A look at how M&T Bank rethought its town halls to improve understanding

If you’ve spent any time on Reddit, you probably know the acronym TL;DR, which stands for “too long, didn’t read.” But what about AI;DR?

At Ragan’s Employee Communications and Culture Conference in Boston last month, Russell Evans, head of communications for commercial banking at M&T Bank, said that employees are becoming more adept than ever at spotting when content is AI-generated and doesn’t have the necessary human touch to make it resonate.

But he added that one internal comms pathway that’s exempt from this trend is the town hall meeting, telling the audience that town halls are places where human connection can thrive.

“I can recognize, looking at this article, that it’s AI,” Evans said. “And if you phoned it in and couldn’t be bothered to write it, I can’t be bothered to read it. A lot of our people are feeling that every day, and one of the exceptions to that rule is town halls. Town halls are real.”

Evans said that many organizations can’t pin down why they’re holding town halls in the first place. When that’s the case, it gets even harder to connect with employees over strategy during the meeting.