We may never again read the word "quietly" without suspecting AI is behind it. Or the once perfectly good construction, "It's not just X — it's Y" — which AI has planted its flag squarely in the middle of.
I know these things because complaining about AI is an everyday ritual online. The tone is defensive — and the truth is that AI writing is far from all bad. That was a worrying thing for humans to discover. Language was supposed to be our thing. And yet Claude, Anthropic's chatbot, knows its way around the English language much better than me sometimes.
Still, it's a leap from "AI can write competently" to "AI can write compellingly" — and many feel it cannot. I asked Claude this week to suggest a subheading for a story on new tech tools for finance teams. It offered: "Your calculator called — it wants to be an algorithm." I passed.
It’s clear that energy, attitude and personality cannot be easily extracted from the monumental pile of data that LLMs work from. "AI can do many things, but it is objectively shit at making you laugh," says George Smith, a UK-based freelance copywriter. "Or making the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.
“Until AI can do these things, companies will need to hire good writers,” he adds.
And that's exactly what's happening. Whether they're called "storytellers" — the industry's new glow-up term — or communications professionals, writers, influencers, narrative leads or content specialists, they’re in growing demand.
"We're seeing a surge in organisations of all sizes looking for storytellers, around double that of last year," says Cathal Morrow, founder of London PR agency Headline Writers.
‘A good rebrand’
The flashy "storyteller" rebrand is an American creation, which European content people are gleefully importing. Last year, the Wall Street Journal reported how tech giants like Microsoft and Google had started mentioning the skillset in their job ads. "Storyteller" rarely stands alone as a job function, but it has inspired many content heads to update their LinkedIn bios accordingly.
“My hunch is that more European companies will appoint dedicated storytellers in the coming months,” says Sam Shead, a former Sifted journalist who has set up a “storytelling consultancy” called Ever Wondered. “Europe tends to follow the US on workplace trends, usually by six to 12 months.”
The newfangled title suggests flair and novelist-like talent. Media figures feel this is more than just a bit of sparkle: it’s made the role more important.
"Finally communications has had a good rebrand to help show how important it is, and also highlight how hard it is," says Hailey Eustace, founder of London-based Commplicated, a comms firm for deeptechs.
Eustace says Europe has long trailed the US in resourcing and respecting communications. "One US investor told me that after Series A, US companies usually put 20% of it into marketing to blitz or win the market fast. I can tell you, Europe is nowhere near that," she adds.
European startups have tended to approach storytelling “less theatrically,” says Bommy Lee, head of communications at Paris VC firm Sofinnova Partners.
This view is widely held. "As an American who's lived and worked in Europe for a decade, I think the stereotypes of loud Americans vs. more-reserved Europeans holds true online," says Jessica Guzik, a LinkedIn content strategist.
Increasingly, European founders don’t fit the stereotype. CEOs like Anton Osika (Lovable), Stef van Grieken (Cradle), Eléonore Crespo (Pigment), Richard Hollingsworth (Fyxer), as well as investors like Harry Stebbings, are devoted online communicators. They're all big on AI but they’re not allowing it to infiltrate their narratives.
Startups are becoming imaginative in their bid for attention, from freshening up fundraising announcements and hiring comedians to pulling viral stunts. It isn’t simply about rising above AI slop — startups are fighting against a dwindling tech media, says Lucy Sharp, who has led communications for big tech institutions like Amazon, Seedrs and Revolut.
“When I joined Seedrs in 2016, a £500k SaaS seed round could still land national coverage,” she notes. “Within a year that stopped working.”
‘ChatGPT will kill your brand’
It would be wrong to dismiss AI's storytelling potential entirely.
Johan Konst, CEO of Amsterdam PR agency EUSAPR, argues the technology is helping startups become far more nimble communicators. He points to a UK drone manufacturer working to prevent wildfires from spreading across Spain, France, Greece, and the US as a case in point.
"With AI, you can monitor the news in summertime where fires are actively burning, and within hours pitch a relevant angle to a journalist in Madrid, in Spanish," he says. "When a fire breaks out in Provence, they switch to French. And so on."
Yet most comms leads remain unconvinced that AI is a genuinely creative force. For Insa Schniedermeier, head of communications at Paris startup hub Station F, the technology simply isn't messy enough. In a previous role at French food group Danone, she recalls, the rule was that any chocolate pictured on packaging had to show crumbles, edges, imperfections — never a flawless surface. "Not like a perfect Lego brick," she says. "They called it 'the perfection of imperfection’."
AI, by contrast, is too neat. "The outcomes sound too perfect, too formal, and as a result, boring,” she says.
The vagueness is another problem. AI writing tends to traffic in "powerful reminders," "important perspectives," and "pivotal shifts," says Smith — turns of phrase, he adds, that "nobody who has ever taken the bins out in their slippers at 7am on a Tuesday has ever said."
For Orlando Crowcroft — another ex-Sifted journalist who offers writing help to companies — the stakes are even higher.
"AI can't write, and it can't tell stories," he says. "I mean, I miss smoking, right? But there's a reason that those warnings are on the packets and you can't do it inside anymore. It will kill you — and ChatGPT will kill your brand. I am 100% certain of that."
The next chapter
Tech companies have always loved repurposing language from other arenas to dress up corporate roles. We've had data ninjas, growth hackers, product evangelists; the CEO assistant has become the founder associate.
The storyteller rebrand will no doubt attract its share of eye-rolling, and may eventually outstay its welcome. But for now, it's a way to reassert the value of human work over the mysterious AI pinball machine.
Humans might have a long, healthy run left in them after all. Even the AI would have to admit: we're quietly doing alright.
