The CommunicAItor's Digest: Edition 21

Helping communicator's make sense of the AI space.

This week is a little delayed but hopefully it's worth the wait! The biggest, and IMO, most interesting news this week is the acquisition of Superhuman by Grammarly. It is an incredibly bold, and potentially existential one for Grammarly and suggests a degree of maturation of the Generative AI space.

Almost since Day 1 (and one might argue even long before that with Microsoft Word), Copilot from Microsoft and Gemini have integrated editing and grammar functions into their AI tools and productivity suites. Grammarly, however, is an editing tool looking for a productivity suite. The acquisition, and likely tech integration of SuperhumanAI into Grammarly offers an exciting route to reverse-engineer additional AI capabilities into an already great tool - but the product roadmap will be crucial, this is a very crowded space which will need some important differentiation.

Content creation

Grammarly Acquires Superhuman: Building the Inbox Chief of Staff Grammarly acquired Superhuman (~$825M valuation) to merge AI writing tools with high-productivity email UX. The goal: an AI assistant that not only edits but helps draft, schedule, and organize exec comms. Rahul Vohra and the Superhuman team are joining Grammarly post-acquisition. So what: I actually think this is a bigger deal than we realize. Copilot from Microsoft and Gemini from Google have enabled in-document AI support (and grammar support) for years now. Notion has added AI-powered mail and calendaring to its awesome productivity suite. This acquisition helps Grammarly (a smart, AI-powered language tool) retain relevance by backward-engineered a productivity application for its writing tool. Pricing is going to be tricky though. Superhuman is a staggering $30/month as a standalone subscription, while Grammarly Pro has been aggressively priced at only $12/month. I have to assume that the awesome Superhuman team has calendaring and other productivity tools up their sleeves for this deal to make any financial sense! Source

Build-a-Bot in Gmail: Google’s ‘Gems’ Hit Workspace Google’s Gemini “Gems” are now embedded in Gmail, Docs, and Slides. These customizable bots can reflect brand voice, pull internal language guides, and block out-of-policy phrasing. Internal testing showed a 39% drop in email back-and-forth. So what: Create task-specific bots (e.g., "CrisisComms" Gem) to speed up draft generation across teams while maintaining tone and compliance - at least before the agents come and do the same! Source

Paywall for the Robots: Cloudflare Lets Publishers Charge AI Crawlers As mentioned last week, Cloudflare have introduced a tool that allows websites to prevent or charge AI bots for visiting and scraping site content. Over 1 million domains are already using it, and several publishers reported cost savings and licensing gains. So what: I'm not a fan - this feels like old skool trying to claw back some power (and revenue) but I understand where, for some publishers, this can be useful. Source

Auto-Dub Switch Now Flipped for 80M YouTube Creators YouTube’s auto-dubbing now supports 11 languages and applies to Shorts and long-form video. Brands in beta reported a 27% increase in international watch time. So what: Repurpose one video for multiple markets. Add dubbed content to newsroom assets, explainers, and product demos and rapidly multiply your audience potential. Source

Veo 3 Goes Global: Google’s Cinematic Text-to-Video Opens to 159 Countries As shared last week, Google Veo 3 has now rolled out globally and embeds visible/invisible watermarks for legal clearance. So what: Great opportunity for comms teams to create message-specific, branded video intros, B-roll, or concept clips without needing production teams. Source

Influencers

Virtual Faces, Real Reach: AI Influencers Hit the Mainstream Synthetic influencers like Aitana Lopez now command $15k/post and deliver 1.5× engagement over human creators. Brands are experimenting with digital humans to cut costs and maintain control. So what: It is high time to research synthetic creators for scalable, safe campaigns with strict brand safety and disclosures. Source

Budgets Blow Up: 37% of U.S. Marketers Now Spend $3M+ on Creators A WARC study shows influencer marketing has tripled in spend since 2020. The main challenge is managing authenticity and ROI at scale. So what: Build robust briefing, legal, and analytics systems to keep high-spend campaigns aligned and measurable. Source

Symphony Streams: TikTok’s New AI Suite Pumps Out Influencer-Style Ads TikTok’s Symphony creates creator-like ads using avatars and vernacular that mimics popular influencers.10 One trial cut production time 40% and increased CPMs by 18%. So what: Scalable creative influencer content is at your immediate disposal. Get testing. Source

