Is AI ruining our communication skills?

I delivered a thought leadership training last month, helping a group of consultants unpack how to show their expertise online and communicate clearly in high-stakes sales calls.

During that session, someone said something I won’t forget:

They felt AI was impacting their critical thinking and how they show up at work.

They’re great at communicating online using AI to refine tone, draft emails, and ask questions but in real-life meetings, they sit back, afraid to speak up or sound unprofessional.

They started working during COVID, so now that the firm has shifted to hybrid, with weekly presentations required, they're panicking.

We’re witnessing a strange shift in workplace communication: AI is making us 50% more efficient while also making us worse at actually communicating.

Is communication really just a “soft skill”

The funny thing is, even before AI, communication often dismissed as a “soft skill” was already a gap for many.

➡️ 86% of workplace failures stem from poor communication

➡️ 92% of buyers want to know the humans behind businesses and 61% of decision-makers say strong thought leadership led them to award contracts but 89% of people use LinkedIn but don’t actively build their brand mostly due to fear

Fear of what? Fear of what to say, how to say, how it's going to be perceived.

We’re now seeing a generation of rising talent outsourcing their voice before they’ve even developed it.

They rely on AI to pitch their value, without learning how to express it themselves.

And when everyone sounds the same, those who communicate with real authority stand out more than ever.

That session was meant to focus on how to use LinkedIn to secure leads but before we even touched strategy, we had to tackle something deeper: Confidence and communication.

This isn’t just one consultant I’m seeing this at all levels...that’s why I built my business:

➡️ A corporate lawyer, expert in compliance, who stays silent online worried how they’ll be perceived

➡️ A manager passed over because they can’t confidently articulate their value

➡️ A VP who knows visibility would close deals faster but can’t explain what sets them apart

Over the past year, I’ve been building

Influence Capital

, working with CEOs, investors, founders, and teams who know their stuff, but don’t always know how to communicate it in a way that builds trust and wins business.

Or they just don't have the time.

Drawing on my experience in media and sales, I helped them:

Turn lived experience into high-impact content

Prep for media, panels, and investor meetings

Apply consumer psychology to refine outreach

Now, I’ve launched a workshop for early-to-mid-career professionals, both those struggling to speak up and high-performers who want to sharpen their skills, lead with more authority and build visibility that drives business results.

Talent/company reputation opens the door but positioning closes the deal.What if I told you the most trusted voices in media today aren’t journalists, they’re former accountants, teachers, and engineers who started newsletters?

According to recent data, 47% of Gen Z and Millennials have paid independent creators directly, while only 22% have paid traditional news organisations.

I’ve seen this shift from both sides!!

I used to investigate corruption as a news reporter. Now, I help lawyers, investors, and CEOs build personal brands on platforms like Substack and LinkedIn, and I’ve ghostwritten for some of the biggest creators on the internet.

The real reason a “random creator” beats a prestigious institution isn’t about who’s more qualified, it’s about who’s accessible & accountable

IMO this all started with the decline of the old media business model when newspaper ad revenue dropped, newsrooms across the world were in a state of panic.

Talented journos were laid off or forced to optimise for clicks rather than pursue investigative reporting. The economic pressure meant chasing viral content and shallow engagement over depth.

Many of today’s successful newsletter writers are former journo's who left broken institutions behind. They took their skills and applied them to a direct-pay model, one that allowed them to prioritise readers rather than appease advertisers they’d never meet.

And while it’s deffo not all perfect most of them seem happier.

In fact, a growing number are just regular people with strong opinions & useful insight, the accountant next door, the software engineer with niche expertise, the teacher who breaks down complex issues in plain English.

Platforms like Substack and Beehiive have basically decentralised the media industry even further after OGs like Medium allowing anyone with something valuable to say to get involved

But the question still remains 2hy are these creators more trusted and what, if anything, can traditional media do about it?

Older generations were taught to associate trust with credentials & objectivity but younger audiences value transparency and relatability

Creators tend to win in this because a lot of them share openly

Traditional media outlets aren’t untrustworthy, far from it!! Many of my peers in journalism are doing incredible work. They're bound by competing internal stakeholders, legal and regulatory caution.

Even when something clearly needs to be called out, editorial teams often can’t say it outright, either because of the need to appear “objective” or because doing so would upset advertisers

I believe we’re going to see more of a hybrid approach, particularly in the UK, the US is already ahead as some some publications like The Atlantic & Vox experimenting with creator-like formats.

We still need trad journalism because of fact-checked reporting and editorial standards but we also need something else people who are reachable.

The future of trust in media won’t be owned by institutions or creators, it’ll be hybrid