How agentic AI could put corporate messaging to the test amid worker fears
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Lattice CEO Sarah Franklin and CCO Cheryl Sanclemente talk to Axios' Eleanor Hawkins in Davos. Credit: Dani Ammann Photography on behalf of Axios
Three in four Americans view AI negatively, a recent Gallup-Telescope survey found, even as U.S. businesses go all in.
Why it matters: This creates a unique challenge for communicators.
Driving the news: Communicators gathered at the Qualcomm House in Davos to discuss how to position artificial intelligence so that it builds confidence and trust.
- A new report from Page and The Harris Poll found that adults across the globe are most confident that companies can make an impact on tech innovation.
What they're saying: "What we see right now is that AI is a transformative technology, which is very exciting and very powerful," said Sarah Franklin, CEO of people management platform Lattice. "But there's a lot of questions, many questions that we don't have answers to."
Zoom in: It's particularly challenging to communicate how agentic AI could affect the workforce and change people's roles and responsibilities.
- "If you rewind one year backward, we weren't talking about a digital labor force, and now we are," said Franklin. "The question is, how close are we to agentic AI and how will that be to work together with [AI] agents? I think it'll be much more normalized."
Between the lines: Communicators anticipate pushback and questions from employees about these new tools. This makes early messaging and terminology — digital worker versus digital labor versus agentic workforce — particularly important.
- "It's a new concept, and it needs more explanation than a pithy headline," Franklin said. " ... We need to take time and be very clear in our explanations so that the details don't get lost."
Flashback: Companies came under fire in recent years for their positioning of issues like environmental, social and governance (ESG) and diversity and inclusion. How AI is messaged will be just as important.
- "Words matter. Timing matters," Lattice chief communications officer Cheryl Sanclemente said, adding what's "going to be an ongoing struggle for communicators is how do we bridge and tell stories around AI that still keeps people at the forefront."
Yes, but: It's also important to bring the pertinent communities along in the AI journey, says Bea Perez, global chief communications, sustainability and strategic partnerships officer at The Coca-Cola Company.
- Coca-Cola, which has been experimenting with AI since 2023, received backlash after airing its first fully AI-generated advertisement over the holidays.
- "What we found is that actually a lot of the concerns were coming from the creative community or from agencies. And it was because, you know, they're concerned about job disruption," said Perez.
- "One of the key learnings ... is making sure [the creative community] has a seat at the table and they're helping us. The second piece to it is making sure we're talking to our employees directly about how we're using it and how we're not using it."
What to watch: It will be interesting to hear how business leaders communicate the upside of AI to shareholders, compared to employees.
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