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Three Cities, two continents, one truth: Crisis Communications in the Age of AI
How Trust, Speed, and Pattern Recognition Now Define Crisis Readiness
Philippe Borremans
June 12, 2025
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Dear reader,
Greetings from the road (well, actually from a conference room in NYC)!
This week's edition of Wag The Dog is coming to you a day late, and I've got a pretty good excuse: I've been living in what feels like a masterclass on global emergency communications over the past two weeks.
It started in Melbourne at the EMPA Conference, where emergency management professionals from across Australia and New Zealand gathered at the Pullman Melbourne Albert Park.
The energy was high as we covered what NEMA's Joe Buffone called "2025 as the Year of Crisis Communications". Watching Australian emergency communicators tackle everything from bushfire warnings to community engagement reminded me why this field never stops evolving and why we can't afford to get comfortable.
From the Southern Hemisphere, I flew straight into the heart of America's public health preparedness efforts at the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services' Special Pathogens Preparedness Conference.
Speaking about emergency communication to health officials who've been on the front lines of everything from COVID-19 to emerging infectious diseases was both humbling and energising. These are the professionals who understand that when pathogens don't respect borders, neither can our communication strategies.
And now I'm writing this from New York City, where I'm about to deliver a workshop on AI for crisis communications at the Crisis Communication Bootcamp.
It's fitting that I'm ending this whirlwind tour in the city that never sleeps, talking about technology that promises to help us communicate faster, smarter, and more effectively when seconds count.
What's struck me across all three stops is how the fundamentals remain unchanged: clarity, speed, and trust are still the holy trinity of crisis communication. But the tools, the reach, and the complexity of our information ecosystem continue to evolve at breakneck speed.
So this week I’ll write about the early session of the Crisis Communication Bootcamp with great insights from the first couple of speakers.
Ready to wag the dog?
Table of Contents
At the Crisis Communications Boot Camp – New York this morning, communications leaders faced a new reality: in a world full of noise, trust is made, not sold.
Four morning keynotes outlined how to protect reputation in a hyper‑connected age. Here’s an overview.
Crisis Communications in 2025: The New Skills Every Communicator Must Master
Amanda Coffee, former senior communicator at Under Armour, PayPal, and eBay, opened the day. She warned that the old single‑channel playbook is dead. Today’s communications world is fragmented across platforms and audiences. The trick? Speed, flexibility, and a readiness to act before yesterday’s feed goes stale.
The Biggest Reputation Risks of 2025: What Every Organisation Needs to Know
Next up was Nicky McHugh, Director of Trust and Reputation at Schneider Electric. She painted a vivid picture: polarised politics, rogue audio recordings, and the danger of corporate silence. To combat this, she introduced Schneider’s “Trust Charter”, a practical internal guide1 designed to foster alignment and accountability. In her words: don’t just craft the message; shape the culture.
Deepfakes and AI in Crisis Management: Update Your Crisis Plan Now
Simon Paterson MBE, U.S. Head of Counter‑Disinformation at Edelman, delivered a wake‑up call. Deepfakes aren’t science fiction, but they’re here, cheap and convincing. His advice: build them into your crisis planning. Test your verification systems, rehearse your responses, and make sure your teams can spot a fake, even at 3 AM. It’s less about technology and more about readiness.
Mapping Influence in the Age of Polarisation
Lastly, David Hammon and Rossa O’Brien from SIGWATCH took attendees beyond panic to prediction. Their motto: don’t chase crises, track them. By watching how activist groups with diverse agendas align, communicators can anticipate the next wave of pressure, whether from regulators, investors or online communities. Their toolkit2 shows how one flashpoint in an echo chamber can ripple into a full‑scale reputational firestorm.
Core Messages: Trust, Speed and Foresight
These morning sessions all drove home the same point: reputational control is no longer about carefully crafted statements. Today’s world demands visibility, agility and pre‑emptive insight:
Trust must be earned at every level, from staff right through to customers and stakeholders.3
Silence speaks. Staying quiet often reads as disapproval or indifference.
Preparation beats perfection. Simulated threats, deepfakes, activist campaigns, etc., should already be built into your crisis plan.
One story isn’t enough. Audiences receive messages across channels; you need strategies for each.
Takeaways for PR & Communications Managers
If you’re serious about crisis readiness in 2025, start here:
Run a deepfake simulation. Give your team a synthetic media scenario and watch how your systems respond. Don’t just look for the “right” message—look for bottlenecks and decision paralysis.
Audit your silence. List the 10 most likely scenarios where you might stay quiet. Then ask: how would each key audience interpret that silence? Draft internal guidance.
Train your team for imperfect speed. Perfection is too slow. Build workflows for “80% right and right now” responses—especially for social, internal, and media holding lines.
Map activist and stakeholder overlap. Stop tracking issues. Start tracking the people who drive them—and how they connect. Think of risk like a network, not a headline.
Update your internal trust tools. If your team can’t explain your values under pressure, your values aren’t operational. Create alignment tools (like Schneider’s Trust Charter) to reinforce culture before the next crisis tests it.
The game has changed, but most playbooks haven’t.
What these sessions made clear is that crisis communication now sits at the intersection of speed, complexity, and psychology. If your team are optimising for control or perfection, they’re likely losing credibility.
It’s time to reframe what “prepared” actually means.
PS: It was really great and humbling to meet several of my Wag The Dog newsletter readers across the globe during this trip. You know who you are, but thanks again for your feedback, input and encouragement – it makes it all worthwhile! 🙏
References and further reading.
1 Trust Charter, Schneider Electric’s Code of Conduct | Schneider Electric. (2025). Se.com. https://www.se.com/us/en/download/document/SchneiderElectric_TrustCharter/
2 SEO, P. (2025, June 3). Right-Wing Pressure Monitor | Sigwatch. Sigwatch. https://sigwatch.com/right-wing-pressure-monitor/
3 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer. (2025). Edelman. https://www.edelman.com/trust/2025/trust-barometer
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