Data shows that while ESG (environmental, social, and governance) matters more now than ever in the age of AI, it can be a challenge to align values and messaging with the realities the technology brings. PR and comms teams have their work cut out for them when communicating around this topic.
AI impacts energy consumption, emissions, labor, data protection and more. Businesses need to consider how to balance their technology usage with the need to comply with ESG requirements.
Join guest Bo Breuklander, M.A., Principal of Breuklander Communications, and Michelle as they discuss how companies can best navigate these tricky waters.
Show summary: In this episode of ‘PR Explored,’ hosted by Michelle Garrett, PR consultant and writer, the focus is on the intersection of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and corporate ethics in the realm of Public Relations.
The guest, Bo Breuklander, founder of Breuklander Communications, shares insights on how AI affects sustainability, governance, and the broader PR landscape. They discuss the importance of values, consistency, and trust in corporate behavior, and how companies can proactively address issues like DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion), AI policies, and data privacy.
The conversation also touches on the current trends, challenges, and best practices for integrating AI responsibly and ethically, with a focus on employee well-being and corporate reputation. Bo highlights the necessity for companies to educate themselves about AI, develop robust policies, and maintain their core values to build trust among stakeholders.
Bo further shares insights on evaluating AI vendors and stresses the need for ongoing professional development in this rapidly evolving landscape.
00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:57 Guest Background and Current Work
01:41 Understanding ESG and Its Importance
08:39 AI’s Role in ESG and Sustainability
16:47 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in Focus
28:36 Governance and AI Policies
40:02 Final Thoughts and Professional Development
41:44 Conclusion and Upcoming Events
Show notes:
Bo Breuklander’s Email Course: The GenAI Playbook: https://www.bobreuklander.com/generative-ai-playbook-for-executive-messaging-and-employee-engagement
Bo’s In-Person Workshop: GenAI Readiness for Communicators: https://www.bobreuklander.com/genai-readiness-workshop-for-communicators
Follow Bo Breuklander on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobreuklander/
Full Transcript:
Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of PR Explored. It’s a video podcast where we delve into trends and topics related to public relations. I’m Michelle Garrett. I’m your host, and I’m a PR consultant and writer. And today I’d like to welcome my guest, Bo Breuklander of Breuklander Communications.
Hi, Bo. Hey, Michelle, great to be here. Thanks for being here today. You and I have known each other for a few years and have collaborated a little bit on articles and things over the years. And so I’ve always been a big fan of your work and you are my go to person on this topic. We’re talking about ESG today and we’ll be talking specifically about it.
AI and ESG and we’ll be diving into all that, but first, why don’t you, you know, tell us a little bit about yourself and what you’ve been up to and I’ll share some links. Yeah, thank you so much. So, hey everyone as Michelle mentioned, I’m, I’m Beaubrook Lander I am principal and founder of Brooklander communications.
I’ve been doing that for a little over a year now. I’m also an adjunct instructor in the communications department at university of Tampa. So I am based here in Tampa, but I’m originally from Oklahoma. Also here in Tampa, I support member operations for embark collective, which is a an incredible premier startup community in Florida.
So I urge you to check it out if you’re interested. But yeah, that’s, that’s kind of what I’ve been up to. I’ve been diving into all things AI, trying to figure out how I teach that to the students at University of Tampa. And then that kind of lends itself to the conversation we’ll have today and how that impacts our profession.
Yes, and we know that, of course AI is having an impact on everything we’re doing and ESG is no no stranger to that. Do we want to kind of talk a little bit about just kind of maybe setting the stage a little bit about you know, how ESG, DEI, all of it kind of fits together. And I want to make sure we define the terms because again, I think we throw them around a lot as you and I were discussing before we got on air today.
And ESG is defined as environmental, social, and government governance. And then we can talk a little bit about just, just kind of give us. You know, a little primer on how this all fits together. If you would. Yeah. Well, I mean, as far as, as our roles in relating to the, our publics, right? The audiences we serve it’s within the company.
It’s outside the company. It’s investors, stakeholders, customers, potential customers and everybody in between, right? And depending on your organization, you could have a wider reach than, than others. But really what, what ESG as you’ve defined, what, what that represents is, is. And hopefully in some way ties back to your values and your, your reason for being a company.
