AI is Both the Medium and the Message

What does it mean to lead in an AI-native world? In this episode, Page members Nanne Bos and Marc Cloosterman of the Scriptorium Initiative about how AI is reshaping trust, communication, and the future of our profession, far beyond tools and tactics.

Transcript

AI-generated, some errors may appear

Scene 1: Intro

Eliot Mizrachi VO: ​ [00:00:00] At the dawn of the printing press, monks gathered in Scriptoria quiet rooms where knowledge was carefully captured, refined, and preserved. Today as we face another knowledge revolution, this time powered by artificial intelligence, a new kind of scriptorium is taking shape in a historic building in Amsterdam this spring.

Two of our page members, Marc Cloosterman and Nanne Bos stood up and offered something more than a talk about ai.

They shared a framework for how we might understand the profound changes underway, not just in our tools, but in the ways we build trust, shape narratives, and connect with people. The conversation marked the beginning of a new partnership between Page and the Scriptorium Initiative, a nonprofit think [00:01:00] tank founded by Marc and Nanne.

That is exploring how AI is transforming human communication. Together, we're exploring how the communications profession must evolve to meet this moment. To kick it off, Nanne, who is the group brand and communications officer at Aegon shared why this moment feels different.

Nanne Bos: technology has always had my interest, but now specifically with ai, because it's about magic and logic really. Merging. I'm really excited about it.

Now I'm working for a company that is in life insurance in retirement, and I asked the team, so did you reflect on what happens if we read in the newspaper tomorrow?

there's a cure for cancer thanks to ai

the impact for us, our company for the industry would be massive.

Eliot Mizrachi VO: This isn't about using AI to work faster, reduce headcount or hand off the busy work. It's about redefining how we work and what we're working toward.

Nanne Bos: Welcome to the new CCO Brief. [00:02:00] I'm Eliot Mizrahi.

Scene 2: Why this, why now

Marc Cloosterman: 25 years ago. Internet emerged. And at the time we didn't know what internet companies would look like. And now we know.And now again, we're emerging into a new era of AI and we will see a new type of companies emerge.

The interesting thing is we don't know yet what an AI native company is gonna look like, which makes it exciting, energizing, but also curious and yeah, what are we facing?

Eliot Mizrachi VO: That was Page member Marc Cloosterman providing a historical framing of the crossroads. We now find ourselves at that uncertainty is exactly why Page is partnering with the Scriptorium initiative, not just to respond to change, but to manage for tomorrow by shaping how our profession leads in an AI native world.

That [00:03:00] means going deeper than learning how to build better prompts. It means exploring what this moment means for the future of trust and human communication. Here's Nanne in his own words.

Nanne Bos: So two years ago, I set myself an objective. this AI thing, I really need to understand and get to the details of it. SoI followed a course at, IMIT to get myself educated. I listened to a lot of podcasts. I did a lot of, spent a lot of hours on this.

when I was in the process, and I guess you, you're maybe also in this process, once a year doing the business environment scan for the annual review, where you have to identify all the things that are happening in the world that could potentially have an impact on you as an organization.

Somebody had written down AI in a, in a very nice way, like AI technology and it's interesting and it could be something cybersecurity and it could have an impact on this and that. I asked the team, so did you reflect on what happens if we read in the newspaper tomorrow?

that's, there's a cure for cancer [00:04:00] thanks to ai and everyone was looking at me and I said, what, what happens to our company ? if life expectancy, overnight increases with 30, 40, 50 years i.

the impact for us, our company, for the industry would be massive. Massive, if not, leading to, bankruptcy or, but something really extreme.

so when I started to think about, okay let's bring it a little bit closer to, my profession and the function so what could happen? What Could be the secondary effects of AI on, what we do, what the core is of our function.

Marc Cloosterman: So started talking with Nanne around the time because we shared this passion and fascination, And then I just invited eight people to do interviews, CCOs some of you are here about, okay, what do you think about ai?

And what struck me is that we had seven out of eight people. talking about the efficiency, the training, the upskilling of the people, the [00:05:00] experimentation, failing fast and trying again. There was only one who started to talk about what does this mean for how we as human beings relate to each other?

What does it mean if LinkedIn is only synthetic content, for example, do we then still use it? Do we trust it? We don't know. And this is why, together with, uh, Eric Al, our technology AI partner who's also worked with Nanne before on the, with the leadership of Aegon, the board on, on really training on ai.

This is why we set up and, and decided to found scriptorium initiative, a nonprofit initiative, and a think tank. And we will organize a series of gatherings with you in the coming two years. Around these topics.

Scene 4: What we heard from members in the room

Eliot Mizrachi VO: When the participants in the room began asking questions, it was clear that they are also curious about this new future that's taking shape. No longer are the questions centered around [00:06:00] tools and tactics, but what emerged with something deeper concern for our teams, our future talent, and the human relationships that hold it all together.

Here are some comments from members in the room after they participated in a really thoughtful table discussion.

Speaker 4: what I found interesting, we had a little discussion that the jobs who most likely are going to disappear at least to us here on the table, were junior jobs. Which is not immediately what you think of when you think of the younger generation.

Speaker 10: So, um, well, we, we quickly descended into a bit of a dystopian future conversation and worried about whether our kids were gonna have any jobs left. Uh. Which could be nice, just philosophize and write books But, um, no, I, we, we also arrived at, I think, consensus that what is gonna be left for us humans is relationships and externally managing stakeholder relationships.

Although some can be enhanced by AI agents talking to each other, we're gonna wanna keep doing this meeting and talking and, [00:07:00] and then internally people, management of the function. We don't want AI managing us.

Speaker 6: So the insight from this table was that someone was asked whether they were gonna reduce headcount in 2026, and the answer was, well, yes, we could do that, but actually we're producing 10 times more stuff. And, uh, with the team we have, and you as my boss are really enjoying that, so we're not gonna reduce head count.

Scene 5: A partnership with a purpose

Eliot Mizrachi VO: what's clear is that communication leaders are thinking long-term and holistically about how AI will impact not just outputs. But teams training talent and trust AI may change what we do, but it's how we lead through that change that will define our profession.

The page and Scriptorium partnership is designed to help page members and the communication industry understand the deeper shifts in [00:08:00] AI that are driving across communication and society, build tools and frameworks to navigate new, ethical, relational, and strategic challenges. Engage in interdisciplinary dialogue and translate insight into action by combining foresight with frontline experience.

This collaboration will help page members lead and not just react to the coming transformation. As the conversation wrapped up, Nanne reminded us that this shift is bigger than any single tool or trend. It's about how meaning itself is made and remade in the AI era.

Nanne Bos: AI is something else because I think it's, yeah, it's both the medium and the message in a way. Right? So, so it's, it's, there's a dimension to it

So this is a, a starting point for the conversation. There's way more. And, uh, there, I don't think there's any truth here. It's really about, you know, sensemaking, uh, together. So, uh, and this is something we want to, as a Scriptorium initiative, want to facilitate as we, [00:09:00] as we move into the next few years.

Eliot Mizrachi VO: This partnership is all about not just tracking what's changing, but shaping what comes next. Thanks for listening to this episode. Until next time, I'm Eliot Mizrachi.