Every organization experiences moments of transformation — mergers, restructures, strategic pivots, digital leaps. These aren’t just operational changes; they’re emotional events. People respond with hope, hesitation, excitement and resistance.

How leaders navigate these moments can speed or stall the path to impact. Unite teams or fragment them. Build trust or erode it. Drive clarity or deepen confusion.

Increasingly, AI plays a dual role in these transformations: both as the catalyst for change, and a resource for improving how it is managed.

On the one hand, AI-based tools are rapidly changing how work gets done, boosting efficiency and enabling new workflows. As a result, many existing jobs are evolving, new roles emerging and entire workforces rewiring.

This profound disruption is creating a lot of opportunity, but even more anxiety. For individuals navigating new operational models. For managers tasked with upskilling teams. For leaders creating a vision for an entirely different future. A future where they must equally consider rapidly deploying technology and managing the human impact.

That’s where – when thoughtfully integrated and actively managed – AI becomes a force-multiplier. When people are freed from repetitive tasks, they can focus on what matters most: connecting and contributing in meaningful ways.

Under the right leadership, AI holds the potential to cut through the chaos by enhancing human connection. It can help deliver the right message, to the right person, at the right time. It can tailor learning and development. It can surface signals leaders might otherwise miss.

Let’s be clear: if AI is used simply to automate output or reduce costs, it risks compromising vision instead of setting it. Without transparency, it can erode trust. Lacking empathy, it might alienate the very people it’s meant to engage.

The real opportunity isn’t automation, it’s activation. AI, used wisely, becomes a tool to help people feel seen, heard and understood. To do more of what matters, with greater impact and more humanity.

In times of change, business doesn’t move unless people do. And people don’t move unless they feel connected, informed and inspired. AI, done right, can do just that.

Key Insights:

AI as a Dual Force: AI is both a disruptor and a connector—redefining roles, accelerating change, and enabling more human-centered engagement across the employee experience.

From Automation to Activation: The real opportunity lies not in replacing people, but in empowering them. AI can free teams from repetitive tasks, enabling more meaningful, strategic work.

Trust Through Transparency: While concerns about AI persist, 71% of U.S. employees trust their employers to use it responsibly. Clear communication and ethical deployment are essential to building that trust.

Personalization at Scale: AI-driven internal communications are achieving significantly higher engagement—up to 54% open rates and 68% opt-in for custom content—by delivering the right message to the right person at the right time.

A New Leadership Mandate: Today’s leaders must be more than managers—they must be AI-fluent strategists and empathetic change agents who can guide teams through transformation with clarity and care.

Culture as a Catalyst: Organizations that foster a growth mindset—encouraging experimentation, learning, and progress over perfection—are better positioned to unlock AI’s full potential.

The beginning of 2025 has seen significant shifts in the external environment that continue to reshape the role of the corporate affairs function and the executives who lead it.

Last fall, we conducted a study examining the shifting role of the communications executive. Our working question was simple: As companies pulled back from the societal issues postures that were en vogue in the early 2020s, would the elevated role of the Chief Corporate Affairs Officer and Chief Communications Officer also fade into the background? We found – emphatically – that this was not the case. While these leaders in many cases were less visible, they were doing more, with elevated postures in driving the modern CEO agenda.

Following the second inauguration of President Donald Trump and his first 100 days in office, our survey research painted a stark portrait of a divided America – a national mood defined by pessimism and hyper-partisanship. But it also found bright spots in the role of business society, with 66% of Americans saying they feel positively about their employers, and over three-quarters of Americans across political parties saying that business should play a leading role in stabilizing the economy and democracy.

We found ourselves asking: Where does this environment leave the corporate affairs leader?

Key findings:

Since 2014, United Minds has tracked, observed and catalogued employee engagement and advocacy through its Employee Rising series.

On balance, over the last decade changing dynamics in the employee experience have been a net positive for U.S. workers. This is reflected in our 2024 global study. Employees today are…happy, and employee satisfaction and positive perceptions of the workplace are up across the board. This is attributed in part to nearly two decades of investment in improving employee communications and engagement. Companies who have built strong foundations in basic communications, executive visibility, and employee listening are seeing dividends in overall performance, talent retention, and employee advocacy.

And yet, there is still work to be done.

While recent advances in workplace policies and approaches have prioritized a more flexible, empathetic, inclusive workplace, at the same time, in the U.S., there is a widening gap in income and pay inequality. Swings in labor relations and power dynamics that have created deeply embedded trust gaps between workers and their employers.

The past four years have seen significant change in the communications environment, particularly as it relates to the role and remit of the communications executive. 

Following the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic and the rise in prominence of social justice issues initially motivated by the death of George Floyd, communications and corporate affairs executives stepped up to counsel the C-suite on stakeholder responses – including broader guidance around pandemic-related concerns and stances taken on racial justice and other social issues. An array of issue-based pledges and commitments put new scrutiny on corporations in the public arena, putting communicators in the hot-seat when it came to steering company leadership. 

The pendulum has since swung back on social issues. Political polarization in the U.S. is at an all-time high, and increased public pressure from conservative activists like Robby Starbuck has made C-suite leaders more cautious on social issues. Employee activism has increasingly been met with a firm hand from corporations, and leaders have taken a harder stance on return-to-office mandates. In our work as counselors and advisors to the functional structure of the communications organization, we had one overarching question: Where does this environment leave the communications leader?

