucks, aiming for warmth through technology. The response? A mix of admiration for the technical feat and criticism for what some called a “soulless,” “nostalgia-free” production. Shel and Neville break down the ad’s reception and what it tells us about audience expectations, creative integrity, and the communication challenges that come with AI-driven content. Despite Coke’s efforts to industrialize creativity — working with two AI studios, 100 contributors, and more than 70,000 generated clips — the final product sparked as much skepticism as wonder. Continue Reading → The post FIR #488: Did a Soda Pop Make AI Slop? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

What happens when the AI conversation turns from a quiet side road into a crowded superhighway? Recently, Martin Waxman -- digital strategist and LinkedIn Learning instructor -- pressed pause on the churn to make room for curiosity, quality, and quiet. He’s not quitting; he’s recalibrating: publishing less often, thinking more deeply, and reminding us not to let AI do the thinking we should be doing ourselves. For communicators, that raises bigger questions: When do we slow down? How do we trade volume for value? And what does “good enough” look like when our audiences are drowning in near-identical insights? Neville and Shel dive into this topic in today’s short, midweek episode of “For Immediate Release.” Continue Reading → The post FIR #487: Beyond the Churn — Slower Publishing, Deeper Thinking, Better Outcomes appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Sentiment analysis has become a default metric for communicators. If sentiment is positive, trust must be high. But if your company's words are diverging from its actions, trust could be eroding while sentiment remains constant. You won't know until it's too late. The new metric to consider is "trust velocity." Neville and Shel unpack it in this monthly long-form episode for October 2025. Also in this episode: Is rage bait a valid marketing tactic? Lloyd Bank's CEO and executive team are learning AI to reimagine the future of banking with generative AI A McKinsey report recommends that public affairs teams begin to factor geopolitical issues into their thinking When conduct, culture, and context collide: Three crisis case studies reviewed German firm launches ad campaign after its lift is used in the Louvre heist In his Tech Report, Dan York reports on AI browsers and Mastodon's approach to BlueSky-like starter packs, but in a consent-based manner.Continue Reading → The post FIR #486: Measuring Sentiment Won’t Help You Maintain Trust appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Things change fast in the digital world. On the other hand, business tactics can be slow to adapt. Crafting content with the intent of "going viral" has been part of the communication playbook for more than a decade. There was never a guaranteed approach to catching this lightning in a bottle, but that didn't stop marketers and PR practitioners from trying. That effort is increasingly futile, as the social media companies that host the content have altered their algorithms, and people are paying attention to different things these days. This has led several marketing influencers to suggest that it's time to move on from the attempt to produce content specifically in the hopes that it will go viral. Neville and Shel share some data points and debate whether going viral should remain a communication goal in this short midweek episode.Continue Reading → The post FIR #485: Is It Time to Stop Trying to “Go Viral”? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Hollywood erupted in debate and discourse when a company unveiled a completely AI actress, Tilly Norwood. The public relations industry may be having its own Tilly Norwood moment with the introduction of Olivia Brown, a 100% AI PR agent that will handle all the steps of producing, distributing, and following up on a press release. Is this PR's future, or just part of it? Neville and Shel engage in their own debate in this short midweek FIR episode.Continue Reading → The post FIR #484: Is Olivia Brown the Tilly Norwood of PR? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Kenvue's stock tumbled when U.S. President Donald Trump, with Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., standing behind him, declared that its product, Tylenol, leads to autism in children when taken by mothers during pregnancy. As social channels were flooded with misinformation supporting the evidenceless claim, it's easy to imagine the stock continuing to slide, mirroring the trajectory launched by attacks on Bud Light. Remarkably, the stock recovered after one day, thanks largely to Tylenol's savvy and almost perfect response to the crisis. Tylenol isn't the first brand to find itself in President Trump's crosshairs. It is unlikely to be the last. In this short, midweek episode, Neville and Shel explore what the company got right, and what other companies can do to prepare for their turn in the glare of the presidential spotlight.Continue Reading → The post FIR #483: How Tylenol Handled a High-Profile Falsehood appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

We've all heard of AI slop by now. "Workslop" is the latest play on that term, referring to low-quality, AI-generated content in the workplace that looks professional but lacks real substance. This empty, AI-produced material often creates more work for colleagues, wasting time and hindering productivity. In the longform FIR episode for September, Neville and Shel explore the sources of workslop, how big a problem it really is, and what can be done to overcome it. Also in this episode: Chris Heuer, one of the founders of the Social Media Club, is at work on a manifesto for the "H Corporation," organizations that are human-centered. A recent online discussion set the stage for Chris's work, which he has summarized in a post. Three seemingly disparate studies point to the evolution of the internal communication role. Researchers at Amazon have proposed a framework that can make it as easy as typing a prompt to identify a very specific audience for targeted communication. Communicators everywhere continue to predict the demise of the humble press release, but one public relations leader has had a very different experience. Anthropic and OpenAI have both released reports on how people are using their tools. They are not the same. In his Tech Report, Dan York looks back on TypePad, the blogging platform whose shutdown is imminent; AI-generated summaries of websites from Firefox; and Mastodon's spin on quote posts. Continue Reading → The post FIR #482: What Will It Take to Stop the Slop? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In this short midweek episode, Neville and Shel dive into one of the hottest debates in communication today: what happens to tone and authenticity when artificial intelligence steps into the writing process? From the surprisingly heated arguments over the humble em-dash to fresh research on AI’s “stylometric fingerprints,” we explore whether polished AI-assisted prose risks losing the human voice that builds trust. Along the way, we look at how publishers like Business Insider are normalizing AI for first drafts, how communicators are redefining authenticity, and how Shel used AI to turn years of blog posts into a forthcoming book.Continue Reading → The post FIR #481: The Em Dash Panic — AI, Writing, and Misguided Assumptions appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In this reflective follow-up to our FIR Interview in July with Monsignor Paul Tighe of the Vatican, Neville and guest co-host Silvia Cambié revisit some of the key themes that resonated deeply from that conversation. With a particular focus on the wisdom of the heart – a phrase coined by the Vatican to contrast with the logic of machines – Neville and Silvia explore the ethical responsibilities communicators face in the age of artificial intelligence. The discussion ranges from the dignity of work and the overlooked realities of outsourced labour, to the limitations of technical expertise when values and human well-being are at stake. Silvia expands on her Strategic article focusing on precarious workers, while Neville revisits ideas shared on his blog about the Church’s unique role in advocating for inclusive, human-centred dialogue around AI. Above all, this episode highlights how communicators are uniquely positioned to help organisations navigate the moral and societal questions AI presents – and why they must bring emotional intelligence, narrative skill, and ethical awareness to the forefront of this global conversation.Continue Reading → The post FIR #480: Reflections on AI, Ethics, and the Role of Communicators appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Posts and videos featuring Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) hacks and formulas are flooding the web. We reported recently on one such hack focusing on press releases. But when you consider the kind of content on which the AI models rely for their answers, it may be more efficient to revert to good, old-fashioned PR and marketing.Continue Reading → The post FIR #479: Hacking AI Optimization vs. Doing the Hard Work appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

