At VMA Group, our ongoing Meet the Author webinar series explores and challenges issues shaping the marketing and communications landscape. Most recently, we were joined by Berlin-based communication leader and author Monique Zytnik to examine one of the most pressing questions facing communicators today: how internal communicators must evolve in the age of artificial intelligence.
Rather than focusing on tools or technology, the discussion explored leadership, trust, professional development and the changing role of internal communicators as organisations navigate rapid and sustained transformation.
Why This Discussion Is More Important Now, Than Ever
Our business leaders must become better communicators, with internal communication playing a critical role at scale by supporting human focused leadership in an AI‑enabled world, safeguarding trust amid information overload and shaping the skills future‑ready communicators will need in the years ahead.
Trust: The Defining Issue for Internal Communications
In a digital, AI‑driven workplace, trust is fragile. Employees are increasingly sceptical of messages that feel automated, impersonal or disconnected from lived experience.
“We are no longer just content creators. We are the keepers of trust.”
Monique Zytnik
Trust is built when what leaders say and do aligns with what people say about them. This positions communicators firmly in a strategic business-partner role, responsible for shaping narratives through storytelling and holding leaders accountable for credibility and consistency.
When asked how communicators can protect trust in practice, Monique’s advice was clear: always question. If a leader asks you to publish a message, question its validity; question its ability to build credibility; question its reflection with lived employee experience. The ability to challenge constructively is fast becoming a core leadership skill in communications.
Moving Beyond Content: AI and Strategic Communications
Much of the AI conversation focuses on the execution of content creation and administrative tasks, yet a more strategic shift is underway. Organisations are building custom AI agents aligned to company strategy, channels, and tone of voice, allowing leaders to redesign communication workflows end to end rather than simply layer AI onto existing processes.
Adoption, however, remains uneven. While many individuals are experimenting independently, few teams are using AI in a coordinated, strategic way and some organisations remain largely disengaged. This gap presents a clear opportunity for internal communications to lead the strategic integration of AI and shape communication systems that add value, drive alignment and support better decision‑making.
Skills, Shortcuts and the Risk to Professional Development
There are growing concerns that AI can shortcut learning, allowing people to produce outputs without a true understanding of quality, structure, or professional judgement.
Research suggests that deep learning and retention come from the process of discovery itself, while over‑reliance on AI can dull critical thinking.
AI should enhance learning, not replace it. Strong foundational skills, clear development pathways and deliberate learning design remain essential to building capable, confident communicators.
Information Overload and Strategic Influence
Information overload is no longer just a communications issue, but a workplace wellbeing challenge. Research highlighted during the discussion shows that excessive and fragmented communication increases employee stress and burnout [Gallagher, 2026], while unclear or competing channels create anxiety and a heightened perceived risk of missing critical information.
“Information overload is the number one concern for communication
professionals. More communication doesn’t improve understanding… it dilutes
the message and contributes to stress and burnout.”Monique Zytnik
Internal communications can materially improve employee wellbeing by streamlining channels, setting clear guardrails, limiting indiscriminate “all-staff” emails and acting as conductors of information flow, not amplifiers. Used thoughtfully, AI can support this shift through personalisation, intelligent targeting and filtering.
At the same time, a hard reality is that a growing number of organisations are reducing team sizes due to automation or economic pressure and content-only roles are most exposed to change. However, clear opportunity lies in strategic advisory roles, executive communications, stakeholder engagement, trust management and business-literate communicators who challenge and influence leaders.
One Final Piece of Advice: How to Start Today
For anyone feeling overwhelmed by AI, Monique offered a disarmingly simple starting point: phone a friend. Find someone already using AI, ask how they use it, try one thing together and learn collaboratively.
“People come first. Technology merely enables.”
Monique Zytnik
AI does not diminish the role of professional communicators; it holds the potential to elevate the function.
Realising that potential, however, requires curiosity, comfort with ambiguity and investment in people, not just tools. Communicators who are willing to let go of outdated models and reposition themselves as trusted strategic partners will not be chasing AI, but at the forefront of defining how organisations use it.
Missed the session or want to dive deeper? Click the link here to watch the webinar.