Tools of the Trade: 2025 Influencer Analytics Power List Drops InfluencerMarketingHub released a list of 19 AI-powered analytics tools, ranking them by ROI prediction and fraud detection. So what: The ease of creation of synthetic influencers is going to require strict control and measurement to avoid wasted investment but especially retain brand control. Source

Internal Communications

MIT Study Flags Cognitive Drag from AI Drafts MIT researchers found that AI-generated text led to lower brain activity and engagement among users, indicating possible loss of critical thought in message prep. So what: Review AI-drafted messages with human intention to ensure executives stay mentally present when crafting sensitive or strategic comms. Source

Workspace Gems Bring Role-Based AI to Docs, Gmail Google’s Gemini “Gems” bots can now be embedded across Docs, Gmail, and Sheets. Gems can answer policy questions, draft internal announcements, and enforce tone-of-voice. So what: Set up internal bots that instantly answer HR, IT, and policy queries to ease comms team workload. Source

ChatGPT Enterprise Adds Record Mode + Wiki Search ChatGPT Enterprise users can now search across Notion, Confluence, and SharePoint and maintain records of AI usage for compliance. So what: Internal AI knowledge assistants can now work across systems, reducing time spent looking for policy answers and project info. Source

Corporate communications

Nagish Wins Accessibility Award for AI Voice Captioning Nagish won “Speech-to-Text Solution of the Year” at the AI Breakthrough Awards for providing real-time captioning on phone calls, aiding the deaf and hard of hearing. Active users surged 500% in six months. So what: We don't hear a lot about the way that AI is making itself accessible. PR pros should promote accessibility innovations as part of their ESG narrative. Inclusive tech has real reputational upside. Source

Solidus AI & Secret Network Launch Fully Encrypted AI Comms This new partnership enables AI model deployment with complete encryption. It targets sectors like finance, healthcare, and legal that need confidentiality during generative processes. So what: This is your talking point for private-sector clients: you can build secure AI tools that won’t leak sensitive data. Source

Oversee Introduces AI Personalization for Travel Agents Oversee’s “AgentSee” platform crafts AI-generated travel itineraries and email content personalized to traveler behavior. Some agencies cut email drafting time by 90%. So what: Shows how niche industries can adopt AI to boost client comms. Use this to pitch similar use cases in other service verticals. Source

Analyst Relations/Investor Relations

Earnings Co-Pilot Previewed at NIRI Q4 Q4 previewed its AI tool at the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI) conference that drafts earnings call scripts and generates competitive sentiment analysis. Early adopters see a 25% reduction in prep time. So what: A powerful tool for AR teams to shorten turnaround and reduce pressure in earnings season. Start testing integration points now. Source

Ericsson To Provide Live AI Translation on Q2 Webcast Ericsson is trialing real-time multilingual captions on its July 15 earnings call, potentially the first blue-chip to do so. So what: Shows leadership in accessibility. Add this to your IR roadmap if you serve a global investor base. Source

Crisis Communications

NY’s RAISE Act Slaps $30M Fines on Frontier-AI Labs New York passed the RAISE Act, requiring companies training large AI models to report major incidents and adopt safety protocols. Noncompliance risks fines up to $30M. So what: Crisis teams should update holding statements and escalation trees to address potential AI failures or compliance breaches. Source

Brand-Spoof Tsunami: 1,000s of Fake Retail Sites Discovered Cybersecurity firm Silent Push found a Chinese network impersonating brands like Apple and Hermès with spoofed sites using legit-looking Google Pay widgets. These sites were designed to phish credit card data. So what: Monitor impersonations aggressively. Build templated alerts and consumer FAQs for rapid deployment if your brand is spoofed. Source

Disinformation/Misinformation

Manga “Prophecy” Tanks Japan Bookings Viral rumors tied to a manga prophecy predicting a July 5 earthquake triggered a tourism slump. Airlines canceled flights, and hotel bookings dropped 11% YoY. So what: Crisis teams in travel and hospitality must now track culture-specific panic signals—not just mainstream media. Source