For a while, businesses were flexing their social responsibility muscles, weighing in on public policy matters that affected them or their stakeholders. These days, not so much, with leaders fearing reprisal for speaking out. But silence can have its own consequences. Also in this episode: The gap between AI expectations and reality; rent-a-mob services damage the fragile reputation of the public relations profession; too many people think AI is conscious, so we have to devise ways to reinforce among users that it's not; Denmark is dealing with deepfakes by assigning citizens the copyright to their own likenesses; crediting photographers for the work you copied from the web won't protect you from lawsuits for unauthorized use. In Dan York's Tech Report, Dan shares updates on Mastodon' (at last) introducing quote posts, and Bluesky's response to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding Mississippi's law making full access to Bluesky (and other services) contingent upon an age check.Continue Reading → The post FIR #478: When Silence Isn’t Golden appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

User-generated content is at a turning point. With generative AI models cranking out tons of slop, content repositories are being polluted with low-quality, often useless material. No website is more vulnerable than Wikipedia, the open-source reference site populated entirely with articles created (and revised) by users. How Wikipedia is handling the issue -- in light of its strict governance policies -- is worth watching, especially for organizations that also rely on user-generated content.Continue Reading → The post FIR #477: Deslopifying Wikipedia appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Swarms of consultants descend on companies that have engaged their firms, racking up billable hours and cranking out PowerPoint presentations that summarize the data they've analyzed. That business model is at risk, given the amount of that work that AI can now handle. Recognizing the threat, some consulting firms are actively reengineering their businesses, with McKinsey out in front. In this short midweek episode, Shel and Neville review the actions of several firms and agencies, and discuss what might come next for consultants.Continue Reading → The post FIR #476: Rewiring the Consulting Business for AI appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

It has been 12 years since Google shut down Google Reader, its popular RSS news reader. The rise of social media newsfeeds had rendered RSS useless for many people, and declining usage led Google to sunset it. But RSS feeds never went away. Many websites still make them available; they're baked into most blogging utilities; and podcasting relies heavily on RSS feeds for distribution of audio and video files. As algorithms determine what you see in social networks, and newsletter subscriptions require visits to your inbox, where your newsletters are mixed in with all your other emails, RSS news readers are making a comeback. New news readers are emerging, and older ones are making improvements with a range of features, including the incorporation of AI to assist with sorting and other tasks. In this short midweek FIR episode, Neville and Shel explore the benefits of RSS, examine some of the features of the latest crop of readers, and discuss how an RSS resurgence can benefit communicators.Continue Reading → The post FIR #475: Algorithms Got You Down? Get Retro with RSS! appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In multiple ways, Artificial Intelligence is redefining the role of the public relations professional. Some of that change is the result of new tools that automate processes that once consumed copious amounts of time. One such tool reviews services that solicit expert commentary at journalists' requests, then crafts responses. The marketing of this tool, dubbed Synapse by its Lithuanian founders, has sparked a considerable amount of controversy over ethical considerations. Neville and Shel discuss the pros and cons in this long-form FIR episode for July 2025. Communicators are now also supposed to be able to detect phishing attacks disguised as media inquiries, to abandon age-old metrics in favor of meaningful outcomes, and overcome old tropes, like one wheeled out by former communicator Melinda French Gates, who claimed without evidence that tech executives like Mark Zuckerberg have aligned themselves with the Donald Trump Administration only at the behest of their communication teams. Also in this episode: AI is driving a change in the way we craft press releases, drawing the Social Media Press Release to mind. PR is at the heart of AI optimization, since third-party sources are a vital factor in determining what finds its way into AI answers. Social media has transformed from a means of connecting with others to a platform for streaming entertainment. What are the implications for brands? More and more brands are launching Substack newsletters as a way to control the message and engage directly with customers. In his Tech Report, Dan York reports on media companies erecting paywalls to prevent AI models from harvesting their content. The consequences could be enormous. Continue Reading → The post FIR #474: AI is Redefining Public Relations appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

It has been more than 60 years since Marshall McLuhan told us that the medium is the message. The decades that have passed since then have done nothing to diminish the truth of McLuhan's prescient statement. For today's employees, the medium for most information is the digital interfaces the company provides. There's an interface for the intranet, for email, for internal social networking and collaboration, for emergency alerts, for calendaring, and for all manner of resources employees need to get their work done. What message do these interfaces send to employees? If they're unified, consumer-grade, and make it easy to do the job, the message is one of caring. If they're confusing, difficult to navigate, and result in frustration, employees can perceive that message as one of dismissal or even contempt. It certainly signals that the company doesn't care. Who should own the digital employee experience (DEX)? A number of recent commentaries have argued that internal communication should be at the helm, which may be counterintuitive in many organizations where anything digital is IT's responsibility. We explore the case for internal communication's DEX role in this short midweek episode.Continue Reading → The post FIR #473: The Digital Employee Experience is the Message appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

New research reveals that B2B decision-makers have increasingly recognized the importance of trust. The study also showed that companies that measure trust as a board-level KPI are over three times more likely to report more substantial profits than those that don’t, yet only 22% of companies state that trust is a board-level KPI. In this brief midweek episode, Neville and Shel analyze the data and explore opportunities for communicators to enhance organizational trust.Continue Reading → The post FIR #472: The Evolution of Trust appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

There's a new brand of influencer. Faceless creators wield their influence while never appearing on camera, while VTubers -- virtual YouTubers -- employ AI-generated avatars instead of showing their faces. This is no flash-in-the-pan trend. One network of faceless creators grew from 5,000 to 21,000 creators in just three months, with some raking in as much as $40,000 per month from brands eager to add their content to the mix. There are numerous reasons this shift is happening, from social networks like TikTok elevating its algorithm over follower counts (enabling someone with few followers to see a post go viral) to the ability for brands to pay for performance instead of impressions. In this short midweek episode, Neville and Shel look at the pros and cons of faceless creators.Continue Reading → The post FIR #471: Can You Be Influential and Anonymous at the Same Time? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Copyright challenges and intellectual property issues are consistently recognized as a serious, top-tier concern when it comes to Artificial Intelligence (AI). It may not be the top concern — that's usually related to fake news and the trustworthiness of content, followed by privacy concerns — but many creators are upset and worried about the integrity of their work when it's used as fodder for new training models. The courts will inevitably weigh in — in fact, one already has, with a federal court ruling in Anthropic's favor, asserting that its use of authors' books without compensation constitutes fair use due to the transformative nature of what Claude, Anthropic's LLM, does with them. More lawsuits and more rulings are indeed coming, and legislation and regulation are also likely. However, Creative Commons has always preferred a voluntary compliance approach, grounded in a logical framework. In 2004, Creative Commons (under the guidance of Lawrence Lessig, a prominent American academic, attorney, and political activist known for his work on intellectual property law, campaign finance reform, and the social and legal implications of technology) developed such a framework that allowed people publishing on the web to designage how others could use their content. (This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons attribution/share-alike license.) Now, Creative Commons is proposing a similar approach to AI, with a framework that would empower creators to signal their preferences for how their content is used and reused. The nascent framework is currently open for public comment. In this brief, midweek episode, Neville and Shel examine the proposal and the role communicators can play in shaping its final form. Links from this episode:Continue Reading → The post FIR #470: Creative Commons Proposes an AI Copyright Solution appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

