The weekly conversation for people who shape how organizations work

Only half a hand went up when Chuck asked a live London audience who has an AI “employee” on their team. Plenty of people talk about AI as the newest team member. Almost nobody is counting it as one.

Recorded live at Unily’s Unite 26 conference in London, Chuck and Jenni swap news articles for stories straight from two days of sessions. Charlene Li’s call to stop doing pilots. The risk of calling AI a teammate when you need real headcount. Why Jenni can’t get on board with “taste-making.” And whether “do less but better” holds up against a songwriter who says 70% of his work is garbage. Running underneath all of it is Jenni’s question: small teams, no budget, poor HR data, blaming IT. Is any of this new, or has internal comms been making the same excuses for 20 years?

Only 19% of employees say anyone at work has ever talked to them about the data their employer collects on them. Gallup also found that when organizations do have that conversation, trust goes up and so does concern. Jenni frames that as a dilemma for internal comms. Chuck doesn’t see one. Concern isn’t worry, he says. It’s people paying attention.

That idea, the cost of leaving people to guess, runs through all four stories this week. O.C. Tanner’s 2027 Global Culture Report argues that culture amplifies whatever is already there. Zoom found that the biggest theme in 17,000 employee comments was people not understanding why decisions were made. And The Times reports British workers adding ADHD and neurodiversity notes to their email signatures, which leaves Chuck and Jenni asking whether a note at the bottom of an email can do the work of a relationship.