Why Your AI Messaging and Who Tells Your Story Matter More Than Ever

Joe Chernov recently published a piece on what separates the SaaS-to-AI leaders from the late adopters, and a couple of points in it stopped me mid-scroll. Not because they were new ideas, but because they put words to things I have been thinking through for a while now. Two points in particular hit close to home, and both are issues we have been actively working through with our clients at Red Branch Media.

Say What the Value Is. That Is Enough.

The first was Udi Ledergor’s point about AI messaging. Say what the value is, explain how it works, and mention AI just enough. That is it. The pressure to plaster AI across every page, every pitch, and every product update is real, but it is also where many brands are losing the plot.

AI should feel like a natural part of the workflow, not a search bot bolted into the corner of your product with a sparkle emoji next to it. If your customer has to figure out how your AI actually helps them do their job, you have already lost the narrative before it started. The customer is the hero of the story. AI is just how they win faster, work smarter, or solve a problem they have been dealing with for years.

The companies getting this right are not the ones mentioning AI the most. They are the ones where AI is woven into the outcome story so naturally that it almost does not need a label. That is the standard worth chasing.

The brands winning the AI transition aren’t the ones saying “AI” the most—they’re the ones where AI is so woven into the outcome story it barely needs a label.

Your Company Page Cannot Do This Alone

The second point, and honestly the one I have been thinking about the most, is the idea of decentralizing your storytellers. Laura Baverman at Pendo put a name to something that many marketing teams are quietly wrestling with: the company’s LinkedIn page alone won’t carry your message anymore. The reach is not there. The algorithm no longer rewards it the way it once did, and frankly, audiences have learned to scroll past branded content in favor of voices that feel real.

The real amplification now comes from three places. Leadership writing about launches and milestones in their own voice. Internal advocates who genuinely believe in what you are building. And if you have done the work to earn it, customers will say it without being asked. That combination of voices is something no sponsored post budget can replicate.

But here is where it gets complicated: not everyone is a natural content creator. Not everyone is going to sit down on a Tuesday morning and fire off a thoughtful LinkedIn post about a product update. And if you pressure people into posting things that do not sound like them, it backfires. Audiences can tell.

So, how do you actually build a culture of internal advocacy when posting on social media does not come naturally to most of your team?

Make It Easy, Not Mandatory

The first thing to get right is the framing. Internal advocacy is not a marketing assignment. It is an invitation. When people feel they are being handed a script, they either post something stiff and forgettable or don’t post at all. Neither helps you.

Instead, give people raw material they can actually work with. A few key talking points. A stat that surprised even your own team. A customer story that genuinely made someone on your team proud. Then let them translate it into their own words. The goal is not uniformity. It is authenticity at scale.

A shared Slack channel or a simple Google Doc with monthly content drops works better than most companies think. For our clients, whenever we publish something new, we send an internal note to their team so they have a few different ways to engage with the material. Not a directive to post, but a resource that makes it easy when someone wants to. The people who are going to show up will show up. Your job is to make sure they have something worth saying when they do.

Find the Voices That Already Exist

Every organization has a handful of people who are already engaged on LinkedIn, talking about the industry and sharing opinions without being asked. These are your internal influencers, and they are worth more than any boosted post.

Find them. Invest in them. Help them sharpen their point of view, give them early access to news or launches so they can speak to it with context, and acknowledge them when their content performs. That kind of recognition creates a ripple effect. When other people on the team see that posting is valued and not as hard as they thought, some of them will start to come around.

You are not trying to turn your entire team into content creators overnight. You are trying to grow the number of credible voices who are willing to show up when it counts.

Your company page won’t carry your message anymore. The real reach comes from leaders, advocates, and customers speaking in their own voices—and that’s something no ad budget can buy.

Leadership Has to Lead Here Too

None of this works if leadership is not modeling the behavior. If the CEO, the VP of Product, and the head of Sales are not posting in their own voices about what the company is building and why it matters, it sends a signal to the rest of the team that this is not actually a priority.

Leadership posts do not need to be long or polished. They need to be real. A genuine reaction to a customer win. A perspective on where the industry is headed. A candid take on a challenge the team just worked through. That kind of content builds trust with an audience in a way that a company announcement never will.

If your leadership team is not comfortable doing this on their own, that is a coaching conversation worth having. Ghost-written posts in their voice are a starting point, but the goal should be getting them to a place where they own it.

The Takeaway

These are not new concepts. But seeing them laid out alongside everything else happening in the AI transition right now is a good reminder that the fundamentals still matter. Get the message right. Make sure the right people are carrying it. And build a culture where sharing what you are building feels like a natural extension of the work, not an extra task bolted onto the end of someone’s day.

The brands figuring both of these things out right now are going to be very hard to catch.