So not just making a profit, not just impacting the bottom line, but making an impact on your people, the people you serve your people, your employees as well, and your communities, whether that’s, you know, a local community. If you’re a global company, that’s in all the different areas that you serve and that you do business with.
And also for future generations. So the idea is that you’re just doing, you’re doing good, right? To put it simply, you’re doing good. You’re doing right by people. And again, everything really boils back to, to people. And I think that’s a, that’s going to be a theme, especially as we talk to technology and, and future regulations.
Things that might be coming fairly quickly. It all goes back to people, right? Political winds can shift, but people are still people. Your stakeholders are still your stakeholders, and that will always be the case. That’s right. And I think, you know, we can’t please all of the people all of the time as we know.
And so I think we have to adopt the principles that work for the business and kind of try to Stick with those. I mean, as much as we can while also, you know, adapting to changes and things. But I mean, you can’t be, you know, changing gears all the time. I think it’s important when you stand for something.
I mean, what do you think about that? Like, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Because it, it, What it shows is consistency and trust. I mean, we’re, we’re, we’re trying to build trust among our communities. And that’s, that’s what this is, right? Right. If you’re, if you’re a stakeholder, if you know your stakeholder as well, which is if we’re doing our jobs correctly as communicators.
Then you are that conduit, right? You’re not just a mouthpiece for the organization. You’re not just a megaphone. You’re actually providing feedback and leadership within the organization to your C suite to your teams. This is what we’re seeing. This is what we’re feeling. Our stakeholders are feeling pressures here.
This is how we can help. It really, it really solidifies the. the, the, your, your reaso being in business, right? to startups and the start in Tampa has kind of Even though a company might be big and no matter what your, what your industry is, you still have like, you go back to, to the organization’s founding.
Like it started for a reason. Yeah. You want to build a business, you want to make money, but you know, there’s a reason it’s solving a problem for people and, and as competitive and as connected as everybody has become these days, it’s, it’s so important to, like you said, you know, be consistent, like you, your, your purpose has momentum.
And you need to carry that momentum forward in one direction and remain purposeful, right? And so if you have strong corporate ESG or social responsibility values, stick with those, right? Yeah, you’re going to, you’re going to, you can’t make everybody happy. You’re going to face some heat, but in the grand scheme of things, you should be able to survive that.
And, and, you know, we can talk about resiliency and maybe that’s another conversation, but I do believe that your purpose, the strength in your purpose and the strength around your ESG. Values is is, is vital to that momentum. Yes. Yes. And I think obviously your audiences are paying attention and they know when companies stray from what they, you know, when they don’t walk their talk, I guess they, you know, they can pick up on that and then that can have that can be detrimental to your brand as well.
So I think, That’s just important for people to understand is that if you’re going to shift gears then you know you may end up paying a price and you want to make sure that you’re, you know, kind of staying true to what you’ve put forward and I don’t know, I don’t know it’s I think it’s harder than ever.
But yet it’s more important than ever because we know we look at the trust barometer every year. The Edelman trust barometer, of course, people trust companies more than they trust the media or government organizations. But I still, it’s the trust still isn’t super high, even for companies. I think on that that meat, I haven’t seen that yet this year.
I think that’s probably going to be coming out pretty soon, but yeah, It’s always interesting because I’m like, wow, you, you know, trust companies are the most trusted and then you see what the companies are doing and you’re, you know, it’s, it’s a little bit of a, I guess, I don’t know, that’s an opportunity, Michelle.
I mean, that’s, that’s, I’m glad you brought that up because it’s a huge opportunity. If, if, if use the other, companies. And it’s right. It’s okay to be skeptical. Your audiences are are going to be skeptical. But that just provides an opportunity, right? If you’re if you’re doing things the right way, if you’re holding true to your your values and your purpose.
Then you’re doing right by your people. And again, going back to people, they’ll, they’ll trust you for that and they’ll, they’ll stick around. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, by the same token, if you lose their trust, it’s much harder to win them back. Not to say that it can’t be done, but I think this, you know, it takes a lot to build that trust and then you have to maintain that trust with your actions and your words and, and they have to kind of match up.
So, yes. So I obviously if people have questions, please post those while we’re chatting and we’ll try to answer those either as we go or at the end. So what, what about talk? Let’s talk about the use of tech and AI as part of sustainability efforts for companies. Let’s chat about that a little bit.
