2024 Global Employee Communications Survey Shows Significant Changes in AI Attitudes, Adoption

• In just 9 months, +13% swing in favorability attitudes toward AI

• +10% on belief that AI shaping the future of Employee Communications

• 93% view AI as a new competency to acquire, and tee up change management skills as well

• Adoption of AI productivity tools up significantly, but strategic uses lag

A 2024 survey on Generative AI with employee communications professionals – following up on what was measured in 2023 – shows that AI has grown from its infancy to what clearly is an adolescent stage of development for employee communicators.

Administered by North Star Communications Consulting and Jon Stemmle, professor of Strategic Communications at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, this year’s survey included added questions on strategy, increased participation and had representation from continents across the globe. Overall, the findings show that keeping up with the pace of AI change is proving to be a challenge.

For starters, employee communications professionals now view Generative AI as a new competency they need to develop.  A whopping 93% said AI is a new skill set needed. They also view change management as requirement to support the introduction and responsible use of AI, as 73% also believe AI will require that discipline.

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“The connection between Generative AI and change management could not be closer. Their symbiotic relationship underscores the importance of integrating these two disciplines for effective organizational transformation,” said Mark Dollins, president of North Star Communications Consulting.  “The growing influence of AI offers two unprecedented opportunities for employee communicators: One is to drive new levels of measurable business performance – and the second is to elevate communicators’ influence, and that of their employee communications function, to unparalleled levels of strategic importance.”

Attitudes toward Generative AI have undergone substantial changes since last year’s survey just nine months ago, reflecting a 13% increase in positively perceiving AI’s societal benefits and a reduced concern (7%) about job displacement for communicators. Additionally, a 10% positive swing in 2024 demonstrates a growing belief in AI shaping the future of employee communications.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the data from our survey clearly shows that communicators are experimenting with Generative AI almost exclusively on ways to address limited bandwidth, to save time, and make them and their teams more productive. Over the past nine months, there has been a 21% increase in adoption of Generative AI technologies for employee communications, accompanied by a 9% rise in recognizing its perceived value for employee communications.

“Despite productivity gains, strategic applications such as analytics remain underdeveloped, suggesting a need for further exploration and investment in this area. Less than 10% of respondents are currently using AI for trend identification or outcome prediction, highlighting a gap in strategic use,” said Stemmle. “Perhaps the most eye-opening result came from the question we asked about whether employee communicators were using AI for strategic purposes.”  Seventy-six percent of the employee communications pros taking the survey said their employers were using AI for some business purpose, but that they either were not using AI for communications, or they were unsure as to whether or not they were.

The good news is that Generative AI is really helping employee communicators with time savings. Almost three-quarters of them report time savings in one way or another with Generative AI, and almost half are using that time for more strategic pursuits.

As for how much time it’s saving, almost 60% reported that using AI saves 1-2 hours a week, while the other 40% say they’re saving 3-5 hour or more weekly.

The survey also sought to gain a sense of how, or if, employee communicators were addressing the need to lead Generative AI decisions and actions in their organizations. From a policy point of view, less than half of those responding to our survey (45%) said their organizations have a clearly stated AI policy for its use by employees. Similarly, only 45% reported that someone from employee communications is actively engaged in shaping AI usage (with another 15% saying they were unsure).

“While the past nine months have marked substantial progress, there’s still much ground to cover in leveraging AI for transformative employee communications,” Dollins said. “AI invites employee communicators to shape a future where they develop strategies with data and analytics, and have deeper, broader engagement with both the internal and external forces influencing AI’s development, regulation, deployment and responsible, ethical use.”

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