Creating meaningful engagement in Asia’s dynamic markets

Artificial intelligence (AI) is arguably one of the most talked-about topics in the world at present. AI-related stocks such as semiconductor group Nvidia are powering stock markets higher, and voice assistants including Alexa are in many homes helping us with recipes or answering questions about South American capital cities.

We don’t think twice about typing requests to bank or e-commerce chatbots or reading about how AI is helping to find the next antibiotic or fight cancer. But alongside the entertainment and excitement comes a degree of misunderstanding and misapprehension: self-driving vehicles, humanoid robots, weaponry, and what tools and automation mean for the future of work.

A recent survey of UK small- to medium-sized businesses from Uswitch revealed that a third of employees wanted more job reassurance from their employers around AI in the workplace. Indeed, a fifth of employees said they were “frightened about their career’s future when it comes to AI developments” and felt “threatened” by AI’s potential.

Even when employees are more accepting of AI in the workplace, emotions still run high.

A Workday survey found that 75% of employees were comfortable teaming up with AI agents, but only 24% liked them operating in the background without human knowledge. Most businesses want to adopt AI – either in the form of GenAI agents such as ChatGPT or Copilot, automation, or robotic technology – to boost productivity.

But even employers are concerned about a decline in critical human thinking and less human interaction as a result of AI adoption. For it to be a success, communication between leadership and employees is crucial to build trust, explain the benefits, and ease concerns. James Owens, researcher at Roffey Park Institute in the UK, said that organisations succeeding with AI aren’t necessarily more advanced technically but are better at communicating. “It’s the difference between innovation that transforms versus innovation that gathers dust,” he said. “The majority of employees trust AI tools more when ethics and compliance are clearly communicated.”

This means explaining the why and how behind the changes being made: “including rather than informing, co-creating instead of dictating, and acknowledging the limitations of AI tools alongside the capabilities.”

What it doesn’t mean is assuming employees always understand why AI is being adopted, communicating only the benefits and ignoring fears, mandating the change from the top down, and speaking in too much technological and corporate jargon. “Mistrust is one of the main barriers. AI has so much access to your personal information and there is so much talk about it coming to replace your job,” Owens said.

“Transparency is key in alleviating these barriers. Break down what a large language model means, what they do and how they might help in terms of operating systems and the person’s job. Also, let employees know what data the tool will have access to. Explain the guardrails and let them ask you questions. Don’t just implement it and let it go!”

Unfortunately, Owens believes that too few companies are carrying out effective communication strategies. “Many firms are still trying to find their feet in a fast-moving AI environment,” said Owens. “In the rush to implement tools, employees are being forgotten. You’re not ahead of the AI curve if you haven’t taken your employee with you.”

Owens said this direction has to come from a company’s leadership team. They have to be accountable for the decision to adopt AI, but a dedicated communications team should also play a significant part. “They can help create a feedback loop to maintain that culture of trust,” he said.

One industry insider said this could be a challenge. “Communications teams are very slow to act; they wait for permission to take the lead on something like AI. Many of them still don’t even use it in their work, let alone drive the conversations in the organisation.”

Sia Papageorgiou, co-founder of the Melbourne-based Centre for Strategic Communication Excellence, however, said internal communications teams are ready for the challenge. “Ever since ChatGPT and similar tools came onto the scene we’ve done a lot of work in this space,” she said. “We’ve created guidelines for responsible and ethical AI use when adopting tools. We’ve also adopted a playbook to help communication teams implement AI within their organisation.”

This includes becoming the moral architects of AI by leading governance structures and establishing ethical frameworks. Communications teams should also act as a bridge between technical AI implementation and employee trust.

“Communications teams have a huge opportunity to drive the AI conversation. They are super-connected and should be using those relationships to help the implementation,” she said. “We should be at the decision-making table, and in that room thinking about how this could be adopted. We are the ones with insight on the audience.”

She added: “Communication professionals should be setting the governance of these tools. This is how we are using them and why; these are the safeguards in place, and this is what you do if you are uncertain. We are natural storytellers. We can give employees a voice.”

Practically, that means creating FAQs for employees, AI employee-related content on the intranet, helping with training in collaboration with learning and development teams, and partnering with IT. “Communications teams can prevent companies implementing AI in a haphazard way,” she said.

Shel Holtz, director of internal communication at San Francisco-based commercial contractor Webcor, said he and his team are playing a critical role in the present adoption of Microsoft’s Copilot in the organisation.

“The introduction of AI is as big a change management initiative as I have seen,” he said. “It’s up there with being acquired or developing a new product line. Most organisations haven’t come to terms with that and how much preparation is required. People are inclined to resist changes if they don’t see them as aligned with their own best interests.”

