There is always a limit to how much knowledge one can acquire. But, in a rapidly changing digital world—where technology evolves almost every day—staying informed about artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer optional for communications professionals. For professionals working in public relations, marketing, sales, advertising, digital communication, and multimedia journalism, the question is not whether they should learn AI. The real question is how much AI knowledge is adequate? To understand this, we first need to recognize that learning AI and becoming dependent upon AI are two separate things. Communications professionals should understand AI tools as well as their applications, limitations, and best uses. AI can help with research, brainstorming, data analysis, content planning, transcription, translation, social media strategy, audience analysis, and even first drafts. However, depending on AI to do everything can produce undesirable results. Communication is ultimately about people. A robotic piece of writing may be grammatically perfect, but it can still lack emotion, originality, context, cultural understanding, and a genuine human voice. Organizations are also becoming increasingly aware of AI-generated content and are developing systems to identify it. Recent controversies surrounding allegedly AI-generated or manipulated digital content also demonstrate how easily technology can create confusion. For communications professionals, this should be a warning: using AI does not automatically make communication better, but knowing when and how to use it does. A communications professional still needs to read, write, listen, observe, research, question, think critically, and speak effectively. These skills cannot simply be outsourced to a machine. So, what AI skills should communications professionals have? They do not necessarily need to become programmers or AI engineers. However, these professionals should develop practical AI literacy in several areas: These skills can give communications professionals a significant advantage without turning them into technology professionals. So, how do you become good at AI? The answer is surprisingly simple: study. Being a lifelong and consistent student is one of the most valuable qualities a communications professional can have. No matter the method, continuous learning is essential. You do not need to become a programmer overnight. You do not need to become a rocket scientist. Start with the basics: take notes, experiment, make mistakes, ask questions, and practice. Then, gradually move to more advanced applications. Even dedicating one focused hour per day to learning something new can make a significant difference over time. You cannot take shortcuts to genuine knowledge. How much AI knowledge is enough? There may never be a fixed answer as AI will continue to evolve, and the tools that communications professionals use today may look completely different years from now. Therefore, the goal should not be to learn every AI tool available, but to understand AI well enough to use it intelligently, critically, ethically, and creatively. Essentially, a good communications professional should be AI-aware, not AI-dependent. Technology can help us work faster, but it cannot replace human curiosity. It can generate words, but it cannot automatically understand every human emotion. It can analyze information, but it cannot take responsibility for every decision—that responsibility remains with us. So, learn AI. Experiment with it. Understand its possibilities and limitations. But never cease to develop the fundamental skills that made you a communications professional in the first place. The future may belong to people who know how to use AI, but the strongest communicators will be those who know when or when not to use it, and how to reintegrate human intelligence that AI cannot replace.
By Suzzy Majumder
A 26-year-old influencer recorded herself starting a kitchen fire, throwing dishes into the flames, and pouring hot wax on herself and her children. Perez Hilton, a notorious career gossip, took a blade to himself during a TikTok livestream. Individuals like these, and their followers, have shifted the public square online, causing an inversion of etiquette and moral norms. What the social fabric used to disavow—attention-seeking, irrationality, narcissism—is now anyone’s game. Push those to the end and you get a society that can’t distinguish virtue from vice—sure to crumble.
By Mia Downing
Photo courtesy of PickPik (Public Domain) “What do you think is the minimum amount someone needs to live comfortably in New York?” “I feel like the homeless people on the street are pretty comfortable.” – TikTok, @Ohana NYC, July 3, 2026 The reality is a lot less comfortable. New Yorkers have heard “the market is tight” for years. However, July’s numbers are on another level. For instance, Manhattan’s rent averaged $6,655 a month, the highest ever recorded, and the median hit $5,000 for the first time in the city’s history. Previously, Brooklyn acted as the fallback for people priced out of Manhattan. Now its median is $4,500, up 17% from last year, so that option is disappearing too. The vacancy rate is 1.49%, the lowest since 1968. Almost half of Manhattan’s apartments are only affordable because rent stabilization laws require it. The other half, with no rent stabilization controls at all, is where rent just hit an all-time high. That’s not a coincidence. It’s a preview of what the whole market would look like without stabilization. Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s response has been a rent freeze on stabilized units, which took effect this fall, plus a “Block by Block” pledge to build 200,000 affordable units. Landlord groups cite the freeze as why market-rate rents are climbing even faster, since owners with mixed buildings are supposedly raising unregulated units to make up the difference. I’m skeptical if the reasoning is really about the freeze. A landlord who can raise a unit by double digits in one year already had that room to raise it. The freeze didn’t hand them new leverage. It just gave landlords a convenient explanation for using the leverage they already had. The FARE Act receives a similar treatment. All it requires is that landlords, not tenants, pay the broker fees they generate. Some brokers now say landlords are holding units off the market instead of paying that fee themselves. If that’s actually why inventory is shrinking, it’s a strange thing to complain about. The alternative was landlords passing the cost onto renters who never chose that broker to begin with. I don’t think that the freeze is the wrong move, but it only reaches renters who are already in the stabilized system. Which overall does little for anyone shopping the open market, where new leases fell 20% in Manhattan and nearly a third in Brooklyn last month. Fewer leases being signed isn’t a sign of a cooling market. It’s a sign that people are giving up on finding what they want, or settling for roommates and commutes they never wanted. Another solution is building more housing. Converting empty offices and underused hotels into apartments at the scale the Block by Block plan describes would increase the housing supply. That approach changes the vacancy rate instead of just capping what tenants pay within it. I don’t think regulation and construction are competing options, and I’m tired of that being framed as a choice. The freeze buys time for people who would otherwise be pushed out this year. Additionally, the new supply eventually brings the vacancy rate up from 1.49% to something that isn’t considered a crisis. Moreover, the concept of spending more than 30% of your income on rent isn’t a sign that someone budgeted badly. Instead, it’s what happens when a city lets housing get treated as an investment for decades. The city only steps in to regulate part of the market once the rest of it has already broken. A freeze on half the housing stock is a reasonable place to start. But starting there isn’t the same as finishing the job. Acknowledgement: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the individual author, not necessarily Our National Conversation as a whole.
By Isha Mallareddy
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