3 essential skills to thrive in the age of AI
Adapt and thrive no matter what comes next.

“AI is evolving so rapidly that anyone who clings to comfort zones might find themselves left behind,” says Martin Waxman, adjunct professor and associate director of the Future of Marketing Institute.
But rather than beat an “adapt or risk irrelevance” drum, Waxman adds that AI isn’t a threat to replace communicators — it’s an amplifier for creativity, authenticity and strategic thinking.
A roadmap is emerging to guide us through this fast-paced transition. In a speech delivered at the TCC Loyalty Forum last May, former Google executive Mo Gawdat identified three critical skills that every organization and professional will need to master in the age of AI:
- Know the tools.
- Find (and defend) the truth.
- Embrace human connection.
Here’s Waxman’s advice for applying Gawdat’s framework to fast-track and future-proof your career:
- Know the tools: Tech reluctance is a real thing in communications. “Communicators have historically seen themselves as storytellers, not data geeks or coders,” Waxman concedes.
It’s the “right versus left brain” concept that’s been trotted out forever in PR and comms — and it can create blind spots if you let it define you, your work and your strategic value.
Enter Waxman with the good news again: “AI is far more intuitive than the DOS-based systems of old,” he says, “As a storyteller and writer, you can obviously articulate a clear direction in words, so you’re basically ‘coding with language’ — the essence of prompt engineering.”
With that mental block out of the way, it’s essential to just dive into the tech and enjoy the journey.
Waxman says your first step isn’t simply checking out free versions of AI tools. Instead, you need to actually subscribe to at least one paid version of a main AI chatbot — like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or CoPilot—to unlock more advanced capabilities. If you’re more tech-savvy, you might experiment with open-source models like Llama or Mistral.
Next, broaden your skillset beyond text-to-text to include multimodal platforms:
- Text-to-Image:
- ChatGPT’s built-in DALL·E
- Ideogram (ideal for generating text-based visuals)
- Text-to-Video
- OpenAI’s Sora (early stage, but also in ChatGPT now)
- InVideo (beginner-friendly for quick 30-second clips)
- Text-to-Music
Whatever AI tools you tap into and whatever level you’re at, the key is experimentation.
“We’ve been primed to think AI gets everything right instantly,” Waxman says. “But writing a good prompt takes trial, error and a willingness to push through the learning curve. Sometimes, it’s faster to just do it yourself if the AI output isn’t clicking. But keep at it — you’ll get better results over time.”
On a different note, many communicators worry about losing our voice to AI.
Waxman’s got a solve for that, as well. His advice is to ask yourself what you love to do — and then don’t give that up. If writing from scratch gives you joy, continue doing so — and just use AI for what you don’t excel at, like visuals or light research.
“I’m no graphic designer,” he says. “So text-to-image is a great match for me. But if I gave up my writing, I’d lose the ‘aha’ moment that keeps me inspired.”
- Know the truth: You’ve already seen that AI’s ability to generate lifelike images, audio and video is colliding with unmoderated social media. The result, Waxman warns, is “a maelstrom of disinformation and deepfakes.”
The threat to brands is obvious. Deep fake scams alone hit 53%of businesses in just the last year, according to a recent Medius study. That’s just the tip of the iceberg and the misinformation mess will only get worse, if Meta’s recent shift away from fact checking is any indication.
So what does that mean to you—what should you be doing? Two things, according to Waxman:
- Sharpen media literacy. “Your first line of defense is to always check the source before sharing a piece of content,” Waxman says. “As communicators, we should also be encouraging our contacts, colleagues and communities to do that same.”
Beyond that, verify whether the publication or individual is reputable. Tools like Snopes and the Trust Project can help, but it’s ultimately on you to see if a piece is legitimate.
“We’re all time-crunched, so it’s tempting to share or retweet without reading,” Waxman says. “But we risk amplifying nonsense. Slowing down and practicing media literacy is going to be a key survival and differentiation skill for communicators.”
- Embrace System 2 thinking. Waxman recommends embracing psychologist Daniel Kahneman’s concept of System 1 (fast) vs. System 2 (slow) thinking.
“We absolutely have to work quickly. But we also need to reserve time to analyze critically, especially as AI floods the zone with synthetic content,” he says. “For example, if you rely on AI-driven summaries alone for search results when browsing, you move farther and farther from the original source—and the truth.”
His big point: “Slowing down is going to feel counterintuitive in a world where AI speeds everything up—but it’s more important than ever if we want to keep the facts straight.”
- Know thyself: Gawdat’s final pillar centers on human connection and soft skills—an arena that AI can only simulate, but not truly replicate.
“AI agents might sound empathetic, but they’re just aggregating data points,” says Waxman. “AI can’t replace our empathy, ethics or big-picture thinking — that’s our true value.”
His advice for leaning more into your “human” competitive edge:
- Embrace empathy. “Communicators and public relations pros build relationships,” says Waxman. “It’s an inherently human exercise requiring empathy, active listening and the emotional intelligence to pivot when necessary That’s where we truly differentiate ourselves from machines, because communications is about empathy — not just output.”
- Become the ethical voice. As AI takes on more tasks (looking at you, ChatGPT and your new “tasks” feature), it’s easy for organizations to push ethical boundaries in pursuit of quick gains.
Waxman sees communicators as the critical line of defense. “When you notice something feels off — like a campaign crossing privacy or moral lines — speak up. We’re the relationship-builders. Protect that trust.”
- Read about and upskill your soft skills. Waxman recommends these two books to help you sharpen your soft skills:
“Smart Brevity,” by Jim VandeHei et al: “It’s a fantastic guide for writing clearly with your audience in mind. It promotes empathy in communication,” Waxman explains.
“Nexus,” by Yuval Noah Harari: “It explores how AI is reshaping our future and storytelling — and what happens when machines can generate and distribute stories on their own,” says Waxman.
So there’s your roadmap to the future!
Martin Waxman will dig deeper into these concepts at Ragan’s “AI for Communicators” workshop during the AI Horizons Conference in Miami, Feb. 24–26. Click here to register—we’ll see you there!
Brian Pittman is a Ragan event producer and dean of Ragan Training. A veteran journalist, storyteller, Hollywood screenwriter and surfer, he can be reached at brianp@ragan.com.
This is helpful information. Thank you.
Since I cannot attend the AI Horizons conference, I look forward to reading about it. Cheers.