“Communication only works when it feels human”

As such, ensuring that there is alignment between employees and the organisation, and letting everyone know what is going to be happening in the AI adoption, the potential impact, and why it is happening, is key. “You need to help employees understand why they should do this,” he said. “People are already stretched to the limit in the construction industry, and now you want us to do what?”

Holtz has been involved in the roll-out from day one as a member of Webcor’s AI committee. “I’ve been in the thick of it. Our focus was not just to go out and buy all the AI tools available,” he said. “We’ve taken a strategic approach, selecting Copilot, rolling it out slowly in areas such as Word and Excel, and establishing the processes and guardrails.”

From a communications perspective, the launch began with an “all-hands” meeting of all employees, either physically in Webcor HQ’s cafeteria or online. “We used it to introduce our AI strategy and encouraged employees to ask questions,” he said. “One person, who was a millennial, said he was really nervous about using the tool, stating that he didn’t trust it. Another said they were nervous about losing their job.”

These questions and concerns have continued to be aired and shared in the rollout through the company’s new GenAI community on its intranet. Examples could include explaining how robots on construction sites can be a positive for the business because they can do jobs that humans are reluctant to do because they are dangerous. If employees have more private concerns about AI, there is a specific communications channel available.

“We are surfacing stories of people from within the organisation who are using AI and are saving time, being more productive and efficient,” he explained. “One example was our accounting team, who had been struggling with a certain detail on Excel spreadsheets for years, but with Copilot it suddenly made sense and was effective for our project engineers working on site. We aim to publish a couple of these a month to try and inspire other employees.”

The communications team is also “weaving AI” into existing managerial material such as the monthly Manager Talking Points publication sent over email. “If an employee is freaked out that they are now working with an AI team member, we can share knowledge and best practice on how to manage that,” Holtz said.

Training is another key part of the rollout, with the communications team highlighting sessions and events. “AI is different from other technologies. The way I use AI and the way people in our accounting department use it, or project engineers out on a construction project, is just not the same. So, you can’t go out and get everyone trained in the same way. We work closely with the IT and learning and development departments on what the primary messages should be,” he said.

“So, we tailor our communications to ensure the people who would benefit most from a specific session come along. We also have resources such as YouTube videos on how to use AI tools and the policy documents on the intranet.”

The Bonn, Germany-based logistics group uses AI and automation for document management, customer chatbots, robotics in warehouses, and more recently GenAI. “We have a long history of technological rollouts and communication teams have always had the role of informing employees and the public,” said Matt Zuvela, senior editorial expert, digital & employee communications at DHL.

It rolled out a GenAI hub in December 2023 – its version of ChatGPT – and has latterly adopted Copilot Chat. In the GenAI hub, all desktop employees were encouraged via the group’s Smart Connect intranet to use AI, explore how it can work in their day-to-day jobs, and build trust with it. “We put that as a global top story in our 22 most frequently used languages so employees could see it on their Smart Connect mobile app,” Zuvela said. “We went into our five divisions at DHL and said, ‘Hey, you may want to communicate this to your staff.’ So that got cascaded through divisional newsletters. In addition, in Bonn we ran some in-person events with our senior leaders.”

The communications pointed employees to resources including its internal prompt book highlighting generic use cases and success stories. That included DHL’s use of robotics as well as GenAI. It also meant creating Q&As and video tutorials for employees. “We wanted to let people know that GenAI existed and it was useful. You don’t need to be afraid of it. You can use it as you see fit and try it out in a compliant way. We tried to demonstrate the value of change as close to an employee’s role as possible,” Zuvela said.

“The message was we use AI to help us and not the other way around. That trickles down from employee to employee. But if people have concerns, we want to hear them.”

Follow-up sessions on employee experiences with AI have also been important. They are hosted by AI experts within the business across various time zones. “The communications team also offered crash courses to get people on board with the basics. We had several sessions. We meet people where they are, not where you want them to be, either beginners or people experienced in using AI,” Zuvela explained.

“But whether it’s robotics or AI, it is about telling people that these tools are here to help you and make your job easier. But the real ‘A-ha’ moment is when it is deployed, and people start using it. Any progress is good progress.”

Sonya Poonian, AI lead, digital transformation and transformation practice at Gallagher, says internal communications teams must work closely with leaders to ensure transparent and accurate messaging. “Employees want to hear directly from decision-makers about the vision and commitment to supporting people through change.

“Every organisation should have a proactive internal communications strategy for AI, including upskilling the function itself. By leading with clarity and trust, internal communications can turn uncertainty into confidence and make AI adoption a positive cultural shift.”