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24th June 2025

AI and Internal Communication: Insights from Industry Leaders

HR and L&D leaders share their perspectives on the future of workplace connection

As artificial intelligence continues to shape how global teams communicate, one area stands out for its impact and its variability: internal communication.

For multinational companies, getting internal messaging right is critical for operational clarity, culture, and collaboration. Despite this, recent findings from our EdTech Review, which surveyed HR and L&D leaders in multinational organizations, show that AI’s influence on internal communication varies significantly by industry.

Three key sectors – manufacturing, healthcare, and professional services – offer a revealing snapshot of what’s working, what’s not, and what the future might look like when AI and human communication are intentionally combined.

Manufacturing: Pairing automation with training

Of the three sectors, manufacturing stands out for its practical success in using AI to improve internal communication. In the survey, 65% of manufacturing respondents said AI has had a positive impact in this area.

One improvement cited was the streamlining of data analytics, and the practical benefits this can provide:

"AI offers advanced and real-time analysis of internal communication data […] Metrics like open rates, engagement, and feedback can be viewed in a more accurate and actionable way."

With many manufacturing organizations facing the challenge of multilingual workforces and geographically dispersed sites, other HR leaders praise the reduction of language barriers due to AI translation tools. However, this improvement was paired with cautionary notes about the risk of mistranslations, or the loss of nuances in cross-cultural communication.

Sector leaders also voiced concerns about digital inequality, due to some employees struggling to adapt to new tools. As a result, successful adoption in this sector often hinges on pairing automation with training, including language training to ensure human oversight of translations, and inclusive communication strategies.

Healthcare: Gains in efficiency, but risks to culture

Healthcare and pharmaceutical companies reported the highest rate of improvement in internal communication through AI, with 78% of respondents saying tools have made a positive difference. Leaders point to optimizations in scheduling and resource allocation across institutions, reduction in language barriers, as well as the opportunity for integrating complementary information from different sources.

However, this sector also reported the highest levels of interpersonal strain, with 44% saying that AI had reduced personal interaction between staff, weakening employee relationships. 

“AI has improved workplace efficiency and time,” one respondent explained, “but it has lessened team bonding by reducing chances of face-to-face communication between workers.”

In healthcare, it appears the challenge lies not in whether AI works, but in how it reshapes relational dynamics. If digital coordination replaces in-person connection, organizations may see short-term gains in efficiency but long-term cultural risks.

For healthcare leaders, the lesson is clear: internal communication tools must be supported by training and regular space for human connection, to ensure communication isn't lost in translation or depersonalized.

Professional Services: Human communication for cultural fluency

Professional services firms reported the lowest gains in internal communication through AI. Just 32% of respondents noted improvement. This sector’s caution reflects a core truth: when communication is the product, precision, tone, and cultural fluency remain paramount.

AI has been adopted in areas like social media trend analysis and streamlining the flow of information, but many HR leaders remain wary of using it for internal communication, where misunderstandings or depersonalization can have reputational costs.

As one respondent put it:

“AI tools help in some respects. But they lack in interpretation of cultural variations.”

This concern speaks to the nuanced nature of communication in professional services, where clarity must coexist with diplomacy, and where global teams must collaborate without losing context. For AI to succeed here, it must be complemented by robust communication training and human oversight, particularly when working across cultures.

What leaders can learn across sectors

The data tells a compelling story: AI can support internal communication, but it cannot replace the human skills that make communication effective. Each sector’s experience offers valuable lessons:

  • Manufacturing shows how AI can boost clarity and consistency – when paired with digital literacy and inclusive language support.

  • Healthcare highlights the need to protect relational dynamics, even in highly automated environments.

  • Professional services reminds us that context, culture, and tone are inherently human skills, which remain a priority for training.

For HR and L&D leaders, the opportunity is to use AI to augment, and not replace, the human side of communication. More than half of HR leaders across industries were already seeing an improvement in employees’ communication skills through AI-backed L&D programs, which offer a major opportunity for scaling training across multinational teams. Organizations that invest in “human-in-the-loop” approaches and culturally aware deployment will not only reap the productivity benefits of AI but also preserve the relational glue that keeps teams strong.