A growing body of research suggests employees are more disconnected than ever. What are internal communication teams getting wrong? Also in this long-form monthly episode for June 2025: Buzzstream interviewed over 150 digital PR pros to assess the state of digital PR. It looks a lot like it did five years ago. Social media has overtaken television as Americans' primary source of news. Chief Communication Officers are in a precarious position, expected to anticipate and address political and societal upheaval, often sharing information executives don't want to hear. Pope Leo XIV has called for an ethical AI framework in a message to tech execs gathering at the Vatican. In his Tech Report, Dan York looks at Mastodon's updated terms prohibiting AI model training, announcements from TwitchCon, and the impact of Texas's mandatory age verification law on Internet privacy and security.Continue Reading → The post FIR #469: Is Internal Communication Failing? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

While a company’s reputation doesn’t appear as a line item on a profit and loss statement or a balance sheet, it is nevertheless a critical intangible asset that significantly influences financial performance and long-term success. A strong positive reputation fosters trust among consumers and B2B customers, leading to increased customer loyalty, premium pricing power, and greater resilience in times of crisis. It also makes the company more attractive to top talent, reducing recruitment costs and improving employee retention. A favorable reputation can also enhance relationships with investors and partners, providing better access to capital and more advantageous business opportunities. The public relations profession is in the reputation business. Yet there are new threats to reputations that aren’t yet on most practitioners’ radars — and if they are, they haven’t found their way into plans and strategies. For example, companies that succumbed to political pressure to back away from their DEI commitments have suffered reputational damage, while those that stood by them have seen their reputation scores increase. That may have something to do with general support for DEI, but research found that customers crave consistency from the companies they do business with, and the sudden U-turn away from DEI commitments leadership previously touted was viewed as a failure of integrity. Add to that the surge of disinformation and job loss AI is already bringing to the business world, and it’s clear we’re facing a new world of reputation management. In this short midweek episode, Neville and Shel look at some recent research and reports to zero in on the newest reputation challenges and how communicators should face them. Links from this episode: Culture wars and scandals drag down corporate reputations Companies that kept DEI commitments saw higher reputation scores in 2025 New York State Updates WARN Notices to Identify Layoffs Tied to AI Is AI Damaging Your Professional Image? Musk and AI among biggest threats to brand reputation, global survey shows The disinformation storm is now hitting companies harder M&S is taking reputational damage from cyberattack: research The Reputational Risk Index The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, June 23. We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. To obtain the credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request them in our Facebook group, or email [email protected]. Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music. You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog. Shel has started a metaverse-focused Flipboard magazine. You can catch up with both co-hosts on Neville’s blog and Shel’s blog. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients. Raw Transcript: @nevillehobson (00:02) Hello everyone and welcome to for immediate release. This is episode 468. I’m Neville Hobson. Shel Holtz (00:08) And I’m Shel Holtz. We talk a lot on this show about brand and reputation, how to build it, how to protect it, how to recover when things go sideways. Reputation matters. A lot of brands make knee-jerk decisions based on short-term objectives, only to suffer reputationally as a result. Reputation isn’t fluff, it isn’t vanity. A good reputation builds resilience. It buys you the benefit of a doubt, ⁓ a bank of goodwill for when things go wrong. It attracts talent, it boosts your stock price, it shapes policy outcomes and partnership opportunities. And increasingly, it reflects how well your organization aligns with societal values, not just what you say, but what you do. Lately, the rules for reputational risk have been changing. Traditional threats are still around, scandals, product failures, bad leadership decisions. But now we’re seeing new ones emerge, many of them tied to technology and politics in ways that communicators may not be fully pro- prepared for, but can’t afford to ignore. Let’s start with the latest Axios-Harris poll on corporate reputation, because the shakeups there are dramatic. Tesla, which once topped the list of most admired companies, has fallen all the way to 60th. Boeing, with its safety mishaps and culture issues, and now the crash of an Air India 787 Dreamliner, well, Boeing sits near the bottom of the list. And what’s especially interesting here is how much of this decline has to do with cultural alignment or misalignment with public sentiment. Axios points to companies being dragged into culture wars, and it’s not hard to see why. The Trump administration’s ongoing pushback against DEI efforts is having a reputational ripple effect. Companies that backtracked on their DEI commitments or tried to stay neutral are paying a price. Patagonia, Microsoft, and Costco, on the other hand, have increased their reputation scores precisely because they stayed the course on equity and inclusion. They didn’t cave and the public noticed. This tells us something we probably already knew. Authenticity matters. People don’t expect companies to fix every problem, but they do expect them to be consistent and to have a spine when it counts. In 2025, wishy washy doesn’t cut it, especially with younger generations. Now, let’s add technology to the mix because it’s getting harder and harder to talk about reputation without AI finding its way into the conversation. Case in point, New York State just updated its Warn Act notices. These are the documents companies have to file when they plan a mass layoff. Now, if you’re laying people off because of AI, you have to say so. It becomes public information. So not only do you risk headlines like, Company X replaces workers with AI, You’re also potentially triggering employee backlash, customer concern, and stakeholder scrutiny. All of that’s in the reputation column. Think about that for a minute. Laying off people because of a merger or a downturn is one thing, but layoffs tied directly to AI? That’s a reputational landmine. And I’d argue it’s a signal to communicators to get involved early. Make sure there’s a story ready to be told, one that frames the decision in terms of responsibility future readiness and long-term growth, not just cost cutting. Lay the groundwork with your stakeholders on your company’s strategic approach to AI so nobody’s surprised when hiring takes a dip or layoffs are announced. And AI’s impact isn’t just organizational, it’s personal. A piece out of Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business explores how your AI tools at work could actually hurt your professional image. If your coworkers or managers see you using AI to generate ideas or speed up tasks, they might assume you’re less competent or less committed, even if the output is amazing. We’ve been telling people to embrace AI, to use it to be more efficient. But if the perception is that you’re cheating or cutting corners, then your individual reputation could take a hit, even if your actual work improves. Now this creates a tension. Organizations want employees to be innovative and tech savvy, but our workplace culture hasn’t caught up. Consequently, we need to help employees not just use these tools, but frame how they use them. Communicators can play a key role here