Something interesting is happening to the role of the Chief Communications Officer. And I am sure you have noticed it too.
Recent changes at companies such as Meta and Microsoft offer an interesting signal: communications leadership is increasingly being positioned closer to the centre of business, technology, public affairs and transformation. About time, honestly.
But I don't think the story is simply about changing CCO titles or reporting lines. Similar transformations have happened before. This time, it is also about something much bigger: the communications function itself is changing.
And it has been changing for years. I have experienced that evolution firsthand. Early in my career, communications was largely about getting the basics right and I did a lot of it with my own hands.
- I built channels: intranets, social networks, newsletters and more.
- Organised town halls as they evolved from physical to virtual to hybrid.
- Drafted announcements: from company vision and milestones to restructuring.
- Got media releases out, leveraged social media and extended their reach.
- And, eventually, made sure employees knew what was happening.
These were important things. They were the hygiene factors of communications.
Then the function gradually moved from being a support service to becoming a business capability. And I enjoyed that phase a lot.
We started building stronger employee ecosystems, executive communications, employer brands, digital channels and more sophisticated approaches to engagement.
The questions changed too. It was no longer simply: “How do we communicate this?”
It became: “What does this mean for our people, our brand and our business?”
My own role evolved in parallel. So did the role of my team.
From building basic communications hygiene, I moved through a back-office communications environment, into building and scaling GCC communications capabilities, and eventually into supporting a global workforce and leaders across geographies. The opportunity to learn, grow and deliver was phenomenal.
The mandate expanded with every stage.
Restructuring. Internal communications. External communications. Executive positioning. Employer brand. Employee engagement. Reputation. Transformation.
And increasingly, the intersection between all of them.
I realised that this evolution wasn't accidental. The business itself was changing.
Organisations became more global. Work became more distributed. Employees became more vocal stakeholders. CEOs became publishers in their own right. Employer reputation became inseparable from corporate reputation.
And the lines between internal and external communications, talent communications and branding started disappearing.
There were challenges. There were opportunities. And I was fortunate to be at the centre of much of that change.
Today, we are entering another phase. And, let's be honest, if we are talking about the future of communications without talking about AI, we are probably missing a rather large part of the conversation.
AI is not simply another channel or another productivity tool for communicators. It is changing the context in which communications operates and fundamentally changing what communicators are recognised for.
Yes, we know how much AI can accelerate content creation, analysis, listening and personalisation. But that is only one part of the story. AI is changing organisations themselves: their structures, jobs, operating models, customer experiences and employee expectations.
Nothing is quite what it used to be. That creates a very different challenge for communications leaders. If transformation is happening faster than organisations can absorb it, the communicator's job cannot simply be to explain the change after the decision has been made.
The role increasingly becomes helping leaders anticipate how change will be understood, experienced and trusted. That is a fundamentally different proposition.
And perhaps this is where the CCO role is headed. Not away from communications, that would be weird, right? But deeper into the business, that makes absolute sense, doesn't it?
The communications leader of the future will need to understand strategy, technology, transformation, culture, reputation and people, and more importantly, see the connections between them and help business see these too.
They will need to know when to use AI and when human judgment matters more. That balance is something I am increasingly conscious of in my own work.
With the changes we are seeing today and those we can already anticipate, I think the definition of communications leadership is expanding.
From message maker to meaning maker. From channel owner to ecosystem builder. From communicator to transformation partner.
And ultimately, from being the voice of the organisation to helping shape how the organisation is understood, experienced and trusted.
That, to me, is the next chapter of communications leadership. I feel we are already writing it and I am super excited about it.
Rohit Mishra
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