Why communicators need to start thinking beyond human audiences

Remember when SEO felt like the answer to everything?

For years, communicators and marketers have invested significant time and energy into making sure their organisations appeared in search results. Keywords, backlinks, long-form content, were used to build entire strategies around as they were meant to improve discoverability and drive traffic to your brand. The assumption behind all of that work was simple: if people could find your content, they could form an opinion about your organisation.

But something important is changing: people aren’t always searching anymore, they’re asking. More people are turning to tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude to answer questions they once typed into Google. Instead of clicking through multiple websites to compare information, they’re increasingly relying on AI to summarise, interpret and recommend.

That doesn’t mean websites are disappearing or that SEO no longer matters, but it does suggest communicators may need to rethink what visibility actually means in an environment where audiences don’t always consume information directly.

The communication journey now includes an interpreter

Traditional communication followed a relatively familiar path whereby organisations created content, audiences discovered that content, consumed it, and formed an opinion. Now, we have an entire extra layer to the process: people ask AI, AI interprets content and only then do people form opinions.

That middle step matters more than many organisations realise. AI tools (like Large Language Models (LLMs)) don’t simply direct users to websites in the same way search engines traditionally have. They interpret, summarise and construct responses using information they consider useful, credible and relevant. In many cases, the audience may never visit the original source at all.

That raises an uncomfortable but important question for communicators: if someone asked AI about your organisation today, what would it say?

Would it explain what you do accurately or represent your expertise appropriately? Would it reflect the positioning you’ve worked hard to establish or would it assemble a version of your organisation from fragments of outdated, inconsistent or incomplete information?

AI may be becoming a stakeholder in its own right

Communication professionals already know that messages need to adapt to different audiences, but what if one of your audiences is now something not human that behaves differently again?

It isn’t influenced by persuasive language. It doesn’t respond to brand slogans or polished copy. It isn’t impressed by words like innovative, transformative or industry-leading. Comparatively, AI tends to reward specificity, consistency, structure and evidence.

That doesn’t mean communication should suddenly become robotic or stripped of personality, though. Human audiences still matter, arguably more than ever, but it does mean communicators may need to think more deliberately about how information is being interpreted before people encounter it.

If your messaging changes depending on the channel, AI may blend those messages together. If your content lacks specificity, AI may fill the gaps with other sources. If your most detailed explanation exists in a document from years ago, that may become the version people see.

Communication is becoming more and more about influencing interpretation, rather than publishing messages. 

The organisations that stand out may not be the ones creating the most content

For years, many organisations have operated under the assumption that digital success comes from volume, a.k.a. The more blogs, posts and assets - the better, but AI may be changing what good content actually looks like.

Useful, clear and demonstrated expertise in your content appears to matter more than abundant content. A detailed article that answers a real question may ultimately carry more influence than a high-level promotional piece.

Don’t stress, we aren’t saying that organisations should stop creating content. If anything, it reinforces the value of strategic communication, while suggesting that perhaps, communicators should spend less time asking, “How do we create more?” and more time asking, “How do we create understanding?”

Communicators may need to shift from content creators to knowledge architects

This shift also creates an opportunity. Communication functions have historically been measured by outputs - things like the amount of campaigns delivered, channels managed and articles published. We would argue that the future value of communication isn’t simply producing information, but organising knowledge and helping organisations explain themselves clearly. 

While also creating consistency across platforms and building visible expertise. Ensuring that regardless of whether someone encounters your organisation directly or through an AI-generated answer, they leave with an accurate understanding.