HR leaders face a growing mandate to communicate with clarity across their organizations, and 50% of CEOs and CFOs now cite clear communication as a key contributor to the CEO-CHRO partnership. At Goodwill-Easter Seals Minnesota, the HR team has turned to AI tools to sharpen internal messaging while building a governance framework that could support more ambitious applications.
Jinah Chernivec, chief human resources and risk officer at the nonprofit, said the organization started with strategy before deploying AI. The executive team partnered with an AI consulting firm and ran workshops with senior leaders to define how the technology should be governed.
"Really what we've tried to establish is what the governance model is going to look like," Chernivec said. "What are some of the decision points going to look like? What's centralized and what's decentralized to functional areas or departments?"
That groundwork produced a plan for pilot cases across the organization - controlled initiatives where teams test AI applications and learn before scaling. HR already had a head start.
Drafting routine HR communications
One of the clearest early wins for Chernivec's team has been internal communication. HR professionals often act as subject matter experts translating complex information - benefits changes, policy updates, strategic initiatives - for an audience that doesn't share their expertise. That gap is where messages break down.
"It's subject matter experts trying to communicate something to non-subject-matter experts, and the message can get lost," Chernivec said.
Her team uses Microsoft Copilot as a starting point for drafting communications. But the tool doesn't operate alone. The organization created a dedicated HR communications role that sits within its employee insights team, part of a larger employee experience function. That placement is intentional: the communications specialist draws on employee survey data to shape how HR frames important messages.
"We want them to use data from our employee insights to help inform how we communicate important messages to the broader organization," Chernivec said. The specialist might review "where are we missing the mark" across specific areas, then use that data to inform messaging.
AI kick-starts the draft. The communications expert applies judgment, context, and voice. Chernivec uses the same approach in her own strategic work, relying on AI to pull together research on trends and data across the HR space. "It saves a lot of time," she said. "I'm not having to go look around and pull all the research."
For HR teams looking to apply AI in similar ways, resources on AI for Human Resources and AI for PR & Communications cover related use cases and training approaches.
What worked, and what to watch
The biggest advantage has been speed without sacrificing clarity. Instead of starting every message from a blank page, Chernivec's team begins with a solid draft and refines from there. The results include clearer messaging that translates expert-level detail into plain language, communication shaped by real employee feedback rather than assumptions, and time savings on research.
Human oversight remains essential. "It doesn't mean it's just, here it is, and it's off the shelf," Chernivec said.
Kenny Pyle, HR technology lead analyst at SHRM, pointed to a specific risk: readers are getting better at spotting AI-generated text. "There is an increasing sensitivity to reading AI-generated work," Pyle said. "People crave genuine communication and are picking up on AI tone faster than models can adapt."
To address that, Chernivec's team updated its communications standard operating procedure to treat AI-generated content as first drafts rather than final copy. Humans sit between generation and distribution.
Change management also posed a challenge. Centralizing messaging meant bringing together HR, marketing, and communications, which required new roles, processes, and decision-making structures.
Building toward AI agents
Chernivec said AI enhances her team's work rather than replacing it. The communications specialist's experience, the insight team's data, and HR's strategic perspective remain the foundation. AI removes friction from the process.
That philosophy shapes the organization's next step. Chernivec hopes to launch a pilot that would introduce AI agents into its HR service desk - the frontline helpdesk where specialists currently field employee questions and requests.
"We really want to change our HR service desk … to take off some of that frontline work that our service desk specialists have been doing," Chernivec said.
The organization isn't yet using agents in roles that involve direct human interaction, which is why the governance work comes first. The vision pairs broad, proactive HR messaging on one side with responsive, request-specific support on the other.
Why this matters for executives and strategy leaders
Chernivec's approach shows a repeatable pattern for AI adoption in any function: define governance before deployment, start with low-risk use cases that produce measurable time savings, and keep humans accountable for final output. The communications pilot at Goodwill-Easter Seals Minnesota didn't require a large technology investment - it required a clear process for pairing AI drafts with employee data and expert judgment. For executives weighing AI investments, that sequencing matters more than the tool itself. A governance-first approach lets teams test applications like service desk agents in controlled pilots, reducing the risk of rolling out technology that erodes trust with employees or customers.
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