{
  "id": 5254780,
  "title": "How AI could kill ‘corporate ick’",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/03/how-ai-could-kill-corporate-ick",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-09-03T05:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Fast Company",
    "slug": "fast-company",
    "url": "https://www.fastcompany.com/91600923/how-ai-could-kill-corporate-ick-in-the-workplace"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Imagine a workplace where you speak your thoughts instead of typing them out. Calum MacDougall, president of Jabra's enterprise division, envisions a future where AI will replace keyboards in the workplace. \"The keyboard was invented in 1868,\" he says, \"so it seems natural at some point that technology should be able to overtake it to create something new.\"\n\nAI will become increasingly important in the workplace, MacDougall believes, which is no surprise. However, he predicts the future will arrive quicker than anticipated. Instead of formal communication, he envisions a more conversational approach, with AI agents being communicated with verbally, much like human colleagues.\n\nLess corporate speak and more creativity could be the result of this shift, MacDougall argues. Speaking is faster than typing, allowing for more rapid sharing of context. Additionally, when people type, they tend to self-edit, often crafting polished emails and documents. Conversational AI, on the other hand, may encourage brainstorming, asking questions, and collaborating with the AI in a more natural manner.\n\nResearch supports the idea that speaking and writing involve different types of thinking. Speaking can increase the volume and divergence of thoughts, especially in the early stages of development, according to a study by AI educator Bryan Cassady and researchers at Cornell University. IBM's research from 2024 also found that highly conversational AI interfaces could support creativity in the workplace.\n\nHowever, older workplace norms built around polished written communication may be challenged. Gen Z workers are already questioning some of the conventions of the modern workplace, rejecting corporate ick – a term used to describe performative professionalism, useless jargon, and the pressure to maintain a buttoned-up image.\n\nPamela Pavliscak, an adjunct assistant professor at Pratt Institute's School of Information, notes that conversational AI allows for unfiltered spoken thoughts or using personal notes to discuss ideas. The messy nature of voice interactions can lead to interesting ideas emerging. Since much corporate communication is rigid and templated, this can feel liberating and liberating.\n\nYet, there is a potential downside. Conversational AI might free workers from corporate-speak, but the end result could be smoothed out by AI, potentially resulting in blandly professional communication. However, voice-based AI might preserve some of the personality lost in corporate communication, keeping that human element that is so important.\n\nAdapting to this AI-led future may require some adjustments, but the result could be a multimodal workplace where workers have more flexibility and autonomy in how they work. While keyboards are unlikely to disappear, a future where workers move between speaking, typing, and other ways of interacting with AI seems more likely.",
  "summary": "Imagine a workplace where you spend less time attached to a keyboard, worrying about how to word an email , write a report, craft a LinkedIn post, polish a presentation deck, or sound professional enough in an office-wide memo. Instead, you stop hunching over a keyboard and start talking your way through a written correspondence, the way you might with another person. Such a workplace may not be…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}