If you’ve worked in corporate communications over the past year, you’ve probably felt it: the quiet, almost invisible shift in how work gets done. Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools like ChatGPT and Copilot are everywhere, but not always in the ways you’d expect. While headlines focus on bold organizational rollouts and visionary leaders, much of the real AI adoption story is happening under the radar—driven by a new breed of early adopters I call the “silent adopters.” 

Beyond the Classic Adoption Curve: Enter the Silent Adopter

Traditionally, technology adoption follows a well-worn path. Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovation theory describes a curve: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards. Each group is defined by its willingness to try new things and, crucially, by its visibility. Early adopters are often celebrated as opinion leaders, sharing their learnings and influencing others. But with AI, something different is happening. Early adopters are operating in silence—often integrating AI tools into their daily workflows without telling leadership or sharing their learnings with peers. In some cases, these silent adopters may reveal a portion of their AI use but keep the most transformative (and potentially job-threatening) applications to themselves. In my experience, this is happening frequently in communication departments, where the rapid evolution of generative AI has made it possible to automate large swaths of content creation, analysis and even strategic planning. 

In a recent conversation, a client shared with me a problem she was facing. Her communications team was adopting Axios’ Smart Brevity style of writing, but they didn’t have the capacity to support every departmental leader across the organization in switching to this style. They weren’t sure how to proceed with those leaders, who tended to write lengthy emails telling the audience everything and anything. I proposed training an AI agent. We could load this agent with Smart Brevity guidelines, the company style guide and other appropriate tools then have it handle the translation of dense prose to the new style.

I could see the client weighing the implications of such a solution—especially the implications of sharing such an agent with the whole organization. Sure, the quality of writing for leaders would improve and the workload of her team would be reduced, but… did she really want the workload of her team reduced? I could see her wondering: if 50% of my team’s days are spent writing content and AI can do it in a fraction of the time, how will we justify our value? 

For a brief moment, it was clear she felt the pull of keeping the agent a secret—of becoming a silent adopter. 

Luckily, she soon shifted to thinking about possibilities—more time to work on other value add activities: communication strategy, listening and activation. But I don’t think she’s alone in the dilemma she experienced.

Why Are Silent Adopters Emerging—Especially in Communications?

Several factors, in my view, are fueling this phenomenon:

• Accessibility and Utility: Generative AI tools are easy to access and deliver immediate productivity gains. Communication professionals can use ChatGPT to draft press releases, summarize reports or generate social media content in minutes—no IT approval required.
• Job Security Concerns: Many communicators worry that if leadership sees how much of their work can be automated, their roles could be at risk. As a result, they keep their most powerful AI use cases under wraps.
• Lack of Formal Guidance: In the absence of clear policies or training, employees experiment on their own, often in isolation.
• Shadow IT Culture: The rise of “shadow IT”—technology acquired by individuals on the company dime without official IT sanction, such as an Adobe Suite membership or ChatGPT Pro subscription—has accelerated with AI. Recent studies show that shadow IT now accounts for 30–40% of total IT spending in large enterprises, with AI tools being a major driver.

The Communication Paradox: More AI, Less Sharing

Ironically, from what I’ve seen among my peers and with the clients I’ve helped, the very professionals tasked with fostering open communication are now among the groups likely to adopt AI in silence. In communication fields, the pressure to “make words pretty” and deliver polished content quickly has always been high. Now, with AI, the temptation to quietly automate these tasks—and keep the secret sauce to oneself—is stronger than ever. 

But this silence comes at a cost. When communicators hide their AI use, organizations miss out on shared learnings, best practices and the opportunity to build collective AI literacy. Worse, it perpetuates the myth that the value of communication lies solely in content creation, rather than in the strategic, human-centric work that AI cannot replicate.