in educating both employees and leaders, especially managers, about responsible AI use looks like and why it’s not a threat to human value. The threats to reputation are evolving. culture wars, political pressure, layoff transparency, AI ethics, it is not the same game that it was a decade ago. And if communicators don’t help organizations see it, prepare for it, and respond to it, we’re going to be stuck playing defense. So be proactive, let’s help our organizations walk the talk, and let’s remind leaders that in 2025, reputation isn’t just a brand asset, it’s a survival strategy. @nevillehobson (05:16) summary there, Shell. I mean, there’s so many statistics to pay attention to, to get a sense of what’s going on. I asked the question to myself, is reputational damage on the rise? And I’m kind of guided by some things have been happening recently here in the UK, which I’ll mention later. The short answer, yes. And you’ve explained it, reputational risk is increasingly volatile and high stakes. So ⁓ we’ve got a Canadian survey, and I don’t have the name of the survey company right to hand. That was done in February. Nearly one in three companies reported reputational harm in the past year. They’re citing inflation, geopolitical uncertainty and strikes as triggers. The Exos-Harris poll you mentioned, that’s kind of interesting. found some other statistics to add to what you said. That poll shows 46 % of companies experienced lowered reputation scores and that’s up from 37 % the year before. consumers under pressure and rising costs and price quality concerns are the main reason for that. What’s driving it overall? That’s a huge answer for that could take us hours to get through everything. It’s so wide ranging economic stress, digital age, disinformation, you touched on that cultural, political polarization, ethical failing, cybersecurity. I’ve got something to say about that in a bit. But the interesting thing too is that ⁓ the ⁓ The Reputational Risk Index Q1 2025 report that just came out has a really interesting list of the top reputational risks. And what struck me was how three new ones are at the top of this list and the rest of the top 10, the seven, they’ve been around for years. But these risks are fast moving and they’ve replaced what was there before. Those top three won’t surprise you. Number one is AI misuse, harmful or deceptive use of AI, including deepfakes, misinformation, biased decision making or unethical applications that cause harm or manipulate public perception. Number two, this kind of made me, my goodness, association with Elon Musk, instances where an individual company or entity is associated with, targeted by or publicly criticized by Elon Musk. So it kind of rubs off on you that kind of social like he insults you on X for instance, or does something that brings your name into association with him. That’s not good at all. So that’s number two, that’s the interesting thing. Number three, this. Shel Holtz (07:54) And that one is interesting because it’s kind of damned if you do and damned if you don’t, right? Whether you’re on his good side or his bad side is just the connection to him. @nevillehobson (07:58) You got it. You got it. No. Yeah, exactly. So he’s now departed the White House apparently and has gone back to look after his business interests. Does that mean this will change? Unlikely, I would say. But the third one doesn’t surprise me. ⁓ DEI backtracking. The rollback of regulations, policies or initiatives designed to promote diversity, equity and inclusion, which aim to ensure fair treatment of full participation for all individuals. If you backtrack on that after you said this is what you’ve implemented. that will hit your reputation. And that’s your damned if you do or damned if you don’t, I think in light of what the US government is trying to do. So those three are the top reputation risks. The others, anti-competitiveness, defamation, breach of contract, copyright infringement, whistleblowing, price fixing, opioids crisis have been around for a while. But that illustrates, I think that kind of complements ⁓ what we’ve said so far in this. And it’s really quite interesting. I think this I mean, there’s so much that we could talk about on this show. It’s it’s kind of hard to, you know, keep a keeper, keep it focused on on what we need to say. But I think you mentioned communicators. And that’s my focus to what is the role of communicators of this. And, you know, there’s four things that struck me what can companies do and the communicators working for those companies defend against disinformation, ⁓ rapid monitoring of online discourse. lead with ethics and transparency in your business. ⁓ No longer optional, some of these things, including DEI, and that’s going to be difficult for some organizations, I suspect. Value-based pricing and quality, as inflation bites companies seen as fair in pricing and product, remain trusted. Crisis preparedness, from digital AI enabled threats to executive misconduct, layered crisis and reputation defense plans are vital. And I’ve seen people talking about that in the last week, actually, that kind of layered approach to it all. I mean, there’s lots more we could talk about there, but there’s so much happening that can be damaging. And the one that I do want to mention, which I’ll do in a minute, is ⁓ an event that happened here in the UK that I wrote about. I’ve talked about it quite a bit online, as many others have. It’s a global story, even though it’s a British company, Marks & Spencer, the big retailer. that was hit by a cyber attack in April and it’s still ongoing. ⁓ We’ll talk about that in a bit if you’d like, but they are looking at a cost estimated by experts about 300 million pounds as the cost for not paying the ransom to the hackers. But the consequences have been severe. Interesting though is what was the reputational damage? And there is no single answer to that. So I’ll talk about it a bit, but… All that stuff about the top three and anything surprising there to you about the fact that these are the new ones that are the big deals for people now? Shel Holtz (10:58) Well, I have to admit that I was surprised to see association with Elon Musk so high on the list. That is such a tremendous reputational risk that it’s number two. How many people, how many companies in the grand scheme of things are at risk of association with Elon Musk? So I found that interesting. But other than that, no. And, you know, the whole @nevillehobson (11:04) You Shel Holtz (11:25) discussion around disinformation, think is one that we, that’s a drum beat we need to keep up because I don’t think most organizations have even started looking at the methods they will use to identify it ⁓ when it strikes them. So this is one, think it’s going to become a bigger problem really fast. And I think a lot of companies are going to get hurt before we start to see, for example, consulting organizations with disinformation practices. Have you heard of one yet? A PR agency or a marketing agency with a disinformation practice or a disinformation center of excellence? I haven’t. So. @nevillehobson (12:06) No, I haven’t. haven’t. But that’s an interesting one, because I think it’s quite complicated for organizations to realize, partly because I think some of the things that you hear about, and there’s a really good story I’m to mention in a minute that was in the Financial Times the other day, that talked about, as the headline called, the disinformation storm is now hitting companies harder. And much of it is appears to be kind of opportunistic by bad actors to quote that euphemism of people who do things and say things and take actions that can damage you with surprising velocity that come out at you that completely unexpected and in disinformation largely untrue yet the stories out there. Good example, we see FT quotes, a company called Aalef Foods, Danish company. the UK’s biggest dairy cooperative. have tankers going around all the farms collecting the milk to make butter and so forth and so on. They learned this the hard way after recently announcing a trial of a feed additive aiming to reduce methane emissions in dairy cows. Some customers pushed to boycott milk products. A social media storm ensued featuring unfounded and bizarre claims that the additive was part of a plot to depopulate the world by creating fertility issues. ⁓ That’s in line with, you know, 5G is a conspiracy of Bill Gates to and, you know, all that stuff went on and it sticks with something like he still see reference to this. This is all the foods, though, is illustrative of that type of fast moving event. And social media plays a huge role in this is is is not can be is very damaging. And they suffered damage as a result of this. There’s other examples I mentioned, too. And it includes a survey by Edelman, they say. of 400 top communications and marketing execs found that 1810 worry about the impact of disinformation on the businesses. So 80 % fewer than half feel prepared to tackle those risks. What we just talked about. Shel Holtz (14:10) Mm-hmm. And I suspect that some of those who feel prepared actually aren’t. @nevillehobson (14:16) Yeah, exactly. So let’s