How Google communicates through scrutiny
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Rob Shilkin, Google's vice president of global communications and public affairs, on stage with Axios' Eleanor Hawkins at Axios Communicators Live. Photo: Steven Duarte on behalf of Axios
Being part of the cultural zeitgeist is a blessing and a curse, Google's top communications executive Rob Shilkin told a crowd of about 350 professionals at Axios Communicators Live last week.
Why it matters: Google has no problem making headlines, so the team is focused on communicating in a punchier way and from a place of strength, even amid heightened scrutiny.
State of play: Google's communications team fields 2,000 incoming issues per year — about seven a day, Shilkin told the crowd.
Driving the news: The tech giant is currently navigating an antitrust lawsuit regarding its search browser, and there's a tiger team dedicated to managing those communications.
- "We don't have any great, unique claim to this regulatory scrutiny," says Shilkin. "Literally every big tech company in America is facing their own lawsuit. Our focus is on trying to tell our positive story."
Yes, but: Reaching audiences in this fragmented media landscape is often challenging and sharing good news can be even more difficult.
- In response, Shilkin says the team is active across all social channels, with rapid response handled on X and creator partnerships across YouTube.
- And while Google's social media following is quite large — Shilkin estimates 100 million people across platforms — they haven't gone all in on the go-direct strategy.
- "Some of the discussion is a little bit either-or — [traditional] media or going direct. And they're completely symbiotic, completely interrelated. You have to be building relationships on both sides," he says.
Zoom in: The team is also rethinking how it communicates internally by experimenting heavily with AI.
- One way it uses AI is by consolidating hot topics and questions from its vocal employee base for executives to address.
- "We actually created a new tool for the company, which uses AI to help summarize questions and group questions together for the purpose of getting to more topics," says Shilkin. "And that's actually resulted in more employees asking questions and more employee engagement."
What to watch: Google's comms team is incorporating these AI tools into its workflow while also promoting AI to the skeptical masses.
- "We're going to be really lucky position in that we have so many of the tools in-house," he says. "And we're communicating about the tools. And so we have to learn about them. We have to understand them. We have to use them as part of our day-to-day work."
