5 Ways Internal Comms Teams Are *Actually* Using AI

If you're feeling overwhelmed, curious, or even skeptical about AI in internal communications, you're not alone. When internal comms professionals share how they feel about AI, responses range from "excited" and "optimistic" to "confused," "nervous," and even "inadequate."

The good news? You don't need to master every AI tool to get value from this technology. The secret lies in shifting your mindset from tools to problems.

In our recent Workvivo Masterclass, internal communications expert Joanna Parsons shared valuable insights on how comms teams are leveraging AI to solve everyday challenges.

Read on for our key takeaways.

Start with problems, not tools

Parsons sees a common pattern among teams struggling with AI adoption: they start with the tools instead of the problems they need to solve.

"Sometimes I see comms professionals will start with the tool," Parsons explains. Companies buy enterprise licenses for AI platforms, then ask employees to figure out how to use them. But this approach gets it backward.

The teams doing exceptional work with AI take a different path. As Parsons puts it: "Problem first, tool later."

Instead of browsing AI tool directories wondering what to try, start by identifying your biggest communication challenges. Then explore whether AI can help solve them.

5 real examples of AI solving comms problems

Here are five practical ways internal comms teams are using AI right now:

1. Analyzing 800+ survey comments in minutes

When one organization received over 800 open-ended responses to their employee engagement survey, the team faced days of manual analysis work. Instead, they uploaded all comments to a large language model like ChatGPT.

They prompted the AI to identify top themes, analyze sentiment percentages, and pull sample quotes for presentations. Then they went further, asking: "Based on this analysis, give me 5 short-term actions and 5 longer-term actions to address the main themes."

This freed the team to focus on strategy instead of spending all their time on tedious analysis.

2. Creating FAQs from dense policy documents

HR delivered a 20-page benefits policy update full of jargon and complex language. Employees needed to understand it – there were pension details and time-sensitive actions – but who reads 20 pages?

The comms team uploaded the document to Claude (a ChatGPT alternative) with this prompt: "Here's a 20-page benefits policy update. Identify the 6 questions employees are most likely to ask, and draft clear, concise answers for each."

The result? A scannable FAQ document that made critical information accessible.

3. Preparing for high-stakes presentations

A newly hired head of internal comms faced a crucial challenge: presenting her first-ever internal comms strategy to leadership. As a team of one with no peer network, she needed someone to challenge her thinking.

She turned to ChatGPT, providing detailed context about herself, the company, her presentation goals, and each leadership team member. Then she asked the AI to role-play as the skeptical CFO and challenge her with tough questions.

"It spat her out all of these difficult, tricky, awful, awful questions," Parsons recalls. The exercise helped her refine her presentation and prepare thoughtful responses. She walked into the meeting feeling "super prepared" and succeeded.

4. Turning long podcasts into multiple content formats

When a new CEO recorded a candid 45-minute video podcast, the comms team knew most employees wouldn't watch it all. But the content was gold – it addressed anxiety about leadership change and built trust.

Using AI tools, they extracted a full transcript, created a 500-word summary for newsletters, pulled five impactful quotes for digital screens, developed an FAQ about the new CEO, and cut the video into short clips for various channels.

One piece of content became a multi-channel campaign.

5. Restoring heritage photos for anniversary campaigns

A somewhat niche example of leveraging AI came from another client Parsons worked with. They were preparing for the company’s 100th anniversary when they discovered a box of historic photos – pictures of the first CEO, original office, employee milestones spanning decades. The problem? The images were grainy, pixelated, and too low-quality for modern use.

Rather than sending photos to expensive specialists, the team used AI photo enhancement tools. Within seconds, they transformed unusable vintage images into crisp, campaign-ready content. This example is unlikely to be very common for most internal comms teams, but shows how AI can be applied to a variety of problems, saving time and money.

The bottom line

AI won't replace internal communicators. As Parsons puts it: "It's a tool, but it's not the communicator." Human judgment, relationship building, and understanding organizational nuance remain irreplaceable.

But AI can handle tedious tasks, speed up analysis, and free you to focus on strategy. The key is identifying your problems first, then finding the right AI solution.

Ready to see more examples and practical demonstrations? Watch the full masterclass on how internal comms teams are actually using AI.