talk, let’s talk a bit about impacts then on all of these things. And I can use the Marks and Spencer example, because it is very illustrative. Yeah, it’s very illust… No, it’s very illustrative. Shel Holtz (14:17) So, yeah. I was actually hoping you would because here’s something that wasn’t, other than not having a robust ⁓ defense in place to prevent the hack in the first place, this is something that was done to them. @nevillehobson (14:38) Well, yeah, this is at the heart of it because it was a cyber attack that began towards the end of April and severely disrupted their operations to the extent that everything you could do before as a customer with online purchasing, the so-called click and collect, looking up your orders, seeing something in stock, reserving it or that was gone. You couldn’t do any of that. Worse, I suppose, for those folks who don’t do online, they go to the stores, you couldn’t use contactless payment at all. The machines are all offline because of the risks and there were horror stories emerging of ⁓ people, know, pen and paper to write down orders and take stock from one warehouse to another in their own cars so they could keep stock levels going stuff like that. No deliveries. They were halted. Some stores went cash only wouldn’t take anything you could manually do your cars, but they wouldn’t. The loyalty apps, 18 million members was not working. Recruitment systems and internal logistics were severely impacted by this. Staff, as I mentioned, staff reported manual workarounds like checking freezer temperatures due to IT shutdowns. I the systems were all shut down. So the hacking group behind it, apparently called Scattered Spider, is known for using social engineering and targeting major corporations with ransomware. I’ve not seen anything new on this since it was first mentioned about three weeks ago, but the speculation is that they got access to Marks and Spencer systems through a supplier, through an employee they tricked into getting them to log in and that then gave them access to all this. Here you’re not allowed to pay ransoms for things like this is illegal, so they didn’t, but they were quite robust in not doing yes, we’ll weather this storm. That is a pretty bold move and attracted serious criticism. I wrote a post not long ago that was very critical of Marks and Spencer and their communication with customers. Now knowing what I do know from the latest developments, I don’t really feel that I would change that. I might tone it down a bit because they did communicate, which I didn’t disagree with. I just said it wasn’t very effective. They were following a plan they didn’t communicate to anyone. So how would you know even what was happening? Here’s a reputational impact they have suffered already. It’s actually interesting, in one sense is nowhere near as bad as many people were speculating. There’s a damn good reason for that. But let me just run down the list of some of these things here. So the reputational impact, according to research from the Maru consumer research firms, big, big in the UK here, and obviously, Marks & Spencer is a big client, brand advocacy dropped. So those who would recommend Marks & Spencer fell from 87 % to 73 % during this period. Trust erosion. Those who would definitely give Marks & Spencer the benefit of the doubt in future issues dropped from 39 % to 32%. Shopping decisions were affected. Between 25 % and 32 % of consumers said they’d shop elsewhere due to the disruption. But broader trust remained more stable. Overall trust, so people saying they’d either definitely or probably trust Marks & Spencer, dipped only slightly from 84 % to 82%. That’s quite telling. what that means is that that trust, people are still willing to kind of lend them that trust in spite of all of this. So experts analyzing all this, including Maru itself, talking about the incident shows that even long established trusted brands are vulnerable to cyber attacks. That’s the number one takeaway, they say. Shel Holtz (18:27) Well, yes. @nevillehobson (18:28) They also say Marks & Spencer has significant reputational credit in the bank, but must act decisively and communicate clearly to recover the trust they have lost. And I see lots of people giving them unsolicited advice on that on social networks, which I think is not helpful at all. They’re not stupid. mean, they know this. Don’t need people doing that kind of thing. Give them something new. But I think the implications that Maru concludes in their reporting is that this particular attack underscores cyber risk as a growing reputational threat, especially when it disrupts core services and affects logic schemes, as this one did in a way that you honestly couldn’t imagine. They were offline for six whole weeks. You couldn’t do anything at all. And my wife, Laura, for instance, buy stuff from Marks & Spencer online. She went somewhere else to get a blouse she was interested in. Not the same. So does that mean she’s now tempted by this other firm? I hope not, because it was even more expensive than Marks & Spencer. So go back to Marks Spencer. But you know, the point is that even loyal customers may waver when trust is tested by operational failure. And that was a thing that the communication, I remember getting the customer emails and the messages pop-ups in the app, we’re all about we’re on it. We’re on it. We’re sorting it. Don’t worry back soon. I mean, that was a kind of soft messaging that, in my opinion, waste of time that doesn’t help you at all. Although, is that really true, given the metrics that Maru has come up with in terms of the overall brand trust? Maybe they’re banking on that, they’ll weather this through until the £300 million hit is showing on their account books, and they put in place ways to deal with customers. One suggestion I saw a lot, which I thought would make sense is they need to offer something to customers as a kind of a recompense, if you will, as a gift of some kind, and don’t try and, you know, layer it all with marketing talk or any kind of thing, just a selfless gift as a way of saying, thank you for your support and your trust or whatever it might be. I don’t know what that would look like via the loyalty program wouldn’t be a bad idea. Some of the stuff they do with that loyalty program is called sparks are pretty lame, must admit, you know, free donuts in the food stall, if you spend two pounds, that kind of thing, do something bit more meaningful. So that might help. Shel Holtz (20:53) Yeah, socks, underwear, you know. @nevillehobson (20:55) the stuff that Marks and Spencer are renowned for, I tell you. yeah, so transparent crisis communication, swift action can mitigate long term damages, they’re concluding, ⁓ employer, I suppose. I mean, these make total sense to me. They seem that way to you. Shel Holtz (20:58) That’s exactly right. Well, they make sense. mean, this was a crisis communication. And if ever there’s an opportunity to take a reputational hit, it’s during a crisis. And they did not behave like a company in crisis. They showed little empathy for the customer telling you we’re on it ⁓ doesn’t make me feel better about whatever it is that I’m dealing with as a result of this, whatever it is I plan to do that I can’t do whatever. inconvenience or difficulty it creates for me. ⁓ I don’t want to be one of those people giving Marks and Spencer advice, but I would have ⁓ flooded the zone with empathy for one thing. And I would have turned the spotlight on frontline employees who were dealing with this every day. So you could see, more than just we’re working on it, to seeing somebody actually working on it, somebody dealing with taking cash and saying, We’re trying to serve as many customers as we can as all this gets sorted out. But I would have really tried to shape the reputation through content marketing as this was going on, rather than just popping up messages saying, we’re still working on it. @nevillehobson (22:28) Yeah, I mean, that is interesting what you say about employees and my experience, which could be throughout the whole chain, but it was certainly in one store that I visit near where I live. I went in there to buy something because I couldn’t do it online. So I went in there and I talked to one of the employees at the cash point where you pay and said, how are things going with all this and what I was left with. She was very reassuring and all that. It seemed to me highly scripted. It’s like they’d had a presentation, she’d memorize the top three things to say with a smile. Now, I don’t want to imply that it’s fakery, not at all. Was that enough, though? I don’t know. It didn’t really sit well with me, I must admit. But then again, I may not be the best kind of typical customer for that point of view. They were doing something in that regard, but none of it seemed like it was a plan almost. It seemed to me anyway, just looking at what I saw in communication, what I saw being reported. the press what I saw about the CEO interviewed saying he and his team are working night and day constantly 724 to fix all this that to me did not sound right Shel Holtz (23:37) Yeah, next thing you’re going to expect is the CEO to say he just wants to go home. ⁓ Like like Hayward during the BP golf spill. ⁓ Yeah, I guess the bottom line for all of this, though, is I’m as we’re talking and I’m seeing all the threads pulled together is whether it’s a crisis as Marks and Spencer experienced that was a cyber crime or @nevillehobson (23:42) Yeah. Right, exactly. Shel Holtz (24:05) a behavior like all of those companies that clawed back their DEI plans because Washington made it clear that it was going to make life hard for them if they didn’t. The companies that are suffering are the ones that are not standing by their values. And I think ultimately that’s what it comes down to, along with developing new plans and new workflows and new thinking. around how to deal with this, because certainly with AI and the ability to create fakery that is hard to detect, we’re gonna need to have those new plans. But I think if organizations are consistently true to their values and show that they have a spine when those values are challenged, they stand to do pretty well reputationally. Those that don’t, don’t. And that’ll be a 30. @nevillehobson (24:59) Exactly. Shel Holtz (25:00) for this episode of Four Immediate Release.   