The CCO Podcast: How Swisscom's Communications Team Is Doing AI Right

(MENAFN- PRovoke) Swisscom, the leading telecoms provider in Switzerland, acquired Vodafone Italia at the turn of the year, and is also very active in the IT business more broadly. It is also in a unique position politically, because while it is a listed company, it is half owned by the Swiss state, which means higher levels of public scrutiny.

Myriam Käser, head of group communications and corporate responsibility, joined Swisscom a year ago, having previously worked as a journalist and then as a communications advisor to several technology brands and significant Swiss companies.

In March, Kasar restructured the communications function at the company, creating a new "communications technology and transformation" department, focusing on digital communication and AI.

Last month, Kasar and I discussed her role, and the ways in which she is shaping the function for the future.

Key takeaways:

• “I really wanted to join Swisscom. Why was Swisscom my employer of choice? First of all, I think it's a wonderful brand. It's a big brand and it stands for the type of values I really believe in.”
• Käser also liked the way communications is structured at Swisscom, where it is part of the exco, and encompasses public affairs , ESG, brand image as well as core corporate communications functions:“This broad definition of the role really allows me to leverage all the synergies and to orchestrate all those relationships of the company.”
• “I think it's very important to be part of the exco. I think reputation is absolutely key to the success of a company. It's strategic. I see the CCO function as this 360 degree stakeholder manager. The CCO needs to take investors, staff, journalists, media, politicians, into consideration, and needs to understand the polarities between those stakeholders, the different expectations.”
• “The CCO function can serve as kind of an early warning system, because it's the eyes and the ears of the company. We are the people who are having those conversations with all of those stakeholders every day. So we can sense very early if something's going in the wrong direction or if there are new trends or opportunities out there that we should be leveraging,”
• “We are a tech company, so AI is really a big topic, and we had a number of initiatives coming bottom up. People want to work with those tools. They want to try out those tools. I saw how big and disruptive and fast this development and technology was and I said, 'Okay, we need to some extent, we need to streamline those initiatives, because we need to set priorities. We also needed to align with other parts of the company who are also working on AI so we're not duplicating efforts.”
• Launching the comms tech and transformation unit, she selected people who were already tech savvy to develop and manage those platforms.“I took those people from their initial units and grouped them into this very small unit that reports directly to me.”
• The process started with an audit.“We wanted people to share all the things that they're already doing, and we found that they're working with a dozen or more tools. We said, okay, let's meet for a day and we do a prompted on to find out what are the most powerful ideas. I think we had between 50 and 60 ideas and we chose eight cases that we jointly worked on for a full day, and five cases came out of that process that we're pursuing further..”
• AI is being heavily used as a thought partner.“When people have to come up with a concept, are developing a new idea, they have conversations with AI.”
• It is also being used to ensure that company visuals sre motre consistent, and to develop Q&As on a range of issues for journalists via a“MediaGPT” based on language developed by the communications team.
• “At Swisscom, we have this vision that we take very seriously to be an innovator of trust. So we really firmly believe innovation and trust. They go hand in hand. So we came up with a guidance for the entire company on how you can use AI in a trustworthy manner,” based on yhree core principles.
• “Principle number one is we as humans, we take responsibility for any AI generated content, that it's accurate and it's correct.
• “The second principle is that we remain authentic. So we do really not want anyone to be tricked into believing something that is not true. So we would never generate people to make a testimonial. A testimonial must be given by a real person. We would not generate an image of a data center, and suggest that it's a Swisscom data center.”
• The third principle is transparency. So Swisscom has created an AI label.“If an image is fully generated by AI, we simply say, this is an AI created image, and other products that are fully AI generated, we let people know that this is the case.”
• “I believe it's it's super important that this is applied by the entire organization, because there is only one Swisscom, and people out there, they don't care which unit at Swisscom was the creator of a certain piece of information or content. So we went to the executive committee with this proposal. So we're offering this course to everyone who is interested, but especially those creating communication. So all of the colleagues in the marketing function, we really make sure that they are familiar with this guidance.”
• “The comms function is no longer about just issuing messages. It is really about managing relationships. And relationships, they are between human beings, and you need to invest in this relationship. If you need to rely on relationships when you're in crisis and you didn't build it before, it's certainly too late. So this is an example of where I think we cannot be replaced as humans.”

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