What got us here won’t get us there: Why we have to commit to our development in 2026
Lee Smith
Minutes
16th December 2025
Employee Experience
Internal Communications
AI
Internal Communications
AI
There’s a quiet irony at the heart of the employee experience and internal communication profession right now. We talk constantly about growth, adaptability, future skills and learning cultures. Yet many EX and IC professionals are investing less in their own development than ever.
Budgets are tighter. Teams are leaner. Workloads are heavier. And the habits that once served us well—mastering channels, perfecting campaigns, delivering at pace—are starting to feel out of step with the world we’re working in.
Budgets are tighter. Teams are leaner. Workloads are heavier. And the habits that once served us well—mastering channels, perfecting campaigns, delivering at pace—are starting to feel out of step with the world we’re working in.
The age of AI isn’t just speeding things up – it’s reshaping where our value truly sits. Tools powered by platforms like OpenAI can now generate content, analyse sentiment, summarise feedback, segment audiences and produce first drafts in seconds. The technical layers of our craft are becoming faster, cheaper and increasingly automated.
Which leaves us with an uncomfortable but necessary question: If AI can do the doing, what is our role now?
The answer isn’t more output. It’s deeper human work. And that demands a different kind of development—one many of us have quietly put on hold.
The Skills That Built Our Careers Won’t Sustain Them
For years, EX and IC roles have largely been shaped around delivery: Channels. Campaigns. Content. Toolkits. Rollouts. Launches.
The technical skills that underpin this work still matter—but they are no longer enough on their own. What’s rising in importance now are the deeply human strengths at the heart of future-ready EX and IC work:
Which leaves us with an uncomfortable but necessary question: If AI can do the doing, what is our role now?
The answer isn’t more output. It’s deeper human work. And that demands a different kind of development—one many of us have quietly put on hold.
The Skills That Built Our Careers Won’t Sustain Them
For years, EX and IC roles have largely been shaped around delivery: Channels. Campaigns. Content. Toolkits. Rollouts. Launches.
The technical skills that underpin this work still matter—but they are no longer enough on their own. What’s rising in importance now are the deeply human strengths at the heart of future-ready EX and IC work:
- Curiosity – to keep asking better questions as the rules keep changing
- Creativity – to design experiences that move people, not just inform them
- Resilience – to stay grounded and adaptive in constant flux
- Empathy – to understand how change feels, not just how it lands
- Influence – to shape belief and behaviour without relying on hierarchy
- Courage – to challenge, speak up and lead into uncertainty
These are no longer “soft skills” or nice extras. They are the core capability stack for the next era of employee experience and IC.
And they don’t grow through output alone. They grow through reflection, stretch, feedback, discomfort and deliberate self-investment.
This is exactly the shift the World Economic Forum has been signalling for years: human, cognitive and social capabilities are rapidly becoming the most valuable skills in the workplace. Yet many of us are still developing as if the job hasn’t fundamentally changed - but it has.
What got us here – technical excellence, efficiency and delivery – won’t get us to where we now need to go next: shaping belief, trust, meaning and culture in a world defined by uncertainty.
AI Raises the Bar.
There’s a lazy narrative that AI will “replace” us. That misses the deeper truth.
What AI is really doing is removing the safety net of routine work. When the first draft, the analysis, the translation and the reporting can all be done instantly, what’s left is the work that only humans can do:
- Reading the emotional undercurrents in a room
- Designing experiences people genuinely feel
- Navigating trust, power and politics
- Helping leaders understand the human impact of their decisions
- Holding space for doubt, fatigue and ambiguity
This is deeper, more relational and more psychologically demanding work than many of us were ever trained for. And it requires a different kind of development—not more tools training, but more human strengthening.
When EX and IC professionals stop investing in themselves, it doesn’t just affect their careers. It directly shapes the experiences they create for everyone else.
Stretched practitioners design stretched experiences.Burned-out teams create brittle change.
Outdated capability leads to mechanical comms and shallow engagement.
You cannot create modern employee experience with outdated development. Your growth is no longer separate from the work. It is the work.
What got us here – pushing harder, delivering more, powering through – won’t get us to the kind of employee experience organisations now desperately need.
In the age of AI, the riskiest strategy for EX and IC professionals isn’t being replaced. It’s standing still.
A Commitment to Your Development in 2026
If what got us here won’t get us there, then 2026 has to be the year we stop postponing our own development.
If you’re ready to deliberately strengthen the human skills that matter most in this next chapter of EX and IC, that’s exactly why we created The EX Space Pro Membership.
Pro is for practitioners who want to stay ahead of change, build confidence working alongside AI, and deepen their curiosity, creativity, resilience, empathy, influence and courage.
Make 2026 the year you stop standing still—and start investing in the future of your craft. Sign up today with 50% off Pro membership - just add the code 'GOPRO50' in the checkout.
