by This piece first appeared in O’Dwyer’s on October 23, 2026. Below is an excerpt. Read the full article on O’Dwyer’s →
The leading AI labs face a crisis communications test with no precedent: they must explain a technology they cannot fully control while they keep building it. In “Are the AI Giants Creating Their Own PR Nightmare?” for O’Dwyer’s, Montieth Illingworth, CEO of Montieth & Company, argues that the labs keep choosing the communications paths that carry the most reputational risk. Here is the core of his argument.
Why AI Labs Face a Crisis Communications Problem
Frontier lab CEOs affirm that their technology is valuable and necessary, then acknowledge its risks in the next statement. They say they can manage those risks, then call for government regulation and a slower pace of development because they cannot manage them alone. Each message makes sense by itself. Together they project a lack of understanding and control, delivered in polished language.
Proposals for industry-wide coordination on risk add a second problem, because smaller competitors read them as a route to rules that shut them out. The picture that emerges is a new kind of corporate irresponsibility in full public view: leaders who built something they do not fully understand, cannot control, and will not stop advancing. Delaying a release does not resolve that. The race for competitive dominance reinforces the sense that AI is inevitable and that people matter less than the technology.
Continue reading on O’Dwyer’s →
A Crisis Communications Playbook for AI Frontier Labs
With no precedent to follow, Illingworth argues the playbook has to be written from scratch. He outlines three building blocks:
- Regulation the labs help build. CEOs should hire compliance experts to design the core architecture of regulation, then work with government to finalize it.
- Credible control through transparency. A communications strategy that moves from foundering to credible control depends on full disclosure of the labs’ work, the risks, and the consequences. Information that trickles out costs reputational standing with each revelation.
- Honest expectations for investors. Doing this may carry a financial cost, including lower return expectations, and the risk factor disclosures in the coming IPO filings will read differently than any before them.
What Executives in Fast-Moving Sectors Can Take From This
Crisis communications is the practice of managing information under pressure, and the AI labs now practice it in public with every product release and policy statement. The lesson extends to any company in a fast-moving sector: credibility comes from disclosing risk before the next revelation forces the issue.
At Montieth & Company, we advise leadership teams on crisis communications, corporate and financial communications, and engagement with regulators and policymakers. Companies that build that foundation early keep control of their narrative when scrutiny arrives.
Learn more about how Montieth & Company approaches crisis communications: Crisis & Issues Management