From Crisis Communications to AI: Finding Clarity in the Chaos
In emergency management, we don’t wait for the crisis to arrive before we prepare for it. We anticipate. We plan. We communicate clearly. Even when the situation is still unfolding. I learned this over 14 years in emergency management, including a decade with the American Red Cross, where clarity and communication can shape outcomes in real time. That same mindset is now required for AI. Because while AI is often framed as a technological shift, what we are actually experiencing is something far more familiar to those of us in crisis communications: a slow-moving, compounding event (like a hurricane) that is already reshaping how people work, how organizations operate, and how decisions are made. It’s not a single moment of disruption. It’s a series of small, accelerating changes, often happening faster than people can process them. And right now, many organizations are responding the way they do in the early stages of a crisis: reacting instead of preparing. Over the past month, ...