The post FIR #468: New Threats to Reputation appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Pick a superlative, and it probably applies to Mary Meeker, the venture capitalist and former Wall Street securities analyst best known for her annual Internet Trends Reports. These reports, released in the form of presentation decks, were the culmination of deep research Meeker conducted. Her last report was published June 12, 2019 at Recode’s Code Conference, but she just released a new one dedicated entirely to AI. With credibility as strong as hers, it’s likely that this report will become the defining source of truth about the state of AI. In this short midweek FIR episode, Neville and Shel break down the report to focus on elements that are meaningful to professional communicators. Links from this episode: Mary Meeker’s 2025 AI Trends Report Tech prophet Mary Meeker just dropped a massive report on AI trends – here’s your TL;DR It’s not your imagination: AI is speeding up the pace of change Q&A with Mary Meeker on the AI revolution Mary Meeker’s AI Trends Report | LinkedIn Reframing the 2025 AI Trends Report for Business Leaders | Neville’s blog David Armano’s GPT, “2025 Meeker AI Report GPT’D The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, June 23. We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. To obtain the credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request them in our Facebook group, or email [email protected]. Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music. You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog. Shel has started a metaverse-focused Flipboard magazine. You can catch up with both co-hosts on Neville’s blog and Shel’s blog. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients. Raw Transcript: Shel Holtz (00:10) Hi everybody and welcome to episode number 467 of For Immediate Release. I’m Shel Holtz. @nevillehobson (00:17) And I’m Neville Hobson. It’s been six years since Mary Meeker last published one of her legendary internet trends reports. And now she’s back with a 340 slide deep dive focused entirely on artificial intelligence. It’s a massive document, rich in data, charts and insight, but very much aimed at a Silicon Valley audience, investors, platform builders and technologists. And while it’s fascinating, it’s also dense. If you’re not steeped in the language of model training, deployment, and what it actually costs to run AI at scale, it can feel like stepping into someone else’s board meeting. So I decided to reinterpret it, not to dumb it down, but to make it readable and useful for business communicators, strategists, and leaders who need to understand what’s coming and why it matters. In today’s short form episode, we’re going to unpack what’s in the MECA report, some of the big themes, why they’re significant. and how communicators in particular might think about sharing this kind of insight within their organizations in plain English, right after this message. Let me start with one insight that really sets the scene for everything else. AI adoption is moving faster than the internet or mobile did, and there’s no waiting this one out. For business leaders, this means constant adaptation. You can’t rely on annual strategy cycles when AI tools are evolving weekly. Businesses need to become more agile, not just in tech, but in how they communicate, train and respond to change internally. So the question is, how do organizations keep up with something that doesn’t just disrupt industries? It rewrites the rule book as it goes. Shell, when you saw the scale and scope of this report, what stood out to you? And how do you think people outside the tech investor bubble should engage with this sea change? Shel Holtz (02:06) When I first started looking through this report, the first thing that struck me was that the word unprecedented seemed to be on every slide. In fact, an analysis I did using AI said that unprecedented appears more than 50 times in the report. And Mary Meeker does not tend to be hyperbolic. So when she says something is unprecedented, you can take it on faith that it… @nevillehobson (02:26) Hmm. Shel Holtz (02:32) probably is unprecedented. She talked about ChatGPT growing to 800 million weekly users in 17 months. That’s the fastest user ramp up in history. She called that a milestone. It took the internet 23 years to achieve global distribution. ChatGPT amassed about 365 billion annual searches. It took Google 11 years to do that. So what struck me from this whole unprecedented adoption and scale section of her report is the need for communicators to understand that the people in your audience are using this. It doesn’t matter whether it’s internal or it’s external. So that was one of the big things that jumped out at me. This is not something, regardless of where Gartner might place it on their hype cycle. It is not something that is going through slow adoption. There was a report, we talked about this a couple of weeks ago, that said, you know, it really is just another technology. I mean, it may be phenomenal and allow you to do wonderful things, but it still has to spread like a technology. ⁓ And according to Mary Meeker’s report, it’s already done that. ⁓ It’s not going to take as long as other technologies usually do. It’s here. and people are using it and you have to consider that. There was a lot more ⁓ that jumped out at me, particularly around ⁓ the reshaping of the workforce, but I know you’re planning on talking about that. @nevillehobson (04:09) Yeah, it’s interesting. You’re right. The word unprecedented did did appear a lot, particularly in some of the kind of superlative metrics that that pepper this document. What struck me, I suppose, thinking about listeners who may not have read this, yes, thinking so what’s the big deal about this? you’ve mentioned a key point that much of this has already happened and it started already. Hence that point about you can’t think, well, we’ll kind of. you know, factor in our planning as we go along. If you’ve got a five year plan, you need to do it weekly as the report suggests. And that might surprise a lot of people. You surely can’t be that important. It is. I like the way it’s the report is set up and kind of in eight sections that cover the breadth of what she discusses. But if you look at the kind of headline statement for each of the sections, you do get a sense of the almost a dramatic aspect of what is actually happening according to Mary Meeker’s report. Change is accelerating. We’ve talked about that. User growth, usage and investment are surging, she says. Performance is improving while costs drop. Usage costs and losses are all growing. And that’s what Mary Meeker describes as part of the huge land grab where you sacrifice immediate profits for simply scaling and getting more people on board. Monetization is complex, she says, open source China and competition. are rising. AI is merging with the physical world and talks about this now moving out into factories and areas that don’t necessarily make big headlines, but this has been going on already for quite a while. AI-driven growth in internet usage is historic, is driving a new wave of internet activity, says, large-scale adoption across emerging markets. And this is interesting. Many people are coming online primarily to use AI tools. Something I started doing recently was I installed on my desktop computer, my primary computer, the extension in Chrome to use chat GPT as the primary search tool, not Google, and it replaces Google. It didn’t take me long to suddenly realize that actually I’m getting more value out of my searching this way than I was using Google. Now that just works for me. I know others do agree with that. But this indicates to me, according to another report I saw, that the younger you are, the more likely you are doing this and not traditional search engines. So this is again, all adds to that picture. And then that final one, number eight, work is evolving rapidly, as you mentioned, and that’s definitely one to