We spoke anonymously with a dozen large-company communications leaders with an eye toward assessing the change in scope, role, remit, function, and design for the communications organization associated with the myriad changes observed since 2020. 

A natural straw man hypothesis for our research was that communications leaders might fade back into the background under a more cautious posture from their leadership. Instead, what we found was a more nuanced position, both more valuable and vulnerable than ever before. The past several years have heralded closer alignment between corporate communications and the rest of the C-suite. As their role has become more elevated, communications leaders have nonetheless been dependent on the CEO for position and influence. This piece has not changed: Specifically, many reported a refocusing on the “nuts and bolts” of the business, with fewer calories burned on issues and pledges, but more dialogue on the long-term advantage of purpose-based initiatives. 

Our interviews revealed a shifting CEO agenda dictating changes to the communications function. Our interviewees pointed to a more complex regulatory environment, which has drawn the C-suite more deeply into the political environment under guidance from a broader corporate affairs function. They pointed to the pace of change, particularly as it relates to the rise of artificial intelligence, as a key mover on functional and structural organization. They called out the centralization and consolidation of businesses, and a broader trend toward efficiency and supply chain resilience, as driving factors both in their own organizations and in those they serve. And they spoke at length about the role of employee activism, particularly around core labor issues – pay equity, hours and working conditions, bargaining rights – which dictate new considerations and questions about the role and accountabilities of corporate leadership.  

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In 2014, United Minds first discovered an important global trend in brand reputation: employees in countries worldwide were – unprompted – speaking out on behalf of their organizations using their nascent social media platforms. Ten years and two additional studies later, we checked back on the state of employee activism, from current levels of engagement to perspectives on leadership. Our findings span 14 countries across six continents. 

What we found should leave every employer asking how they can continue to upend and recalibrate employee engagement efforts so that they earn value and drive maximum impact: on satisfaction, on retention, on productivity and on advocacy. 

Tech employees are motivated and satisfied, but wary of leadership and change.

United Minds asked employees across a number of industries about their experience at work, including relationships with colleagues, the organization and leadership. Across all industries people have positive sentiments towards their experience – 66% of people rate their experience as being positive. Of all the sectors we sampled, Tech had the most satisfied people. 77% of the people we spoke to in the Tech industry rated their experience positively.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, tech employees are the least likely to be open to new opportunities, with 29% saying they would be willing to chance jobs tomorrow vs. the 40% benchmark. At the same time, they are significantly more open to joining a union (58% vs. Benchmark 46%).

Gen Z employees are more optimistic, less satisfied and ready to take a stand.

In our latest study tracking 10 years of employee sentiments, we discovered most generations agree across 50 different statements. The good news is their experiences are largely positive—and yet, Gen Z (46%) along with Millennials (48%) are the most open to changing jobs tomorrow if they had the chance (vs. Benchmark 40%).

Low engagement for healthcare employees makes leaders’ fears of retention real. Over the past decade, our research proves that employee engagement has gone up across multiple industries, using a benchmark of 50 statements about workplace experience.

That’s good news for employees, right? For the most part, it is, but there’s one industry that lags behind: Healthcare.

Across industries, employees’ average agreement with 50 positive statements about workplace experience, organization and leadership is 66%. But for employees who work in healthcare, that rate is significantly lower at only 54% (-12%).

Download our Employees Rising Healthcare Briefing to review key findings of where healthcare employees’ experience in the workplace lags significantly behind the average of all employees and what this means for healthcare leaders.

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In 2014, United Minds first discovered an important global trend in brand reputation: employees in countries worldwide were – unprompted – speaking out on behalf of their organizations using their nascent social media platforms.

By 2017, we observed that the balance of employee advocacy had shifted more toward employee activism. This was fueled by a gap between what the company presented about itself externally and the actual experience of working there, which was a threat that leaders needed to be aware of and address.

In the midst of global upheaval – 2021 – we found that employees were searching for purpose and the ability to make an impact on the workplace.

These prescient findings appeared in our first study, Employees Rising: Seizing the Opportunity in Employee Activism (2014), our follow-up study, The Employer Brand Credibility Gap: Bridging the Divide (2017) and our next study, The Contribution Effect (2021).

Spurred by the findings of these studies, we checked back on the state of employee activism, from current levels of engagement to perspectives on leadership. Our findings span 14 countries across six continents.

What we found will surprise you.

It will also likely leave every employer asking how they can continue to upend and recalibrate employee engagement efforts so that they earn value and drive maximum impact: on satisfaction, on retention, on productivity and on advocacy.

Thank you for reading – let us know what you think. We look forward to hearing from you!

There are no safe topics for CEOs today – but not speaking up may do more harm than good. Stakeholders from all sides continue to press corporate leaders to take a position on a range of societal issues, but leaders find themselves boxed in by conflicting expectations.

In the last five years it has become increasingly common to see CEOs take public positions on societal issues and events to demonstrate they, and the companies they lead, are in touch, engaged and empathetic. Which issues require or benefit from executive acknowledgement is still up for debate, but in the multistakeholder landscape in which all companies operate, balancing the positions, preferences and expectations of diverse stakeholder groups makes the determinations of when, how and to whom that much more complicated.

To bring some insight and clarity to the ongoing challenge of multistakeholder issue engagement, Myriant by United Minds, in collaboration with the USC Annenberg School fielded a survey in February-March 2024 exploring the question of whether and how companies should continue to take public, or even internal, positions on potentially divisive societal issues from sustainability, DE&I, and reproductive rights, to the 2024 election and climate change.