Yeah, sure, sure. So you know, all the rage right now is Using a I to tackle efficiencies and repetitive tasks that You have as individuals and even as, as you know, on the enterprise level. So what you have to be careful in when you’re looking and tying that back to your your environmental or sustainability or social or governance policies, whatever you have, whatever that looks like for you, you really need to be cautious of the tools you’re using and.
What the cost is, what the environmental cost, the carbon footprint, the energy scales, you know, of operating these large data systems, especially with with AI, right? That’s it takes a lot of power and energy to fuel these these tools. So making sure that you take that into effect, because you don’t want to be blindsided.
If something were to happen, right? Some, some things are out of your control. If you partner or you’re too close to a vendor, for example, that leaks, leaks your data, we talk about privacy concerns, you need to be able to shore that up and anticipate those on the front end. So you know, understanding the environmental impact, social impact, you know, are they following government regulations, are they following policy?
You know, what, what are your vendors doing? Because it’s not just, you know, not everybody’s going to create their own AI tools, you know, that’s, that’s, that’s tough. There’s a lot out there to choose from. Are those companies doing the right things? So it’s just like any other vendor. You know, if you’re in the manufacturing space and you think about your supply chain, you know, you, you don’t want to source conflict minerals, right?
That you may have a policy against that. This, this is the very same thing. You want to make sure if you’re partnering with any, any company that, that touches your data, whether that’s an intranet employee database of like workday or, you know, whatever, whatever you, whatever you have you’ve already got something like, you know, that it’s important.
So you want to make sure that any new tools that might be coming out are not just used properly within your organization, but used properly and, and follow your values and fit. Regulatory compliance externally, just like, just like most other things that you, you would, you would use and vet with a vendor.
What are some, you know, you brought up a good point about, you know, vetting the vendors. How do you, how do you evaluate AI vendors? Like, what are, I mean, are there, is there a list of criteria somewhere or like, what would you say? Yeah, and that’s a great question. I mean, most of it revolves around privacy, data privacy.
And what’s what’s even tougher is everything is moving so fast, especially in the A. I. Space. Everything is moving so fast. Regulation kind of lags behind. So again, it goes back to serving your people and your stakeholders. You do right by them. If you if something doesn’t feel right, if you don’t feel like their data is protected enough.
You know, raise your hand and speak up put guidelines and create your own policies before regulations come. And I think that’s, that’s one thing when you look into the future especially the near future with, with so many unknowns and new administrations and things in the United States you can’t anticipate every change, but what you can do is just Sure.
Up your footing, right? Make sure you have an a I policy in place. Make sure that you have guidelines for employee use because if you don’t, you’re putting yourself and your business at risk. So make sure you have those in place, but also keep an eye on any new regulations that come out, even outside the United States.
I know a lot of the EU policies eventually make their way into the United States. You think of GDPR, right? and data privacy. Those regulations that stem from there. If anyone in the U. S. did business in Europe or had an audience in Europe, you probably needed to follow those guidelines. And that’s why we have all of those bars on our websites that that make you opt into tracking cookies.
You’re going to see the same thing. So with, with artificial intelligence. There are you know, government resources, AI bill of rights is out there. There’s, there’s more, there’s more resources that, than I can think of off the top of my head, but regulations are coming, but that’s one thing that I’ve kind of looked to is, is the EU and what might be coming down the pipe to the U.
S. because it, it will eventually impact us here. If not directly, then at least indirectly, but it’s a good guideline to follow. EU, they do tend to lead the way. I mean we see that and I, I don’t know that everything that they’re doing will be adopted in the United States, but I mean, I, I guess we’ll see how that works out.
So, yeah, even if it’s not, even if it’s not adopted, right? I think it’s a good proactive step. You know, we’re always wondering, we’re always wondering how we can be more proactive as communicators. Yeah, and be less reactive. This is one way to do that. You know, not waiting around for the U. S. to implement a regulation, but looking to the EU for something to implement with your own organization and saying, you know, I, I like that that’s going to protect us.
And you can do it in a way that, that’s, that, that fits your organization’s needs and structure. And you don’t have to I mean, for example, if a regulation does come down the pipe, you don’t have to do so much work and so much change when that happens. But but yeah, yeah, just looking at how, you know, other how we’ve regulated technology in general here in the States.
