Mike Klein is leading a six-part certificate program titled “Internal Communication: The Comms Superpower for the AI Age,” which starts on March 5. Learn more about addressing current demands for IC support at the PRSA website. Sign up by Feb. 19 and save $200!
Here’s a sentence you don’t hear often: PR professionals are perfectly capable of leading internal communication — once they realize that internal and external communication have very different dynamics.
PR professionals excel at stakeholder management, message discipline and measuring impact. They understand how to craft narratives that move audiences to action. They know how to navigate complex relationships and manage competing interests.
But when they step inside the organizational firewall, many fall into the same trap that’s plagued internal communication for decades: treating employees like external audiences. Broadcasting messages. Obsessing over engagement scores. Measuring sentiment instead of comprehension.
Here’s what’s different inside: Your audiences are participants, not observers. They have mortgages depending on your organization’s success. They’re having hundreds of conversations daily about priorities, decisions and what matters. And 3-5% of them are driving 90% of those critical conversations — whether you’re involved or not.
Why IC is the superpower PR has been missing
When PR professionals understand how internal communication works strategically, they unlock something powerful: the ability to align the entire organization behind the promises they make externally.
Every brand promise requires internal delivery. Every external narrative needs internal coherence. Every reputation depends on whether employees understand priorities well enough to make good decisions when no one’s watching.
This is where internal communication becomes a superpower. Not by creating more content, but by ensuring that the people who make your products, serve your customers and represent your brand in thousands of daily interactions know what matters most.
The AI age demands a different approach
We’re entering a period where AI is eliminating routine work and accelerating decision-making demands. The workforce is shifting toward professionals who expect autonomy rather than direction. And hierarchical decision-making is reaching breaking points under the pressure of complexity and speed.
In this environment, the old internal communication playbook — cascade messages, improve engagement scores, publish intranet articles — is increasingly inadequate. Organizations don’t need more communication. They need better coordination.
That’s why my PRSA certificate program this spring focuses on research, prioritization and measurement rather than content production and channel management. It’s designed to shift participants from a reactive, tactical mindset to a proactive, business-focused one.
What makes this a superpower
Internal communication becomes a superpower when it stops trying to inform everyone about everything and starts focusing on a few critical objectives: driving executive alignment on clear decisions, clarifying organizational priorities when they conflict, identifying and connecting internal influencers, and measuring whether people understand what matters rather than how they feel about it.
These aren’t content skills. They’re powerful capabilities that directly accelerate business performance. And they’re teachable.
PR professionals already have the foundation — stakeholder management, narrative discipline, impact measurement. What they need is the framework for applying these skills inside the firewall, where the intensity is higher, the relationships are more invested, and the consequences of misalignment are measured in operational chaos rather than reputation points.
Time to raise the game
In an AI-accelerated world, organizations that master internal communication will move faster, decide better and execute more effectively than those that don’t. That’s the superpower. And it’s available to anyone willing to learn how internal communication works.
Mike Klein, IABC Fellow, is one of the world’s leading experts, commentators and advocates in the internal communication space. An internal communication consultant, he is also editor-in-chief at Strategic Magazine and founded the global #WeLeadComms recognition program for communication professionals. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin and London Business School, Klein is based in Reykjavik, Iceland.
Illustration credit: kristina
