The biggest AI challenge many communications leaders face is getting employees to use the technology internally.

🧠 Why it matters: AI may promise massive efficiency gains, but without trust and adoption inside organizations, those gains will stall.

By the numbers: Roughly 1 in 4 comms leaders plan to spend more than 10% of their budget on AI, yet 88% say they are not prepared to lead an AI transformation, according to a recent BCG report.

• And only 31% of comms chiefs say they are meaningfully scaling GenAI beyond pilots.

Driving the news: Axios convened roughly 20 communications and public affairs leaders in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday to discuss the role of human connection and storytelling in the age of AI.

• The event took place alongside Axios' AI+DC Summit, where the friction of Silicon Valley's confidence in AI and Washington's anxiety over the new technology was ever-present.
• Meanwhile, comms chiefs identified internal storytelling as a key sticking point.

State of play: Communications teams are increasingly responsible for framing AI as a tool for growth, not just efficiency, inside their companies, but they're still feeling resistance.

• Leaders said employee anxiety about job loss, role changes and the pace of disruption is shaping how companies introduce AI and how workforces deploy it.

Yes, but: Several executives said adoption works best when leaders are candid about what is changing, while also emphasizing upskilling and long-term career development.

• Marni Puente, chief marketing and communications officer at SAIC, said the message to employees has been that learning AI is a way to "future-proof" their careers.
• At KPMG, Holly Skillin said the opportunity is not just to use AI to work faster, but to free up time for stronger client relationships and more human-centered work, which resonates with most employees.

Zoom in: Peer influence and ownership over one's work matter more than top-down mandates.

• Many described identifying internal "AI champions" who can coach colleagues, share practical use cases and make adoption feel relevant to day-to-day work.
• Others said experimentation challenges and internal task forces have helped surface super-users and lower the fear factor.

What they're saying: "I find that a lot of times we try to communicate down to an organization, as opposed to letting individuals communicate out," said executive coach and founder of Ferrazzi Greenlight, Keith Ferrazzi.

• "We're finding that if you could anoint 'black belts of AI' inside your company, the people who are out ahead of others, they become the best spokespeople," he said.

The bottom line: For communicators, AI adoption is becoming as much a change-management story as a technology story, and the companies that do it well will be the ones that make employees feel included, equipped and heard.

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Owned media — a company's website or self-published blogs — is rising in importance in the age of AI, according to a recent analysis by Penta Group.

Why it matters: Communications teams must structure their websites in a way that can be optimized for large language models like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude.

By the numbers: Roughly 60% of cited material in LLMs comes from corporate-owned or business-produced sources, per the analysis.

• About 25% comes from traditional media, with the rest split across user-generated and third-party platforms.
• For more general queries, LLMs cite a mix of earned media (28%) and owned content (22%).

Between the lines: It seems that LLMs reward content that looks more like journalism than marketing — think clear headlines, FAQ-style formatting, named authors and regularly updated pages.

• That makes content structure and freshness a controllable lever for comms teams trying to influence how their brand appears in AI answers.
• "In a world where people aren't going to websites as much and they're going to LLMs, you want to make sure that your websites are designed to answer the questions people are asking," said Andrea Christianson, partner at Penta.
• Plus, brands are shifting from "borrowed audiences" to "borrowed expertise," partnering with niche, authoritative sources of original insights to increase the likelihood their perspectives surface in AI-generated answers.

Zoom in: This isn't just about publicity, it's also about competitive visibility.

• "A big chunk of this is going to be how your competitors show up, so you have to figure out how you show up vis-à-vis them," said Matt McDonald, CEO at Penta.
• Companies have unusual control here because they own the content, and can scale production quickly and directly feed structured information into AI systems, he added.
• Plus, brands can tap partners and other third parties by placing insights in high-authority, niche sources — the kinds of places AI systems rely on for deep, original information — to increase the odds of being cited.

Reality check: While trends are starting to take shape, no one can pinpoint exactly how LLMs decide which information to source and cite.

• "Owned is generally a good SEO strategy," says Jim Prosser, principal at Tamalpais Strategies. "What this boils down to is SEO plus good comms. They discovered that good comms works everywhere … and slapped a new acronym — GEO— on it."

What to watch: The rise of owned media as an AI input could reshape communications teams and encourage more investment in editorial and storytelling talent and closer alignment among SEO, content and comms.

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Big U.S. brands are scrambling to figure out how best to activate around the 250th anniversary of America's founding.

Why it matters: What should be a brand-safe opportunity has turned into a political tightrope walk.

Catch up quick: The celebration is being led by two groups: The America250 Commission, a bipartisan group established by Congress in 2016, and Task Force 250, led by President Trump and established through executive order.

• Companies planning their contributions have to decide which organization to give to that could cast a halo effect on the brand and please the administration.