I, I’m, I guess I am skeptical about regulations, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good idea to your point. So I, I, I agree with you, but yeah, yeah. But we’ll see. I want to back up for one minute. And, you know, whenever you talk about AI and sustainability, people tend not to want to talk about it, right? I mean, I find that companies shy away from that topic.
And, and people, individuals even can get a little, you know, defensive about it, I guess. So I guess, is anybody even thinking about, like, are most people even aware or thinking about how much they Energy it takes when you use AI technologies, anybody right now, it might not be right now. It might not be, but there are there are tech companies that are looking into new energy sources and there may be some news later this year where you’ll see some major, major brands, familiar brands that have lobbied to you.
You know, get their own power stations, for example, right? So so that that is coming, that is coming. And I do believe that it will be something of a conversation. I don’t know how near in the future that’s going to be, but if you’re not thinking about that right now, it might be good to put a pin in that.
And revisit it because it is going to be a topic of conversation. Yeah. I mean, I think, I think it needs to happen, but I just, again, I see whenever anybody, anytime that gets brought up, I see people like, we don’t want to, we don’t want to touch that. We don’t want to talk about that. So, I mean, and that’s as communicators, another part of our role is to kind of get our organizations ready to talk about all kinds of.
You know, sticky issues and, and have you know, have a FAQ on file or, or at least have some kind of idea of how you might address those questions, especially if you’re a bigger corporation and, and you know, you haven’t really come forward with any statement or thoughts or position on sustainability and AI.
So interesting.
So. Let’s talk. Should we talk? I know. I mean, I know we were going to talk about D. E. I. Then, of course, it’s in the news a lot right now. What do you think is important to share on that front? Yeah. So I have a lot of thoughts and opinions on this. I will say that
there’s a lot of things that are always going to be important. And again, it ties back to the, to your people, whether they’re in or outside your company, your people are always going to matter. No matter how you label it you could call it belonging. You could call it diversity of perspective or thought.
But these things are always going to matter and how you present yourself internally will filter out externally as well. So your reputation relies on how you treat your. your own people, your staff and employees. So, you know, again, it’s, it’s going back to that thing about the political wind shifting.
And you know, you see it both ways. It just, it happens. It’s a fact of life. But if you take care of your people and you have empathy and humility and all those, all those things, you know, you hear about good leaders having all those good leadership qualities. Do people want, do people want to work for you?
Do people want to by your product to people want to do business with you, they’ll trust you if they think that you’ll treat them well. Right. And it’s again, it goes beyond the bottom line. There’s lots of competition out there can do the same things that you do. But if someone feels better about you and can connect with you on a personal level.
And if that means keeping those policies in place and you know, repercussions, political repercussions be damned. Then you need to do that. And so again, the communities that you serve, what is important to them, and you really need to focus on that because that is a market differentiator for you.
And I think we have seen that your customers also are paying attention to how you treat your employees. So I do think that this is important and I know that some might dismiss it as, you know, not impacting the bottom line, but I absolutely think it it can impact the bottom line. And again, people are watching more than ever to see how brands are are reacting and behaving and amidst all of the the chaos right now around this issue.
And I feel like we saw companies kind of taking strides forward and You know, now we might be, I don’t know where we’re at with it, but I feel like, you know, they implemented the policies, the DEI policies, and now you know, they’re, they’re, some of them are getting rid of them, although you and I did chat about how some companies like Apple, I believe was one of the ones that we talked about they are not backing away from their DEI policies.
Yeah. Costco is another big one that’s, that’s on people’s minds. Costco, Apple. A handful of the airlines, I, I believe Delta United Southwest, but what Apple, what Apple did was they, they urged their, their shareholders not to vote against the policies. I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna talk too much about the specifics there cause I don’t know, but the, the, the re their reason for that, their reason for taking that stance.
Toward keeping those, those efforts was that they, they felt that they had all the they had taken the right steps and protected themselves from a compliance standpoint, a policy standpoint, that everything is shored up from a, from a, from a legal front. So, you know, that, that helps calm any fears or or increase temperatures.
