2 AI memos, 1 PR disaster, 4 lessons you need (Insider Comms™)

How to announce AI changes without creating employee panic

Caesar crossing the Rubicon, which flows with data. In adopting AI for the workplace, CEOs are crossing a point of no return. (AI-generated, obv.)

Duolingo’s Luis von Ahn had to walk back his AI memo. Shopify’s Tobi Lütke didn’t. The difference? One understood mixternal comms, and one didn’t.

You might have heard about it … two tech CEOs announcing the same radical transformation within weeks of each other.

• Both declared their companies would become “AI-first.”

• Both said employees must prove they can’t use AI before asking for more resources.

Yet only one memo required damage control.

• Duolingo: CEO Luis von Ahn published his memo publicly on LinkedIn, then had to walk it back three weeks later after employee backlash and negative headlines. (There’s a lost in translation joke in there somewhere.)

• Shopify: CEO Tobi Lütke sent his memo to employees first, shared it publicly later, and faced minimal controversy.

The difference was the messaging. While both CEOs announced fundamentally similar strategic shifts, their communication approaches reveal crucial lessons about navigating AI transformation in the mixternal era.

In this edition of Insider Comms™, I analyze how two tech leaders handled identical strategic announcements with vastly different results, including:

• Why von Ahn’s memo felt like a layoff announcement (even though it wasn’t)

• How Lütke turned potential controversy into a competitive advantage

• The hidden audiences both memos actually addressed

• 🧑‍🏫 Four key lessons for comms pros managing AI transformation messaging

As usual, I share the full memos below.

¯\_ (ツ)_/¯ WIFM, you ask? Chances are your team will manage some heavy (consequential) messaging about AI’s effect on your workforce. A recent report from MIT says that ~27% of jobs could be replaced by AI in the long term.

• Over 80% of executives surveyed in tech and media anticipate reduced hiring over the next two years because of AI.

• And most companies are backfilling workers with AI rather than replacing them.

🔮 An AI-forward memo like the two I compare below is likely in your future.

🔬 Let’s dissect what happens when AI strategy meets communication strategy, and why getting the tone wrong can undermine a smart business move.

• 🔖 The most revealing difference between the two memos appears in how each CEO justifies the AI transformation.

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