focus on. But this gives a sense of the, I guess, the dramatic nature of this that ⁓ is hard to look at it in its totality without examining each of these areas that are in extreme detail in the report. One of the reasons I did this, which was a I started this for myself, I let me do something in simple English, because this is peppered, absolutely crammed with tech talk. And if you’re not involved in this, you will struggle with this, I’m sure, or maybe not even get the correct synthesis of what you’re reading to understand it fully. So I think my report did it that did it for me that’s effect. So I decided to publish it, which I did as a PDF on a blog post that you could download. So it’s 340 slides. I’ve done it all down to 18 pages of a PDF. Now, so I’m not saying hey, that’s all you need to read. On the contrary, you need to read this in in tandem with Mary Meeker’s report so you can get the detail because those charts are quite important. I don’t include any of those. But Let’s talk about the workplace shell because this is something you and I have talked about a number of times on the other episodes of the podcast, particularly one or two of the monthly long form episodes. And I found this one something that if we think people are up to speed with this, I’m not so sure that’s totally true. The awareness that this is happening, we’re going to have co-workers who are AIs and that we definitely talked about. And the fact that she mentioned in her report, many businesses are lagging behind in supporting the shift that is already underway. So the report underscores the urgency of re-skilling, rethinking performance and supporting AI literacy. And I guess the question arises as it arose in our previous discussions, are we doing enough to prepare teams for AI native workflows or are we still thinking of it as a tool, not a co-worker? That’s the conversation we had recently in fact. Shel Holtz (08:46) It is, and no, we’re not doing enough to prepare. to manage teams in that environment. The other thing that I think we’re still living in denial is that this is going to affect employment. She makes the point that AI-related job postings surged 448 % between January of 2018 and April of this year. Traditional IT job postings have fallen 9%. So this is a pivot or perish moment in @nevillehobson (08:53) you Shel Holtz (09:20) the world of technology, and you know that’s coming for the rest of us as well. Another one she points out is that 73 % of outputs from a prototype GPT-4.5 were mistaken for human writing. There was a great post from Chris Penn a week or two ago in which he found five posts, I guess he had seen them in his newsfeed on LinkedIn. from people who said, ⁓ AI writing can never be as good as human writing. It doesn’t have lived experience. It doesn’t have empathy. It doesn’t have soul. So Chris went and found work that all five of those people had done, things they had written. And he said, you know what? It wasn’t very good. So to claim that we’re as humans producing this Pulitzer quality ⁓ literary level of work as organizational communicators, I think is a conceit. As I’ve said many times, got this from Martin Waxman, most of what we write just has to be good enough and AI can do that. I was listening to the On with Kara Swisher podcast just yesterday and she had on two journalists, each of them have written a book about Sam Altman and OpenAI. And one of them had interviewed the CEO of EY worldwide. used to be Ernst & Young, one of the big accounting firms. And she said, we will not be laying anybody off because of AI. But we also think that we can grow the business to twice its size without having to increase headcount. you know, where did those new hires come from? Job openings plummet. I think if we continue to live in this dream world of no layoffs, no job consequences from AI, it’s gonna turn around and bite us in the ass. So we have to start living in reality there. But in terms of the workplace, she also makes the point that this is going to weave its way into everything we do. She says that the biggest changes aren’t coming from Silicon Valley. They’re showing up where software meets the physical world. And that could be on a farm in Iowa. @nevillehobson (11:42) Yeah, it is interesting. There are so many areas this is already touching that you don’t quite realize. I guess the sense of this is like a speed increasing wave, not exactly a tsunami, but a wave that’s approaching at rapid speed. It could be a tsunami in that case. We’re not aware of it, it seems to me. One of the things that I noticed as a consequence of this report is how many people I’ve seen, notably via LinkedIn, who have also put together some kind of documentation summarizing this port. All of it that I’ve seen, and I’m only talking literally of a dozen or so posts, have used an AI to produce it, which got me wondering on one or two I’ve looked at, one in particular, the first thing I spotted was a date error. Did anyone check the AI’s output before they wrote their LinkedIn post saying, hey, here’s a report about this is my interpretation, et cetera. I used chat GPT to summarize. the report for me, which I then myself wrote the insights from. So I made sure that I did that took me twice as long otherwise as it would have. And I’m fairly confident that it is as accurate as the report itself. It’s because that’s what I’ve been referencing. I noticed David Amano did something quite cool. I must admit he created the GPT that as it’s described, it summarizes only the uploaded Mika AI report with no outside data. So I played around with it and it’s got actually when you when load it up in your in your chat GPT client, it’s got four already populated potential questions you might want to ask. So I just clicked one. What does report say about chat GPT use? And boom, off it reeled off a whole load of bullet points and so forth. Hey, I’ve got all that in my report, too. So at least we’re kind of consistent in how we accept that was all generated by AI. The point to me about that, though, is the argument. That’s ongoing still. I find it’s such a waste of time. Is all this stuff about, the dashes and that indicates as AI can’t be any good, blah, blah, blah. No, look, watch out. This is now what’s happening every single day by people up and down every country and every business are using AI to help them be productive, not to con others in that, ⁓ aren’t I clever, but it’s actually the AI who wrote it. Not at all. Maybe some would do that, but that’s not important. So pay attention to this tool that others scoff at sometimes that this is going to help you because it’s an inevitability, right? And whether you like it or not, this is here. It’s it’s coming. It’s here now. And others are already making good use of it. As we’ve reported, we mentioned again today that there are others further still who are not doing what they need to do to prepare the people for this wave that’s coming. So it is coming. I think one other area or a number, but one in particular comes to mind as I’m talking this point is the competitive nature of this from a geopolitical point of view. So we’ve heard Trump going on about this, that and the other. China is catching up fast with these tools. Other countries are doing the same. What does that all mean for us in the context of what’s going on in the world right now, which is pretty alarming everywhere you look. So now there’s this. ⁓ You can’t control the things you can’t control. What you can control is your own organization probably. So I’d focus on that and don’t worry about all the other stuff for the time being until the rockets start coming over, right? So ⁓ it is interesting. One other point to mention, I want to just get across this point here, Shell, ⁓ about how ⁓ this isn’t just a tech race, which is related. It’s a global economic and geopolitical competition, says Mary Meesher. The report highlights three threats to current AI leaders. powerful open source alternatives, intense U.S. competition, and China’s state-backed AI ambitions. For the global businesses, it isn’t abstract. It affects vendor choices, data handling, and regulatory risk. So should businesses be preparing for an AI environment that’s fragmented, politically sensitive, and constantly shifting? Yes, they should. Shel Holtz (15:55) Yes, they should. And I think you’re going to see the companies that weave AI into their products are going to make them like Swiss Army knives. Basically, if a model improves over another model, you’ll be able to take the API and just switch it to the new model rather than be married forever to a model that may deteriorate over time or the company may fall into, you know, rack and ruin. ⁓ So I think the software industry is going to catch up with the fragmentation of ⁓ the LLMs, the frontier models after a while. ⁓ You were talking about David Armano’s GPT. I wasn’t aware of that until you put it in our Slack channel. I’m definitely going to go take a look at that. ⁓ I just created a GPT. I got a new camera ⁓ and It has all kinds of settings I don’t understand. And it’s been a long time since I’ve really paid attention to photography. And I was looking at all the pitches that are on Facebook