On the subject, right? Because if you, if you, if you already had good policies in place that you know, we’re, we’re there to, to kind of foster inclusivity. You know, whatever, however you want to define that, but inclusive inclusiveness. Not silencing anybody hiring the right people not based on any criteria or not hiring people based on certain criteria, right?
It’s just, that was, that was their standpoint, I believe. Yeah, I think it’s been interesting to watch. You know, obviously we’ve seen meta in the news a lot regarding this issue and then an apple or those are the two that and I have seen a lot about Costco too. And I’m glad that you’ve listed some other ones because we can see that, not it’s gonna it’s just gonna it’s a it’s a divisive issue, which really maybe shouldn’t be a divisive issue. But, you know, yeah, and and I think it also points to the fact that if you if you go back to, you know, several years ago when people started hiring DEI roles and chief diversity officers and this and that, yes, a lot of it Was window dressing, you know, we, we think about greenwashing in the sustainability world.
It was, it was sort of the same thing. It was, it was fluff. It was I don’t want to say meaningless, but it was it was, it was an act. Right. And now people can see through those things. And if you’re backtracking, maybe you weren’t serious about your values to begin with. And again, back to what you said earlier, Michelle, it’s about the consistency and staying true to, to, to your core, you know, your core purpose and, and your, your people.
So, you know, stay the, stay the line. I see a theme. I’m sensing a theme. I think so. Yeah, I think so. And, and again, and I have to say that, you know, I think we saw companies kind of giving more, you know, paying more attention to employees, mental health and, and their needs a few years back. And now we see, I feel like, you know, it’s kind of shifting again and the job market is tighter.
And so I just it’s, it’s hard to make sense of it all, you know? And yeah, yeah. Well, you know, you mentioned it and so, you know, another, another phrase that, that you could call, you talked about mental health. But another phrase that you, that I’ve seen people toss around to kind of rebrand DEI efforts and things is, is employee.
Well, well being right. You think about that internally though, but that’s, that’s well being right. Well, being of employees, what you’re, I believe what you’re going to see is. While it may seem like these things are taking a backseat, the companies that still focus on the well being of their people Mm hmm are gonna be higher performers.
They’re gonna outperform those who who don’t take that into consideration Because if you’re focusing on your people your people won’t get as burned out easily. They’ll be more productive. They’ll be happier at work again thinking of just employees And when that happens, your, your company productivity goes up, energy stays higher, that translates outside of the company, customers will see that external stakeholders will see that shareholders will see that if it’s a public company, people will take note.
And it’s, it’s going to matter. So that’s that again, that part won’t go away, but you’ll be able to see the cream sort of rise to the top. The people who do care about these things. I hope so. I hope they, I hope that’s true. Me too. Me too. Because I always. If it is true, I, I, I want to, I want to work, work for those companies and, and, you know, do business and be partners, partners with those companies.
But yeah, I mean, you, I think, I mean, I, I think it is true, but sometimes I think it’s hard. It’s a hard sell. It’s like, you know, doing, doing the right thing, doing what’s right is not always, they, they don’t always see it as impacting the bottom line in a positive way. But I, I do believe that that. is is the way it works.
And I’m hoping that companies will see the importance, whether or not they window dress and slap a DEI label on it or how, you know, what, however they address it. I mean, if they actually are doing it whatever they call it or not call it, I just, that’s, I do think that people are paying attention and that it does matter.
And, I hope that, you know, that companies understand that. So And I’ve got, I’ve got a statistic for you that a recent, a couple of years ago, so it’s not, it’s not that recent. It was a few years ago, but PWC did a study where they found that 86 percent of employees prefer to work at companies that share the same values that they do.
And I would imagine that that also extends outside the company to, to, to customers, right? If they want to, if they want to buy or do business, even if you’re B2B, right? If you’re, if you’re B2B and you’re, you’re looking for a partnership, you want to share some values, right? So so if you change your values all the time, right?
It’s hard to, it’s hard to, It’s hard to keep, you know, keep business steady, I guess is the message there. Yeah. And I, you know, again, like I, I just feel like customers are just paying more attention to this than they really ever have. And it doesn’t, you know, with the competition, it doesn’t take a lot for someone to switch gears and go with a competitor that might be, you know, viewed more favorably on some of these things than, than a company that isn’t.
