The Employee Attention Recession
Key Takeaways
12%
of employees read internal communications in full
Reading in full is now the least common active response to receiving an internal communication. The rest are skimming, filtering, delegating or handing it to AI.
95%
of employees trust AI to accurately capture key points
At the same time, 92% of internal communications professionals are concerned it distorts meaning. Neither group can easily verify the other. That shared blind spot is the Intent Gap.
88%
of employees have used AI to summarise internal comms
58% do so regularly. AI-mediated consumption isn’t a trend to watch, it’s already the norm for the majority of your workforce. AI summaries are now a more common response than reading in full.
33%
of organisations have formal governance in place
Near-universal awareness of AI-mediated consumption has not translated into practice. The governance gap is the most structurally significant finding in this research.
83%
of employees receive too much internal content
35% say far too much, they can’t keep up. Volume is the single biggest factor in whether an employee reads something at all; ahead of relevance, format, or who sent it.
73%
of IC functions are planned-but-limited or primarily reactive
Only 5% describe themselves as advanced and data-driven. Closing the Intent Gap requires sustained strategic effort, not just better content.