It’s 8 a.m. on a crisp autumn day in Manhattan in 2017. I nearly drop my scalding hot cappuccino to field a call from Bloomberg asking for an immediate reaction to the arrest of an employee.

It’s 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve 2019 in Hong Kong, where the smell of tear gas is seeping into our building as protestors are directing their frustration toward several institutions. News crews are descending upon these businesses seeking comment.

It’s the height of COVID-19 lockdowns in Australia in 2021. Brick and mortar employees have coal being hurled at them by environmental activists while online environmental activism is flooding digital and social channels.

In all three moments, communication is at the center of the crisis. Gathering audience analysis, social sentiment, and critical influencer data takes time.  But we need to respond, quickly and smartly. In these moments of acute pressure, I thoroughly learned the fragility and fleeting nature of reputation management. The immediate response and subsequent months of reputational recovery required curiosity, razor-sharp judgment, and decisiveness alongside a strong caffeine hit of courage.

Every word I’ve just used to describe ‘how’ a crisis was successfully managed has a unifying trait: human judgment. As communicators, we’re lauded for our wise counsel in times of crisis. We collate data, interpret it, and make decisions accordingly. Our discernment helps us earn our keep, whether as in-house executives or consultants.

Fast-forward to today where AI tools are commonplace in our industry. We should ask ourselves if AI can make our crisis response more powerful and effective. If I reflect on my role personally, could AI improve my understanding of risk for future crises?

A resounding Yes. We can all do better. I suspect greater fluency in AI within crisis management can improve our depth of understanding, pace of response, and awareness.  

Today, the communications industry is in a fortunate position. There are AI platforms that can identify commentators of a viral online campaign with precision or track how an online conversation unfolds with sophisticated sentiment analysis. This also means AI can play an integral role in sharpening our risk antenna as communicators to prepare us for these precarious moments better. This is precisely what we’re striving to do at Via.

Like most agencies, we’re investing in automating workflows and processes with AI tools. We’re avid users of Fireflies, where “Fred from Fireflies” joins us to summarise the client’s narrative workshop to free us up to craft the messaging or capture ideas and actions from our team brainstorm. We also frequently use AI tools to help with our competitive landscape and market analysis. The pace of research is markedly improved. 

For an agency in its early days, speed and improved operational efficiency are welcome, but that’s not what gives us our competitive edge. We pride ourselves on communicating across borders and cultures, so we spend the bulk of our human capital looking over the horizon. We’re peering into our clients’ target audiences and, most importantly, their operating context to better understand how they can differentiate themselves or navigate local nuances.

In practice, AI is helping us sweep the news and online debate about fast-moving financial and economic developments within a specific country. We overlay the data capture with human judgment to identify the prevailing trends in that market and sector. This allows us to advise our clients on how to enter the public discourse or circumvent it as the story progresses or takes on new angles. 

Our holy grail will be helping businesses shape the day-one story at the right moment by anticipating where the news cycle is going before their competitors do. Suppose we can better predict outcomes and risks. In that case, we’ll further strengthen our ability to advise business leaders as they enter a new market, widen their supply chain, seek investment, or attract new customers across the Asia Pacific region.

When it comes to sharpening our risk antenna as communicators, the combination of curiosity and cynicism makes for a potent elixir. These traits allow us to ask the hard questions of our stakeholders and clients or anticipate every possible scenario that could go wrong.

If we can combine this level of critical thinking with tools that enable crisis preparedness and speed, I am confident we all will be better equipped to detect, prepare for, or take on a crisis as it breaks in our stride.

Tala Booker is the co-founder of Via, a cross-border marketing and communica- tions consultancy focused on supporting international businesses and financial services firms connect to audiences in Asia-Pacific. A USC Annenberg alumnae, Tala is a 2024 winner of the Campaigns Asia 40 Under 40 Award for the marketing and communications industry. She is a member of the USC Center for PR board of advisers.