End of conversation  We are training employees to talk to bots. They must learn to talk to other people.

E&Y reports that 83% of UK employees use generative AI at work. Alive to the trend, companies are investing millions of pounds training their employees in prompt-engineering. They should be focusing on a communications strategy that strives to retain the art of conversation. Without immediate action, we risk a communications crisis, where we turn to chatbots over humans. This would have disastrous consequences for business and society.

Talking timebomb

Tech companies have built entire empires on our preference for lazy, low-friction, uncomplicated messaging. Fast, digital transactional exchange is eclipsing conversation. Employees increasingly prefer to fire off an email, when the task would be resolved more quickly by picking up the phone. The trend has potentially grave consequences: without a clear communications strategy, messages are often lost in translation, leading to delays and costly mistakes. The decline in interpersonal skills is detrimental to business: success is founded on robust human relationships, where voice and conversation are essential.

Some of the problem is gendered. Barely half of men feel a ‘general chat’ is worthy of a phone call, compared to more than two-thirds of women.

Yet most of the problem is generational. Generation Z dislikes speaking on the phone. A Uswitch survey reveals that 70% of 18-34-year-olds prefer texting to phone calls. Some 37% prefer voice notes to an actual conversation.

Phone phobia is prevalent among the young. Many Zoomers report a fear of using the phone, saying that they experience anxiety during real-time conversations. More than half of 18-34-year-olds (56%) associate unplanned incoming calls with bad news. Little surprise that nearly a quarter (23%) never answer them. Phone conversations make many young people feel awkward. Thus, they avoid them.

There is a demographic timebomb ticking. Conversation is the intended victim. Yet technology cannot – and should not – replace using our voices to talk to each other. Paradoxical as it might sound, as generative AI penetrates the workplace, it becomes ever more imperative to encourage human-to-human interaction. Businesses must develop a communications strategy to ensure their messages to audiences are received as intended.

Talking up

To develop a communications strategy, businesses should ask three questions:

1. What are we trying to achieve?
2. Who is our audience?
3. Which channel, or combination of channels, is most suitable for our objective and audience?

Audiences include employees, customers, the media and suppliers. Determine whether you are informing, persuading, deciding, building or deepening a relationship, or supporting a customer with an issue.

Devise a set of key messages for all communications – including sales, marketing and HR – throughout the business. Strive for consistency and clarity. Precise, clear messaging is hard to achieve, yet worth the effort to deliver a competitive advantage.

Encourage a ‘close the loop’ culture, whereby employees working on a project together or attending a team meeting, whether via videoconferencing or in-person, are encouraged to summarise the meeting and identify next steps. Such summaries can be achieved with AI. But remember to discuss them subsequently over the phone, via videoconferencing or face-to-face. Conversation is the key to ensuring the intended actions are carried out.

Recruit well. Engage a specialist or in-house comms person to provide training on communicating clearly and concisely. These learnings should include AI-prompting, writing emails and briefs, and how to communicate with intent and express ideas in a succinct and structured way.

Avoid jargon. Most workplace tasks and discussions can, and should, be conveyed in plain English. If you operate in a jargon-filled industry, try to humanise it. English is the richest language in the world. Among the 171,476 words that feature in the Oxford English Dictionary, there is probably a real word to replace the jargon someone in your sector once contrived.

Clarity fosters transparency. It cultivates open communications where employees can communicate honestly about the positives and negatives of a project. Encourage senior managers to use the phone and videoconferencing, and arrange face-to-face meetings, to ensure communication flows freely and easily.

Communication collapse

Communication issues can hinder growth. A review of your internal communications likely reveals several issues of which you were unaware. Businesses often think they have a complex technical or process problem when, in fact, it is simply a communications problem that can be solved relatively easily.

It is vital that the review precedes the company-wide implementation of generative AI. That way, when AI is introduced, it can be framed as a part of the overall communications strategy rather than the default medium. An employee may talk to AI rather than a colleague. A customer may converse with an AI chatbot. But a phone call might be more valuable.

By creating a communication strategy and providing guidelines, your employees will take time to make a considered decision about which communication method to use – rather than just firing off a quick instant message or email. It will also make them aware that AI is intended to support communication, not replace it. Improved productivity, better collaboration and enhanced connection with employees and your customers, should result.

Technical knockout

The threat that people will become too reliant on AI is real. There are already cases of professionals treating its answers and outputs as definitive. Yet failing to fact-check LLMs is dangerous. This is why guardrails and processes are essential.

Businesses are learning to communicate with AIs through prompting. This makes strong communication skills more important, not less. Define your objective, audience and context. Set the right tone. If you don’t get what you desire, go back and ask the AI more questions. Build on what you have. This can also benefit conversation skills. Using generative AI forces you to think of different ways to ask for what you need. It highlights any unclear thinking.

As we interact with AI more, it will become increasingly difficult to navigate human relationships. This is because AI’s answers are polished and designed to fulfil our needs and provide instant gratification, whereas humans are messy and imperfect.

Relying too much on AI for answers can also reduce our ability to empathise, which is a key facilitator of winning and retaining business. Algorithms can be programmed to express empathy. Yet real human emotion lies in listening to – and understanding – people who are angry, disappointed or judgemental. Dealing with human relationships is complex. AI is not trained to do it. Hence why most customers prefer speaking to a human over the automated, happy, perfect response of a chatbot. Humans do not behave like AIs. Nor do we wish them to.

Still, almost two billion people use AI today. Nearly nine in ten of those (88%) use it in at least one business function to improve efficiency and productivity. We use, or will use, AI in almost all communications – such as drafting emails, summarising calls and meetings, generating content for sales and marketing, and powering chatbots. But we must use AI to aid us, not direct us. Communications that have been written by AI will be increasingly ignored. Humans are already evolving to spot the too-perfect slop that screams inauthenticity. Your customers won’t be fooled.

It probably seems ridiculous to Baby Boomers and Generation Xers that we should teach people to use the phone. Yet the need is real. Generation Z are digital natives. They prefer digital communications to the phone.

Providing training on soft skills is crucial as AI advances. Teach employees – particularly younger ones – how to handle difficult conversations on the phone and face-to-face. Hold workshops in active listening, critical thinking, questioning and storytelling. Help them develop their confidence in communicating with people in the real world, so they can resist the urge to hide in the digital shadows.

Businesses that implement an effective communications strategy, using many methods, will communicate more clearly and concisely, ensuring their messages reach the right audience.

Leaders must address the communications emergency. They should strive to preserve human-to-human connection. The alternative future is grim. Without a better balance between communication and AI, we may not only get lost in translation but lose our voice completely.

So to speak

What, when and why…

Phone

• Best for urgent, complex or relationship-focused interactions
• Should be modelled by leaders to normalise use
• Human voice adds emotional clarity – our most powerful tool
• Talking builds the human skills we must retain, such as listening, empathy and sharing experiences in real time

Videoconferencing

• Ideal for distributed team collaboration or
  shared screens
• Avoid overuse to prevent fatigue
• Set clear guidelines on expected use of cameras
• Use AI for notes and actions

Email

• Primary channel for formal, documented communication – 376 billion emails are sent every day worldwide
• Keep written communication concise and clear
• Use plain English
• AI is good for grammar checking – but write the email yourself to avoid losing the personal touch

Messaging

• Great for quick responses, community engagement and broadcast announcements
• Must be used carefully to avoid errors
  or miscommunication
• AI can assist drafting but requires oversight

Face-to-face

• Most effective for building trust and understanding
• Deepens relationships
• Body language adds a layer of understanding and communication that is impossible with digital
• Make the effort to have regular in-person meetings