by Kirk Kardashian
Jul 13, 2026

BlackRock didn’t set out to confuse anyone.

For years, the firm positioned itself as a leader in sustainable investing, with CEO Larry Fink’s annual letters making the case that ESG considerations are central to long-term value. But as political pressure mounted and client expectations shifted, BlackRock adjusted its language, placing greater emphasis on fiduciary duty and investor choice.

Individually, these messages were defensible. Collectively, they told a less coherent story. Critics accused the firm of greenwashing. ESG supporters saw retreat. Internally, even employees were left to interpret what, exactly, had changed.

(left) Paul Argenti, Tuck Professor of Corporate Communication; and (right) Mark DesJardine, Tuck Professor of Strategy and the Paul E. Raether T’73 Faculty Fellow. | Photos by Laura DeCapua

This is the paradox at the center of modern corporate communication. Companies must tailor what they say to investors, employees, customers, and regulators. But the more tailored those messages become, the harder it is to ensure they still add up to a consistent whole.

Paul Argenti has been watching this problem for years. In his research and advisory work, he’s seen how easily messaging fragments inside large organizations, where marketing, investor relations, the CEO’s office, and others all communicate in parallel, often without full visibility into one another.

Mark DesJardine has encountered the same issue from the outside in. In his research on shareholder activism, he’s noticed that even subtle inconsistencies in how companies describe their strategy can raise red flags—prompting investors to question credibility or push for change.

What both have come to believe is that most communication breakdowns aren’t strategic failures. They’re coordination failures. In global organizations, with teams spread across functions and geographies, alignment is difficult to sustain. “It’s pretty hard when you have people all over the world,” Argenti says. “Alignment isn’t going to happen naturally.”

Investor, employee, and customer messaging should emphasize different elements, but all should map back to the same underlying priorities. If each audience gets a fundamentally different story, alignment is already breaking down.

At the same time, the stakes have risen. Investors, analysts, and the media routinely triangulate across earnings calls, press releases, speeches, and social channels. When messages don’t line up, trust—and value—erodes.

AI now offers a way to manage this complexity, not by replacing human judgment, but by making it possible to see the full picture. Where no single executive or team can track every message a company produces, AI can analyze and compare communications across channels and flag where they begin to drift.

The goal isn’t uniformity, but coherence: the ability to tailor messages to different audiences without contradicting the core narrative. In “The AI Advantage in Corporate Communication,” a paper forthcoming in Management Business Review, DesJardine and Argenti argue this kind of alignment is not only a communications fix, but a strategic capability that delivers a real advantage.

Companies have never been able to control how their messages are received, only how clearly and consistently they are communicated. Today, that communication is getting harder. The volume of messages has exploded, audiences have multiplied, and the gaps between what companies say in different places are easier than ever to spot. The firms that get this right won’t just avoid missteps; they’ll build credibility with investors, employees, and the market.

A Framework for Staying Aligned

Argenti and DesJardine’s approach to “double alignment” is a four-step process for making coherence a repeatable capability.

Set the foundation
Alignment starts with clarity. Companies need a well-defined “communication spine”—a shared understanding of strategy, priorities, and values that can anchor every message. Just as important is governance: a cross-functional group spanning communications, investor relations, legal, and IT to oversee how AI is used and ensure consistency across the organization.
Build the system
Next comes assembling the full communication picture. That means pulling together everything from earnings calls and investor decks to marketing campaigns, internal documents, and external feedback. AI models are then trained not to generate content, but to recognize patterns, identifying shifts in tone, gaps in messaging, and emerging inconsistencies.
Embed it in the workflow
For alignment to stick, it must happen in real time. AI tools can be built into everyday platforms—Word, PowerPoint, content systems—so that messages are checked before they go out. The system flags potential contradictions, highlights risks, and suggests adjustments, allowing teams to tailor messages without losing coherence.
Align externally
This is where many companies stumble. Tailoring messages is necessary, but it needs to be done with discipline. In practice, that means starting with a single core narrative and then pressure-testing how it shows up across audiences:

Translate, don’t reinvent. Investor, employee, and customer messaging should emphasize different elements, but all should map back to the same underlying priorities. If each audience gets a fundamentally different story, alignment is already breaking down.
Check messages side by side. Before release, compare communications across channels—a press release, an earnings script, a marketing campaign—to see how they read together. Misalignment is often only visible in combination.
Anticipate cross-audience spillover. Assume that investors will see marketing campaigns, employees will read earnings transcripts, and media will connect both. Messages designed for one audience won’t stay contained.
Use AI to stress-test framing. AI can surface where differences in tone or emphasis may be interpreted as contradiction. For example, AI can raise an alert when growth narratives begin to undercut claims of cost discipline.

Where AI Can Mislead

AI can sharpen communication. It can also distort it, if companies aren’t careful.

Mistaking automation for judgment
The temptation is to let the system decide. That’s a mistake. AI is most useful as a diagnostic tool—surfacing inconsistencies—not as a replacement for human decision-making.

Bias and blind spots
AI systems reflect the data they’re trained on. If that data is narrow—say, limited to investor materials—they can miss how messages land with employees or customers.

Risk and exposure
Feeding sensitive internal documents into unsecured systems creates obvious legal and competitive risks. So does generating language that runs afoul of disclosure rules.

No clear owner
Communication spans functions. So does this problem. Without clear governance—across communications, IR, IT, and legal—AI tools can create as much confusion as they resolve.
The takeaway is simple: AI can help companies see their messaging more clearly. But it still takes people to decide what that message should be.