So, I don’t think something to be discounted. No, I, was having a conversation with somebody. I recently joined the PRSA Tampa chapter board. And we had one of our meetings last week and somebody there on the board actually said, cause this topic came up, she switched her Sam’s club membership to Costco because of their stance.
So that’s, that’s one. One of one of one of many, but you know, it is happening. It is happening. I heard some of that, too. I saw that one somewhere. Somebody was posting about that. So again, there is something to it. I guess trends over time will tell the tale. But I do think that it’s.
Something you can’t overlook. And I kind of tying it. I mean, obviously, we’re tying it all to PR and comms. And I do think that having these policies in place helps attract talent, you know, and if it is, you know, difficult, competitive to find, you know, good people to come and enjoy your, your company. I think that these things help you stand out.
And if word is on the street, the buzz is out there. Then that is, it’s, it’s positive in so many ways. I don’t think people always think big picture about how all of this works together and impacts everything impacts everything else. And so it’s, it’s important to not you know, ignore it, I think, and, and remember that it, it is part of your image and your images.
Your reputation is everything.
especially when we’re, we’re playing the long game. As we are in PR and comms. So big picture long game. Yes, absolutely. And I, and again, we want, we hope clients and companies understand you know, it isn’t about just your announcement next week. It’s a, it’s really a bigger, it’s a much bigger picture than that.
What else would you like to talk about? I think, I don’t know if we really talked about governance enough or what, what other points would you like to, you think are important to make? Yeah, I think we could elaborate on some, some yeah, some governance and AI policies specifically because.
When we talk about employee, well, people, well being of people, right? We’re also talking about making sure that we connect with them and have the best interest in mind. And when we, when we’re thinking about how we’re using artificial intelligence and how our organizations might be using artificial intelligence, whatever the purpose, whatever the tool, whether you’re using it, you know, chat, GPT to, to help you plan or more robust tool that’s, that’s built into something you’re already using.
Right. For media monitoring, for example, you’ve got to understand where the data is coming from, because obviously there’s, there’s, there’s biases, right? And you’ve got to fact check and do all the things that like we’re taught to do, you know, when, when we’re editing making sure that the, the, the, the data is correct, but knowing.
More about the tools and where it’s sourcing the data. The, the, the ethical implications of this, the, the, the biases that, that technology is, is just, it’s embedded into these, into these tools and you know, knowing. How a large language model works, for example, which is what LLM stands for, and that’s a lot of mm-hmm
That’s a lot of how a ChatGPT or a a Claude, that’s a lot of how these are built off of, of large language models and they’re prone to, you know, social identity biases, unfortunately. So. Mm-hmm. If we’re aware of those we can learn. as professionals to kind of train the models that you’re using and not just use it, you know, to, to broad, to generally, if that makes sense.
So you gotta, you gotta know where those pitfalls are. And I think that’s, that’s really important when it comes to implementing policies and, and applying some sort of AI policy, whether it’s you’re incorporating ESG into the AI policy, or you’re. Implementing some kind of AI policy mentioned into your ESG policies, whatever that looks like.
It’s, it’s important to intertwine those, those two. Yes. And how, how are, how are companies handling that? Are they, I mean, are some companies, I’m sure they are having to bring in another, you know person in the C suite to kind of be the AI you know, point person. Yeah, I’ve seen this in some of the large PR firms.
Around the country they’ve hired you know, chief AI officers or something to that effect or some, yeah, some high level AI, we’ll call it a czar, but some would oversee the implementation, especially for clients too, because there’s, things are happening so fast and it is hard to keep up and, you know, you know, it’s important, but you don’t know how to use it or what to do, or what do you even have in a policy?
You know, that’s where, that’s where those types of people come, come in. And if you’re working, you know, in house and maybe that’s somebody in the it department or, or a CTO or a CIO or chief innovation officer, or even strategy, there’s going to have to be somebody who takes this on if they haven’t done it already.
Where, and I urge you to kind of champion that if, if you’re in a place that, that doesn’t have that right now. You know, we don’t have a crystal ball, but if you have somebody at that level dedicated to helping the organization figure it out for your stakeholders, for your, your, your customers, your clients, whatever that looks like yeah, it’s, it’s an imperative.
