There is no doubt: Marshall McLuhan’s thesis that the true impact of media revolutions lies in their societal consequences is receiving impressive confirmation in the age of AI, and especially since the mass accessibility of generative AI. The algorithm is the defining medium of our time, influencing our social, political, and economic reality just as other dominant mass media did before it. However, its impact extends far beyond the processing, selection, and provision of information.
The use of generative AI has significantly increased the proportion of artificial communication involving bots, avatars, and virtual agents. Today, machines and scopic media, which bring spatially distant and previously invisible events into our perception, no longer generate the majority of global internet traffic. Bot traffic studies, such as those by Imperva and Statista, document this growth and show that bot traffic now accounts for 51 percent of global internet traffic (68 percent in Germany).
As AI becomes a self-sustaining communication actor with an increasingly dominant position, the question arises as to its impact on the public sphere and those who move within it, including businesses. Initial data from a study by the German state media authorities on the diversity of opinion in the search results of AI-powered search functions are already available and document “traffic losses for content providers ranging from 18 percent to over 50 percent.” US journalist Kyle Chayka, in his recently published book “Filterworld”, warns of a “cultural dumbing-down by algorithms.”
Clearly, communications management will also have to grapple with the opportunities and risks of AI. While previous discussions focused on the effectiveness of individual AI tools and approaches to human-machine collaboration, the question now arises as to whether AI is a genuine actor in communications. Recent contributions to the discussion, such as those from the renowned Arthur Page Society, don’t even bother with the idea of AI as a target group, but simply declare it a “stakeholder that needs to be understood and influenced.”
This makes AI a stakeholder group with needs, just like customers, suppliers, and other societal interest groups. It’s worth noting that in Freeman’s classic stakeholder model, the media are not stakeholders, but stakekeepers – independent observers who critically monitor companies. Unsurprisingly, with the idea of AI as a stakeholder also a new task for communications management is introduced. “Generative AI Optimization” (GAIO) aims to ensure that companies are perceived appropriately in a public sphere shaped by AI actors. Essentially, this transfers the requirements of “Search Engine Optimization” (SEO) into the AI age.
However, if – to put it in McLuhan’s terms – a future assumption of corporate communications is the medium is the stakeholder, we are missing a fundamental point. Stakeholder relationships are based on genuine human interests, and social capital is built and lost between people. Technical platforms and channels can be tools in this process, but never actors. AI may be, or become, an assistant, agent, or technical orchestrator in communication, but never a stakeholder.
