‘Silence is expensive’: How leaders should talk about AI

Here crisis communications expert Peter Wilkinson examines the best way for leaders to talk to teams in an era where simple assurances are dishonest (republished from Mumbrella). 

How should leaders talk about AI, and how should staff talk back when the future is uncertain?

The issue is not AI adoption. It is the fear, confusion, and breakdown of trust that happens when people cannot tell whether AI will expand their work or erase it.

That is why the “We Must Act Now” statement published on 13 July is so important. More than 1,700 experts and signatories warned that AI may become radically more powerful within a decade and that leaders must build the incentives, guardrails and institutions needed to steer it toward complementing humans rather than replacing them.

This is not fringe alarmism. The signatories include major economists, researchers and thinkers at the forefront of AI.

My speech at Mumbrella’s Commscon in March started from a simple but uncomfortable idea: AI will not just change tools. It will change the human meaning of work. In corporate affairs, marketing, research and reputation management, the organisations that survive will be the ones that put trust, truth, transparency and judgment at the centre.

If I were a junior in a marketing firm, an accounting firm, a law firm, or in journalism, I would be asking whether I would still have a job in two years. I am certain that in the communication profession, marketing, research and writing are being undermined permanently. Many junior roles will vanish.

Even now, the marketing strap line for your bank (“More than money”) or phone provider (“Yes”) or grocer (“Fresh food people”) is irrelevant. All that matters is performance, and performance is searchable. We can’t yet automate switching banks, phone companies or grocers, but it’s around the corner. When it arrives, the slogan dies.

If I were a partner or employer, I would be asking whether I should keep hiring juniors or whether the right answer is to shrink the middle of the firm and lean harder on AI. These are not abstract questions. They are being asked in boardrooms right now.

Leaders should not communicate about AI as though it is a shiny innovation. It is a transition with winners, losers and responsibilities. I think and talk about it like that.

Workplace anxiety rises when leadership is vague. And silence is the most expensive form of vagueness. When people are anxious and leaders say nothing, employees fill the vacuum with worst-case assumptions. That is a crisis communications problem, self-inflicted.

The right leadership message is plain: yes, some tasks will change. No, we do not yet know everything. Here is what we know. Here is what we are doing. And here is when we will update you again.

Australians are great bullshit detectors. Two communication errors destroy trust fast. The first is false certainty, leaders pretending the outcome is decided. The second is corporate fog: platitudes about “opportunity” while staff quietly worry about redundancy. In comms, both are fatal. Be honest, or be found out.

Don’t wait passively and hope the answer is kind. Communicate upward with calm, specific, strategic questions. I’ve promoted “strong and honest conversations” for years.  Just frame the question, the elephant in the room, with emotional intelligence.

Which tasks are being automated first? What parts of client work still need human judgment? How will training change? How will this firm balance improving quality and reducing headcount?

That is not resistance. It is governance. The staff member who asks those questions is helping the firm manage risk, preserve capability and avoid a morale collapse that no amount of pizza and town halls will fix.

Tip: Proactively design AI for self-improvement.

The broader research reinforces this. Boston Consulting’s 2025 global survey of more than 10,600 workers found that the proportion of employees who feel positive about AI rises when leadership demonstrates strong support. The variable is not the technology. It is the quality of leadership communication around it.

A second useful voice is the employee-mental-health perspective published in Fortune by the CEO of ComPsych. AI fear shows up as disengagement, burnout and overcompensation. Leaders need early, open and consistent communication because silence allows rumours to harden into fear. That is a useful reminder: AI is not just a productivity question. It is a psychological safety issue.

The global research picture is clearer than it was a year ago. OECD, “Skills in the AI Age” (July 2026): AI can enhance productivity, stimulate growth and create new jobs, but it also displaces roles if the transition is not managed. Adapting requires developing new skills. AI need not replace people. It replaces the skills they were hired for.

International AI Safety Report 2026  (February 2026), supervised by over 100 Artificial Intelligence (AI) experts. Some expect job losses to be offset by new job creation. Others argue that if AI systems perform a significant fraction of tasks more cost-effectively than humans, the impact on wages and employment will be substantial.

That research matters because it tells leaders not to over-promise. AI is not just a tool that creates efficiency. It is a technology that changes the distribution of work, value and power.

The human question is therefore central: who benefits, who bears the cost, and how fast can institutions adapt?

Which brings us back to the “We Must Act Now” statement published on 13 July and also PM Albanese’s speech on 15th: “The fact that we cannot stop change does not render us powerless, far from it. Our power, our agency, our choice lies in embracing change and shaping it.”

The centre of gravity has shifted. The serious debate is no longer about whether AI will disrupt labour. It is about how fast, how deep, and whether institutions can keep up.

The best organisations will not treat AI as a replacement for people. They will treat it as a way to remove drudgery while increasing the value of human judgment, trust and accountability.

That may be a blessing in disguise. It is certainly a future worth arguing for.