So I’ve, I have been seeing that. And I’m sure it’s, you know, the private sector, the corporations and agencies alike that are looking to do that. And when you mentioned, you mentioned a few times about having a policy. Do you think it’s important for companies to communicate? Their stance on AI and you know, as comms and PR pros, I mean, what, how should we be presenting that to our audiences or, or should we be, or, or how does that, how would you view that?
Yeah, I really think it depends on your organization and what you do. Obviously if you’re dealing with a lot of customer or sensitive customer information or sensitive data, You should, you should be talking about that. Like you should probably already have an AI policy to be honest with you. I’m sure you do, but the way that you, you talk about that and how, how often you, you put that out there, you know, it’s really up to, to the type of organization.
I’ve seen people, you know, add this to the footer of their website, just like just like data privacy policies, you know, how do we use your information? And I think that’s probably where that, that goes in. If you are. an organization that produces a significant amount of content. I think you should probably also have some disclosures.
Now you don’t, you, you probably don’t need to communicate it as much to your stakeholders, but you know, how you package the material if you’re using AI to, to connect the dots to connect your systems to connect databases with. whatever content output or publishing software or site that you’re using.
It’s good to kind of have that as, as I mentioned, but it’s, that’s a, that’s a hard one to answer. It really is because I think people do need to know that you’ve, you’ve, Not that you have an AI policy per se, but that you, you, you know what you’re, you’re doing right. They want to feel confident that you feel confident in how you’re handling artificial intelligence going forward.
The, the, the, what of that I think is probably too, too deep for, for most customers, for example. Right. I think they just want to be assured that, that you feel confident that you know what you’re doing. It seems like another instance where legal and PR need to be Working together on making sure that, you know, nothing is said that isn’t, you know, true and, you know, putting forward only the information that like, only the things that they really need to know, to your point, not going too far into it, but but at least having the policy and then determining whether or not you want to do it.
Share that or need to share that with your customers. And of course, it would vary in your industry and whether you’re public or private and all those things. So, of course, there’s no blanket here. But I’m just curious, like if people are I I’m curious to see now if if I’m just probably going to be noticing whether companies are talking about this communicating their policies.
Yeah, yeah. And I don’t mean to frighten anybody, but When you think about the A. I. Vendors that you’re using and you want to go with people that you trust. It is early, but there are still some, I would say, largely trusted vendors. Let’s say Microsoft, for example, that that have had issues with, with co pilot inadvertently sharing sensitive data outside of the company.
It’s, it’s been you know, there are going to be those challenges. Right. They shored that up, but there, there are going to be challenges. And you mentioned the connection there between legal, you really have to have strong connections with info security, too. And, and I know you’re probably going to have that anyway, but, but to, to, to check, double check, triple check evaluate making sure that.
What you’re using, if it’s internal only, is truly internal and there’s no, there’s no gaps. If there is a concern, just don’t use that tool and don’t use it for those reasons, which is why AI policies are good because it gives employees a guideline for how to and how not to use. Certain things, not to discourage them from using a tool, but let’s just say that you have the opportunity, an employee has company or customer sensitive information.
They shouldn’t be uploading that to a chat GPT tool. If, if it’s not secure, you know, it’s, it’s just, it’s just, it sounds like common sense, but but you have to have it in writing and you have to have your, your, your butt covered. So. Yeah, I mean, I have to send NDAs all the time and that was always my concern from the get go with, with things like chat GPT, I can’t be, you know, like putting a bunch of confidential client data into a tool and, and saying, okay, you know, write the breast release or whatever, you know, like I can’t do that.
I mean, you know, that’s, I mean, to me that, you know, I could get in trouble and it’s just ethically not, yeah. You know what I’m about, but I just wonder, you know, again, this whole thing and it’s been what now two and a half, two years since it kind of got out of the gate with no guardrails. And so now I don’t know, like, I don’t know how you, how you back up there, but I do think companies are smart to be thinking how it impacts them not only from my.
ethical and just, you know, just how they are viewed from a reputation perspective, but legally too, there are, there could be implications. So yeah, I do think it’s, it’s still something to be, I’m sure, I’m sure they are thinking about it in that way. Because that could impact their bottom line if they, you know, get a major lawsuit or something, but I don’t know.
It’s just, I think it’s, It’s still a lot of, I feel like there’s probably a lot of things going on that people wouldn’t even understand are going to be issues until they are issues. It’s hard to have that long, that, that vision into the future and how it’s going to really play out. It helps to start small before you go take anything to enterprise.
