Accelerating AI Adoption: Coaching Comms Teams—and Business Leaders—to Use GenAI

By Valerie Di Maria, Principal, the10company

The CCO has a critical role in fostering the adoption of AI. Communications leaders understand the needs of stakeholders across the organization, creating the opportunity to help implement AI to enhance productivity and communications across the enterprise. Have you been a force to help your business leaders understand the benefits of adopting AI?  

As a strategic business partner, you want to inspire your communications teams and executives to transform how they work with AI; here are 10 tips for effective AI coaching.

1. Have the courage to coach. 

This is an excellent opportunity to take the initiative. Gain the expertise and make the business case for AI. Be sure to practice what you preach so you have the credibility to coach.

2. Know your executive.

Look at LinkedIn profiles in addition to company bios. Talk with colleagues, such as chiefs of staff and HR leaders, to gain insights into senior executives. Know their points of view, business objectives, and where they are on their AI journey. Customize coaching by function. Understand the attitudes and uses that HR has vs. Legal. How are CFOs thinking about AI, and what are CIOs doing in this space. When coaching groups, send a questionnaire in advance to uncover insights into how they use AI.

3. Address common concerns. 

Get objections on the table. Hear why they're not using AI, so you can address them. Be sure to acknowledge AI’s risks. Know your organization's AI policy. Address concerns about confidentiality among others. Stress the benefits of proprietary platforms.

4. Use relatable analogies. 

A great analogy is the early days of social media. At first, executives said “We aren’t using it; our clients or customers are not on it,” etc. Fast forward to 2024, and social media is an integral part of communications. Google search is another good analogy. If you need information for writing an article, you search the topic. In all instances, you never want to plagiarize. GenAI can be thought of as a more sophisticated version of search. Additionally, companies have been using machine learning for years.

5. Start somewhere. 

Encourage individuals to start with a specific task that will add the most value. Do they need to write a blog or create minutes from a meeting? And, it’s best to limit the platforms used. Work with one or two, get proficient on those before expanding to others. Leverage upcoming events to be the impetus to get executives on board. For example, in January, most companies have their global leadership meetings to set strategy for the year. Can you use AI to help executives create their talking points, capture the information that's shared? 

6. Share examples.

Be armed with specific anecdotes. Use internal success stories. Leverage case histories from other companies. 

7. Seeing is believing.

Conduct specific exercises. Load a white paper, and demonstrate how AI can create assets, including social media posts, a media pitch, etc. Do it in real time and see how it works. Encourage experimentation for personal uses. For example, use AI to create a wedding toast. Importantly, show the benefit of customized GPTs for the executive you are coaching. Load their speeches (public information, if you don’t have a proprietary platform), previous media interviews, etc., and demonstrate how AI can create a first draft with their messaging and tone. 

8. Enlist key advisors.

Highlight senior leaders who walk the talk. Be sure to include your tech experts. We recently worked with a company where the communications team didn't know what AI was available in their organization. The AI expert didn’t fully understand the ways the comms team could use GenAI. Get everyone on the same page.

9. Keep interactions moving.

Most senior executives have limited time and grasp concepts quickly. Don't try and go through everything they need to know about GenAI in one meeting. Are they engaged or distracted? Prioritize what you want to cover. Having shorter, more frequent meetings is better than longer ones. 

10. Create ongoing resources.

Think about a reverse mentoring program where up and coming executives, with an affinity for AI, are matched with senior leaders. Create a place on your intranet for frequently asked questions. Prompt libraries are also helpful. And, identify AI ambassadors or power users. They may be people on your communications team or others in the company who have embraced AI.

In summary, proactively coach your communications teams and business leaders to use GenAI for communications to align with business and productivity goals.