Will AI Replace Your Head of Comms?
The growing concern about artifical intelligence eventually replacing various professional services, including communications, reveals something important about how founders and executives understand communications leadership, and offers an opportunity to clarify what really drives stakeholder relationships in today's AI-driven business environment.
When founders and business leaders read that 60-70% of knowledge work can be automated, it's natural to extrapolate this to communications leadership. While this perspective may be true of operational aspects of senior communications roles, it undervalues the relationship-building and strategic judgment that define communications leadership in today’s multi-stakeholder, high-stakes business environment.
This creates an interesting paradox in Singapore's startup ecosystem: companies are simultaneously exploring AI replacement scenarios whilst facing ongoing stakeholder communication challenges. The disconnect suggests there's room for better understanding of what communications actually involves beyond the tactical elements that are indeed automatable.
What AI Can & Cannot Do for your comms
Consider preparing for regional expansion as a fintech startup in Singapore. The startup must simultaneously satisfy MAS compliance requirements in Singapore, appeal to Indonesian consumer finance markets, reassure Malaysian regulatory authorities, and attract Thai banking partnership opportunities. Each stakeholder group evaluates companies through different cultural, regulatory, and strategic frameworks that benefit from deep understanding of unspoken social dynamics.
Sure, large language models (LLM) will eventually be able to process regulatory frameworks and generate stakeholder-specific messaging to the standard of a consultant with decades of experience.
Having said that, they're unlikely going to develop the ability to interpret when it’s strategically favourable for the startup to shift from communicating their implementation of the required KYC procedures, to positioning their regional expansion timeline as aligning with Singapore's role as a global fintech hub.
Similarly, when investment committees evaluate startups, their questions might reflect geopolitical considerations that extend far beyond business fundamentals. An investor might ask a seemingly straightforward question about data localisation policies, but the real concern is how the company would navigate potential US-China technology restrictions, or whether the business model remains viable if ASEAN digital trade agreements change.
When a principal asks about "regional resilience," they're probably not seeking a technical explanation—they're assessing whether founders understand the complex political dynamics that could impact Southeast Asian operations. LLMs can research trade policies and generate compliance-focused responses, but they cannot interpret the strategic subtext or provide the nuanced counsel that these conversations actually require.
The human elements that often determine communications success centre around relationship building, strategic counsel, and judgment that require reading context beyond explicit information. When Grab navigated regulatory challenges across multiple Southeast Asian markets, or when Sea Limited positioned itself for global expansion, success depended on communications leaders who understood institutional dynamics and cultural nuances that external systems couldn't easily access.
Perhaps most importantly, authentic communications benefits from the self-awareness and empathy that enable genuine connection between brands and the users, groups, and communities they serve.
can ai replace the role of a communications leader?
The challenge with viewing advanced AI models as a complete communications replacement is that it overlooks human elements foundational to meaningful brand communication—self awareness, empathy for the human condition, and a varied lived experience.
“It's the equivalent of a CEO believing that the unique background, experiences, and judgment of their chief communications officer (CCO) don't matter, and only their CV and years of experience do,” says ACID’s founder and CEO, Chester Tan.
This perspective has become common across Singapore's startup and business ecosystem. Many companies have begun treating communications like systematic process optimization—scalable, efficient, and automatable. The natural result is stakeholder relationships managed through touch points, narrative development following templates, and crisis communications focused on standardised operating procedures rather than strategic judgment and empathy.
The unintended consequence is visible across the market. Singapore startups increasingly sound monotonous and feel indistinguishable, because they're using repeated, imitable messaging, mission statements, brand identities, and even copywriting, prioritising efficiency at the expense of authenticity, memorability, and genuine perspectives.
Whether that's a good or bad thing is entirely up to a founder, although in this era of noise, distraction, mistrust, and widespread rejection of the corporate agenda globally, our sense is that authentic connection grounded in values will continue to define the quality of a company's relationship with their audiences.
Why authentic human connection is more valuable in an AI-driven world
In our era of information chaos and content saturation, authentic connection grounded in human values and judgment becomes increasingly valuable. As AI systems contribute more artificial content to the information landscape, consumers will naturally gravitate toward brands whose messages reflect perspectives grounded in authentic lived experiences and a deep understanding of what their user or audience values.
Companies that rely primarily on AI-driven narratives and stakeholder communications may find themselves sounding increasingly similar to competitors making similar choices. In today’s business landscape, authenticity and the ability to connect emotionally with your audiences is, in fact, a competitive edge a brand can leverage when navigating noisy, distracted, and high-stakes environments and situations.
The strategic opportunity lies not in choosing between human expertise and artificial intelligence’s support, but in understanding how authentic brand expression creates competitive advantages that become more valuable as AI-driven communications support becomes widely accessible.