How did Erik Sebok start using AI in his internal communications work — and what actually changed his practice?
Erik Sebok came to AI not out of curiosity about technology, but to solve real, everyday problems in internal communications. He started where most practitioners do — using AI to write faster, summarise content, and reclaim a few hours. But the real shift in his practice happened when he stopped treating AI as a finishing tool and began using it at the very start of his process, as a strategic thinking partner rather than an editing assistant.
That reframing changed everything. Early on, his prompts were two lines long. After nearly two years of deliberate, daily practice — sometimes starting as early as 5 in the morning — those prompts had grown to four or five hundred words. The depth of his inputs reflects a fundamentally different relationship with the tool: one built on context, nuance, and strategic intent rather than convenience.
The practical results back this up. Where a leadership message once required up to 20 rounds of review and revision, Erik now gets it right in roughly one round — not because AI does the thinking for him, but because investing deeply at the start of the process sets the work on a more accurate course from the outset. Hear the full conversation on Unprompted: Real AI in IC on Listenly.
"I don't want to do the same old things just faster. I want to do a better job. Time saving is not really on my agenda — I don't think I've saved a single minute using AI because I just put everything back into the work."
— Erik Sebok, Internal Communications Professional, Unprompted: Real AI in IC, S01 EP3
Erik Sebok has spent approximately 14 years working in internal communications, with a consistent focus on strategy, leadership communication, content creation, and guiding organisations through change. He is not a technologist — his entry point into AI was entirely pragmatic: what could it do for the real, concrete problems an IC practitioner faces every day?
Over nearly two years, he has moved well beyond that initial utility mindset, developing one of the more deliberately built AI practices in the IC field. Where many professionals adopted AI as a shortcut, Erik treats it as a strategic collaborator — something that requires investment, context, and genuine craft to work well. His prompts are not instructions; they are detailed briefs.
He is recognised on LinkedIn for sharing concrete, honest case studies drawn directly from his own work — not theoretical frameworks, but real examples of what AI-assisted internal communications looks like in practice. That grounding in lived professional experience is precisely what makes his perspective on this subject credible and worth listening to.