We have more ways to communicate at work than ever before. Email, Teams, Slack, intranets, newsletters, town halls and now AI-generated content all compete for our attention.
Yet more communication doesn’t necessarily mean better communication.
Recent research from Axios HQ suggests an interesting contradiction. In its 2026 survey of more than 1,200 US executives and employees, most executives agreed that communication volume has increased in the age of AI, while clarity has declined. Only one in six employees reported feeling entirely aligned with their organisation’s goals.
Perhaps the problem isn’t that organisations aren’t communicating enough. Perhaps they’re communicating too much without establishing what actually matters.
When every email is marked important, every announcement is urgent and the same information appears across several channels, employees have to decide for themselves what deserves their attention. Eventually, communication becomes noise.
AI adds another dimension. It can help communications teams draft, summarise, translate and repurpose content extraordinarily quickly. But greater capacity to produce content doesn’t automatically create greater understanding.
For internal communicators, that distinction matters.
The challenge may increasingly be less about producing information and more about editing it: deciding what employees genuinely need to know, who needs to know it, when they need it and which channel is appropriate.
Good internal communication shouldn’t leave employees with more information to process.
It should leave them with greater clarity.
References
Axios HQ (2026), The 2026 State of Internal Communication. Survey of 1,200+ US executives and employees.
Ragan Communications (2026), Michael DesRochers, Internal Communications in 2026: A Mid-Year Review, 20 July 2026.