Employees have long found ways to use software tools to get the job done, even when those tools are not approved. It's called Shadow IT, but ever since generative Artificial Intelligence hit the scene in 2022, employees have adopted a new version: Shadow AI. The company approves Microsoft Co-Pilot, but employees opt to use their smartphones or personal laptops, along with their personal accounts with ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Midjourney, or whatever best suits their needs.

For most companies, this is a problem that needs to be addressed through repeated policy announcements and vigorous crackdowns. One company, though, took a different approach. In this short, midweek FIR episode, Neville and Shel outline what the company did and how communicators might advocate for a version of this approach to aiding in AI adoption and speeding up productivity gains.
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The post FIR #510: Should Companies Embrace Shadow AI? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

When workers lose their jobs, many turn to gig work to earn income while waiting for new opportunities. Increasingly, companies that hire gig workers are shifting from delivering food or sharing rides to creating content to train AI systems. This raises various communication and ethical issues. Neville and Shel explain what's happening and discuss the implications in this short midweek episode.
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The post FIR #508: Inside AI’s Human Raw Material Supply Chain appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

When bad actors use AI tools to clone a musician's voice and upload synthetic versions of their songs, they can then file copyright claims against the original artist's content — and win, at least initially. That's because the systems platforms use to validate copyright claims are automated and configured to treat whoever files first as the rightful holder. The result: musicians like Murphy Campbell, a folk artist from North Carolina, lose both revenue and control of their own creative identity.

The same mechanism works just as well against any organization that publishes audio or video content online. In this midweek episode, Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson break down how the scam works, why it matters to communicators, and what you should be doing right now — before an incident forces your hand.

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The post FIR #509: Does Corporate Content Need Copyright Protection? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Take a stroll through LinkedIn. You'll find no shortage of posts stridently deriding the notion that anyone should ever use AI to write for them. While that case isn't hard to make for professional writers, there are countless professionals in other fields who struggle with writing, never trained to be writers, yet now have to write everything from emails to reports as part of their jobs. Should they really sweat for hours over wording, time they could be devoting to the core areas of subject expertise, when AI can produce content that is cogent, clear, and direct? In this short mid-week episode, Neville and Shel look at the trends in using AI for writing, despite the plethora of opinions from the pundits.
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The post FIR #507: Should Nobody Really Ever Write with AI? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In this monthly long-form episode for March, Neville and Shel tackle a trio of interconnected themes reshaping the communications profession in the age of AI. The conversation opens with Anthropic’s top lawyer declaring that AI will destroy the billable hour. That thread leads naturally into JP Morgan’s controversial use of digital monitoring to verify junior bankers’ working hours, where Shel and Neville question whether surveillance technology can substitute for genuine managerial trust and engagement.

The episode also examines Gartner’s widely circulated prediction that PR budgets will double by 2027 as AI search engines favor earned media. Shel delivers a detailed report on the escalating misinformation crisis, citing a 900% surge in global deepfake incidents and new research from the C2PA on content provenance standards. The episode closes with a discussion of Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince’s prediction that bot traffic will exceed human traffic by 2027, and a sobering peer-reviewed study on how social bots hijack organizational messaging — research reported by Bob Pickard, who has experienced bot-driven attacks firsthand.

Dan York also contributes a tech report on the state of the Fediverse and Mastodon, as well as on AI developments for WordPress.
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The post FIR #506: Battle of the Bots! appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In FIR #505, Neville and Shel dig into Hootsuite's Social Media Trends 2026 report, which argues that social media is no longer just a communication channel — it's morphing into a search engine, cultural radar, and real-time research tool. They explore what it means for communicators when younger audiences treat TikTok and Instagram as their primary discovery platforms, and when Google itself starts indexing social content. The conversation also tackles "fastvertising" — the growing pressure on brands to react to cultural moments within hours — and whether that speed actually translates to bottom-line results or just burnout.

The discussion takes a provocative turn when Shel raises Ethan Mollick's warning that public forums are being systematically overrun by machine-generated content, with research suggesting one in five accounts in public conversations may be automated. They weigh the AI paradox facing communicators: generative AI has become table stakes for social media production, yet 30% of consumers say they're less likely to choose a brand whose ads they know were AI-created. Neville and Shel agree that social media can serve as both a publishing channel and a listening tool — but only if human-to-human communication can survive the rising tide of bot-generated noise.
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The post FIR #505: Social Media’s Big Shift appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Shel and Neville examine a troubling trend gaining momentum across corporate America: AI washing — the practice of attributing layoffs to artificial intelligence when the real reasons are more complex. The discussion centers on two high-profile cases. Block CEO Jack Dorsey announced a 40 percent workforce reduction, crediting AI tools, despite three prior rounds of cuts that had nothing to do with AI and pushback from former employees who say the moves look like standard cost management. Meanwhile, Oracle is cutting thousands of jobs, not because AI replaced those workers, but to fund a massive data center expansion that Wall Street projects won't generate positive cash flow until 2030. Meanwhile, a new Anthropic labor market study adds context, finding limited evidence that AI has meaningfully displaced workers to date—though hiring of younger workers in exposed occupations may be slowing.

Neville and Shel dig into what this means for communicators who may be asked to craft layoff messaging that overstates AI's role.
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The post FIR #504: When Companies Blame Layoffs on AI — and Leave Communicators Holding the Bag appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

The president of the International Olympic Committee didn't have an answer to a question posed to her at a press conference on the final day of the 2026 Winter Olympics. Or to another question. Or to yet another. Ultimately, she suggested, on camera, that someone on her communications team should be fired. In this short midweek FIR episode, Shel and Neville look at the fallout, what both the president and the head of communications might have done differently, and the possible long-term consequences.
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