Enterprise AI Gains Traction When Internal Comms Leads with Impact

Organizations rolling out enterprise AI often encounter uneven adoption. Some teams rely on it heavily, others avoid it, and employees sometimes turn to unapproved tools when guidance is unclear. Friction rarely comes from the technology itself, but from uncertainty about how the tools affect roles, decisions, and expectations. Clear internal communication becomes the difference between experimentation and real use.

We spoke with Advita Patel, an internal communications and workplace culture strategist and the Founder of the consultancy CommsRebel. As the 2025 President of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, Patel brings a cross-industry view of how organizations communicate change. Her work centers on trust and inclusion in the workplace, and for Patel, internal communications is the vital, and often missing, bridge between AI deployment and employee trust.

Ignoring the human element, Patel says, creates confusion before adoption even begins. Employees want to understand how AI will affect their roles, which decisions it will influence, and what control they will retain. “Start with the impact, not the infrastructure,” she explains. Without that clarity, organizations see inconsistent adoption and security risks, with employees often using unapproved tools due to insufficient guidance.

• The trust gap: Adoption problems stem from a failure of trust. “People aren’t resistant to technology; they’re resistant to feeling excluded, monitored, or misled about what a new tool means for their job,” Patel says. Internal comms is evolving from a simple messenger into a strategic adviser to the CEO, a shift that increasingly puts communicators at the center of clarifying how AI fits into daily work rather than simply announcing new tools. Building that trust, she adds, requires organizations to be explicit about how AI is and is not used.

• Permission before adoption: Rolling out a tool isn’t the same as enabling people to use it. Patel says organizations often introduce AI without giving employees time to learn how to use it or what is acceptable. In that vacuum, adoption stalls because people look upward before they act. As she puts it, “Employees need both instructions and permission. Most individuals look to their leaders for validation before they embrace something new, and effective communication is what provides that psychological safety.”

Organizations that see higher adoption treat rollout as an enablement effort rather than an announcement. They explain how the tool affects daily workflows and what employees need to do differently.

• Show me the WIIFM: A successful rollout of AI is treated as a deliberate campaign, built with IT and governance teams to answer employees' most pressing questions. “You must start by answering every employee’s core question: ‘What’s in it for me?’ They want to know how a new tool will help them thrive, reduce their pain points, and deliver better work,” Patel says.

• One size fits none: A common mistake organizations make is treating AI communication as a one-size-fits-all affair. “The biggest mistake in AI communication is the broad-brush approach,” Patel says. “This fails to recognize that the impact is completely different for a finance team than for someone on a factory floor. A one-size-fits-all strategy doesn't work for a workforce with diverse needs.”

• From pain to productivity: Treat communication as active problem-solving. “A tailored approach connects AI to a specific pain point. Instead of just announcing a tool, you can show a finance professional who spends hours on a spreadsheet formula how Copilot can solve it in minutes,” Patel says. Ask probing questions to understand a team's unique challenges, then connect those specific pain points to a tangible, AI-driven solution. It’s about translating efficiency into a quantifiable return on time. In practice, that can mean giving employees back hours each week rather than asking them to experiment blindly.

As AI continues to reshape how organizations operate, leaders are revisiting how internal communications operate during technology change. For Patel, this means embracing a new, more profound role. The goal is to be the human expert, asking the questions that keep the focus on people. “Our role isn’t to be the technical expert,” she says. “It’s to ask the human questions others don’t think to ask.”