But you know, if any of you happen to be, you know, if any of your listeners happen to be, you know, champions of, of initiatives like this it within their own organizations, it’s always just like everything else. It’s always a smart thing to start small and it doesn’t have to be too small. There’s no such thing as too small, right?
Just if you’re experimenting, if you’re dabbling, you know, that’s, that’s great. Just make sure that even if it’s just you or your. Team, if you have a team of two or three, you should still have something in place. You should, you need your own policy, your own guideline just for you or you two or you three.
And you know, you could use that as a model if you want to grow that to your organization. But even, even, you know, for your individual use. You’ve got to have something that, that, that covers your, your backside. Yeah, because I think people just have fun and it’s like shiny object, you know, Oh, we’re just going to go all in on this thing.
And there was no like thought really given to, you know, what the ramifications were going to be. So you definitely want to be Looking ahead as much as you can kind of trying to understand, you know, what that could look like, or, or, you know, what, what issues could crop up
Is there anything else that we should be covering before we wrap this up today?
I would just, I would leave everybody with some words of encouragement to, I don’t know, I’m thinking about professional development and how as individuals and as professionals, we can we can help ourselves in this realm ESG and AI, the things that we’ve talked about today, you know, don’t wait on anybody.
I would learn on your own as much as you can and you know, when the time, the time comes, you can raise your hand or if your name’s called or just, you know, lead from wherever you are. You don’t have to be a manager of people. You could lead from the middle, lead from the bottom, wherever you are, find something that’s important to you.
And Your own purpose and, and, and, and mission. And hopefully that fits with your organization’s mission. You know, we, we so many times in our PR and comms profession. You know, we, we, we straddle that line and sometimes there’s conflict between what we do and how we feel and the people we work for and our clients, but you’ll find that for yourself and, and, and, you know, don’t, don’t wait for somebody to tell you to learn something, go ahead and learn something new.
Yeah, learn something new. There’s going to be a lot of changes this year. Just jump in, jump in. And yeah, don’t, don’t, don’t be afraid you have to start somewhere. That’s what I was thinking. And, you know I think it’s fun. I mean, I think it’s fun to learn. It’s not always fun that you have to know all these things, but it is fun to learn new things and keep trying to challenge yourself and push yourself to really grow and in your knowledge of things that impact, you know, your, your career.
Your role at your company and your company and, and its place in the world. And so I really want to thank you so much for being here today and please be sure to follow Bo. I put his LinkedIn in the comments. And he has an email course and he also has an upcoming workshop. Do you want to talk?
Let’s just talk for a second about those. Can you talk about? Yeah. So the email course, it’s a free seven day email course. You just, you just sign up and you get an email a day basically that kind of goes through. It’s a gen AI playbook for executive messaging and employee engagement. And so it tells you everything you need to know from you.
You know, what tools could be out there how you should be using it to improve some of the work that you do. And a lot of the things I talked about today are in there. There is regulatory content, there’s compliance content. There is strategies, you know, what, what you can do. So it, it, it kind of takes you from, you know, beginner level content all the way to, you know, building out your a strategy or roadmap for AI implementation within your team or organization. And so that’s the email course and the workshop right now. It’s in person. I’m developing a virtual option right now too, but. The workshop is you know, again, putting my, my teaching hat on here as a adjunct instructor at the university level.
I’m thinking about preparing my, my students for work in PR and comms, and I realized that there’s a, there’s a gap with AI literacy and AI fluency among, among us as professionals. And so that’s what that workshop is for. It’s, it’s gen AI readiness for communicators. And that’s based in Tampa. So if any of you are in Tampa, you know, I’d encourage you to, to attend and be happy to see you.
I’ve got a you buy a ticket, you get to invite someone for free. So. Valentine’s day is coming up. It’d be a great, a great way to buddy up with a co worker or a colleague. So come, come see me. Yeah, I wish I were down there so I could come. I would love to be there. This is a topic that’s fascinating.
And I just think there’s so many aspects that are going to be relevant for communicators. And so again, I want to thank you so much for being here today, Bo. And I want to thank everybody for watching and listening. And we’ll be back February 5th. We’ll be talking about PR for startups. Thanks. And I hope to see everybody then.
Thank you so much.