By the numbers: According to a recent M Booth survey, 62% of Americans say the 250th anniversary is personally important, and 8 in 10 say it's a moment to celebrate America's history, achievements and values.

• Yes, but: The celebration comes at a time when most (60%) of Americans say the country is more divided now than at any period in their lifetime.

Zoom in: Because of this, companies are navigating how best to message and engage around the celebration without appearing performative.

• Gen Z is also the most attuned to "performative" marketing, per the report. So, along with sponsoring official celebrations, younger consumers expect brands to support local community events or charities (50%) and acknowledge American ingenuity, innovation and technology (47%).
• The majority of Americans polled say brands should highlight the values of freedom and independence in their 250th messaging, while only 2 in 10 expect to hear about tolerance and ingenuity.

What to watch: The 250th is a key priority for the Trump administration and could serve as a uniting moment for a divided nation.

• Corporate sponsors Amazon, JPMorgan Chase, Oracle and Walmart are backing that effort.

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Here are some other headlines that caught our attention this week...

🎥 OpenAI's Sora wasn't just unprofitable, it was also generating legal and reputational risk. Shuttering it eliminates an entire category of copyright and safety exposure ahead of a potential initial public offering. (Axios)

🧠 The Department of Labor is rolling out the "Make America AI Ready" initiative, which is a free course "intentionally designed for Americans who may be a little fearful of or unsure about AI." (Axios)

💼 Business leaders today are exaggerating the technology's role in layoffs, according to economists who argue the most likely reasons for head-count reductions continue to be slower sales, shifting priorities and previous over hiring. (The Wall Street Journal)

💰BlackRock CEO and chair Larry Fink published his annual letter this week, highlighting a few key trends that communications and corporate affairs teams should monitor.

• Corporate America has a perception problem as the gap among the haves, haves-lots and have-nots has widened. Expect companies to continue touting their impact stories, particularly on the local level.
• AI will change the workforce. "Historically, automation has increased productivity and, over time, expanded the range of available work— even as it displaced specific roles. AI may do the same. But new roles take time to emerge, and workers don't always move seamlessly from old ones to new ones," he writes.
• Yes, but: AI "is here to stay" and "is central to strategic competition between the United States and China," he acknowledges.
• 👉🏻 Case in point: Geopolitics is now embedded in corporate storytelling, as countries prioritize self-reliance in energy, defense and technology. For communicators, that means weaving policy alignment and geopolitical awareness directly into core narratives.

📈CNBC alum Courtney Reagan has joined Blackstone as senior editor of Blackstone Insights, "focused on translating Blackstone's unique insights into clear, compelling signals for investors," she shared in a video on X.

As chief marketing officer of Samsung Electronics America, Allison Stransky oversees the company's corporate marketing team and is responsible for the Samsung brand.

Why it matters: Samsung is trying to position itself as the companion to AI living through its electronics and home products, and Stransky's team is responsible for sharing that narrative with a skeptical consumer base.

What she's saying: "We have the privilege of being in this place of we're bringing it to the consumers on all of our devices," Stransky told Axios. "You need a device for AI to run on, and that is your phone, your computer, your television, everything has AI in it, which is amazing."

• "And then we are marketers, so we get to bring that story to the consumer, but then we're also at the forefront of doing our best to be those early adopters and see how we are getting benefits from our work."

State of play: Stransky oversees the team responsible for U.S. corporate marketing and communications, Big Data, AI-led transformation, sustainability, and citizenship across the brand.

Catch up quick: Before joining Samsung, Stransky served as head of strategy and operations for Google's global creative services teams.

• She also spent close to a decade at L'Oreal and started her marketing career in the consumer packaged goods spaces at Unilever and Johnson & Johnson.

Between the lines: Purpose-driven marketing has taken a back seat in recent years, but Stransky says it's still an important part of the Samsung brand.

• "We spend a lot of time thinking about purpose, and I would love to see it come back from everybody," she says. "One of the things that I believe to be true is that younger consumers — Gen Z and soon Gen Alpha — care more about brand purpose than every generation before them, and there's so much more tuned into it. So I think purpose is going to continue to be relevant, if not become more relevant," she says.
• Zoom in: "Solve for Tomorrow" — an open competition in which students use STEM skills to tackle real-world community challenges — is Samsung's purpose-driven initiative.

What she's watching: How AI is changing the media landscape and what that means for paid media spend, SEO and discoverability.

Go deeper: Read the spotlight in its entirety.

Leaders in the tech space have "made what I believe is a profound narrative error. They've cast themselves as the heroes in their own stories, and in doing so, risk becoming the villain in everyone else's. Historically, the best brands have made someone else the hero of their story. Apple was in service of the creative misfit, Nike celebrated the everyday athlete. When you build a story around your company as the hero, you risk turning your customers or users into NPCs [non-player characters]."