and other channels for photography lessons and guides. And I was watching some YouTube videos. And finally, I said, the heck with this. And I went to chat GPT and I created a GPT. said, ⁓ create a tutorial that will teach me the settings of, and I gave it the model name and number of the camera I got. @nevillehobson (17:20) Yeah. Shel Holtz (17:21) while concurrently teaching me the fundamentals and principles of good photography. So these lessons say, okay, today you’re going to learn about aperture and we’re going to teach you this. So, you know, it works better than anything that I had found online to create what I wanted. Now for this report, since I only saw last night that this was going to be our topic today, and I hadn’t known about the report for more than a day or two. I hadn’t had a chance to look at it at all or read a single piece about it. And with limited time, I just dumped all of the links that you shared, the report itself, and one or two other things I found into Notebook LM. created a notebook and I had it create a briefing paper. I had it create the 15 minute podcast that has the man and the woman talking to each other about the substance of the material that’s in the folder. In fact, the briefing report, divided it into two parts. It was Mary Meeker’s report itself. And part two, it says critical analysis and nuance. And this is some of the other reports that didn’t just summarize Mary Meeker’s report, but shared their own views about it, some of which may have been contradictory. For example, ⁓ one of them made the point that just because people have adopted AI doesn’t mean they’re using it for… work and productivity purposes. A lot of people have adopted this as just to have somebody to talk to or to ask the occasional question or to play games with or what have you. So you really have to start to think about the depth of use among the people in your organization and not just how many active AI users you have. They could just be, you know, making meme images with them for all you know. you know, so. @nevillehobson (19:13) Nope. Shel Holtz (19:13) I thought that was one interesting observation ⁓ that came out of some of the reports. @nevillehobson (19:21) No, that’s a very good example, I think. A reality of how you can’t narrowly define use of tools like this because people will decide themselves how they’re going to use it, such as you’ve just set out. I do similar. It’s actually spookier. You mentioned the camera. I’ve been using Chatt GPT to research a camera I’m thinking of buying or a camera type I’m thinking of buying instead of the traditional route, which is Googling it, looking at photography journals and what the journalists say. No. Chat GPT has done a great job. My need is different to yours, however, because what I’m looking for is something that will let me not use my phone when Laura, my wife and I are out looking at interesting places or walking around stately homes in the countryside. Instead, having a camera that I can use just for that, and it’s not going to be connected to the internet industry. That’s not a prime need. Chat GPT came out with five recommendations. And here we’re not talking about single lens reflex cameras. not talking about mini compact cameras, talking about something slightly beyond that, that suits that use. I don’t want to have to figure out aperture and all that. I don’t want to know about any of that stuff. So probably a compact camera. It’s come up with one I’ve now been doing further research on, but it started with that. And that’s a change. And it’s a simple one. people are doing that kind of thing all the time, I’m sure. yeah, exactly. So Shel Holtz (20:42) absolutely. @nevillehobson (20:45) The bit about talking. Yep, I use chat GPT a lot as a sounding board. I often think to myself, my God, if I don’t delete some of my old chats, is that going to crash the whole of chat GPT? I must have thousands of chats in there, thousands that I’ve done since 2022 or 2023. Do I want them for any reason? Not really, but yes, I do. I don’t want to delete them because… the way chat GPT works, it knows everything about me now from all those chats. And it surprises me sometimes when I ask it something. And it reminds me that we discussed this very topic six months ago, stuff like that. So it is part of our landscape. This is whether we like it or not. Merrymakers report, highly technical though it is, but look at some of the ⁓ business friendly versions or interpretations or aligned commentaries that are popping up here and then including the one I wrote and published in my blog today, that it will give you the means to better understand all this in your own particular context. But, you know, don’t don’t look at it then come back to in five months, it’ll be out of date by then I would imagine so it’s as fast moving without any question. Shel Holtz (21:58) A couple of other notes that I made as I was doing the research on this. First of all, think communicators need to, if somebody hasn’t already taken on this role in the organization, lead the conversation about job evolution. Because if all you’re thinking about AI is that it’s going to ⁓ be in tools that your employees will use, so they’re typing up something in Word and it now has some AI features, you’re thinking about it wrong. That’s not the… thing that’s going to drive change to the way people do their jobs. That’s just a new tool. So we need to understand job evolution as it relates to AI, ⁓ things like working with AI coworkers and lead that conversation and help prepare the employee population because it’s going to be a dramatic change or may I say unprecedented. I also think that @nevillehobson (22:53) Hmm Shel Holtz (22:54) There’s going to be a lot of hype. People are going to chase shiny objects. So think it’s important to anchor our AI messaging in concrete demonstrable ROI. We have to look at what are we trying to accomplish and how is the AI helping us accomplish that. ⁓ Somebody made the point that having good governance is going to be a market differentiator. So again, leading the conversation on AI governance. If somebody hasn’t already taken up that. mantle and run with it. ⁓ Also, it’s important to keep everybody grounded in the role of humans here. One line I read that I liked, and I think this is in one of the reports about Mary Meeker’s report, was that the models ⁓ can predict a perfectly logical next action that falls flat the moment it meets unwritten office culture or office policy. ⁓ You have to keep the company grounded in the fact that people need to be involved in these things. ⁓ Finally, Mary Meeker made the point that this is ⁓ the biggest change in knowledge distribution since the printing press. So bigger than the internet, ⁓ because the internet was after the printing press, right? ⁓ Knowledge is now suddenly more available. @nevillehobson (23:55) Yeah. Shel Holtz (24:18) to more people, knowledge has become cheap, right? Because, I mean, this is basic economics. A big supply means that the thing that you have the big supply of is cheaper. What’s not cheap is judgment. And again, I think that’s a human quality ⁓ and not an AI quality. And finally, there’s also long-term thinking that AI really doesn’t do it. If you’re talking about having a… an AI CEO, it’ll probably do pretty well at navigating the issues and challenges you’re facing right now. But looking 10 years ahead, my understanding is that it’s not very good at that yet. So keep everybody grounded in the need ⁓ for the human in the loop. @nevillehobson (25:06) There was one quote I did like in the report that says in 1999, Vince surf, the father of the internet described the internet era as moving in dog years, seven times faster than regular life. The AI era says Mary Meek is now running at cheetah speed. What’s that at least 10 times faster, if not lots more. So that that kind of thing helps you think, ⁓ this is this is really, really moving. The other thing just to for my final point to mention is something I mentioned in the blog post where I kind of summarized why does this matter to communicate is more than any other, but not just HR operations, marketing, etc. Your employees are using AI with or without policy. That’s the thing to bear in mind. That’s not like someone they’re using it no matter what your customers expect faster, smarter, more tailored interactions. Your competitors are building new capabilities you might not see coming. And there are about a dozen more, but those three struck me as something that keep in mind when you’re looking at these developments and trends that Mary Mikos pointing out and others too, and all the interpreted wisdom that’s emerging what others are saying to navigate all of that. And you realize if you are skeptical, that this is definitely real and this is happening and you need to be the change agent as a communicator. So that’s your job. Shel Holtz (26:25) And we have a link to the report and to many ⁓ news write-ups and summaries and analyses of the report in the show notes. And that’ll be a 30 for this episode of For Immediate Release. The post FIR #467: Mary Meeker’s 2025 AI Trends Report appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.