The Art of Storytelling: How Comms Can Shape Industries
I've been noticing something. Job titles that used to say "Communications Manager" or "Content Lead" are now sometimes being called "Storyteller." Sometimes it's the whole job; other times it's been folded into the job description. Either way, it's become a “need to have” skill in corporate comms.
The Wall Street Journal picked up on this too. In their article titled “Companies Are Desperately Seeking Storytellers”, the number of U.S. job postings containing the term “storyteller” doubled over the last year, with roughly 50,000 marketing listings and more than 20,000 media and communications listings mentioning the term.
And the roles aren't small. Microsoft's security division has been hiring a senior director to own narrative and storytelling. Vanta posted a Head of Storytelling role at up to $274,000. Notion folded its comms, social, and influencer teams into a single ten-person storytelling unit. And Anthropic and OpenAI, the companies literally building the AI that was supposed to make writers obsolete, have been advertising multiple storytelling and content strategy roles.
The role is definitely in demand, but what exactly is “storytelling?”
Is that really "storytelling"?
When people hear "storytelling," they often envision classic fairytales: "Once upon a time in a land far, far away, there lived a princess (or a prince) with a problem..."
I know…that sounds completely removed from corporate strategy. Yet, strip away the dragons and castles, and that narrative architecture still exists at the heart of every successful customer conversion.
Don't believe me? Watch what happens when I replace the princess with a B2B persona from a chemical company.
"Once upon a time in Ludwigshafen, Germany, there lived a chemical engineer named Klaus. Klaus had an ambitious mission: to develop a high-performance polymer that was 100% biodegradable. However, he faced a massive roadblock. Every sustainable additive he tested compromised heat resistance, causing product trials to fail..."
Notice the structure? Suddenly, a fairy tale is a customer story. And it's also, almost beat for beat, the framework Donald Miller built his entire StoryBrand methodology around.
The StoryBrand shortcut
If you haven’t read Miller’s book, Building a StoryBrand, here’s the quick version.
Miller's model takes the classic narrative/storytelling structure that has been used in movies and novels for years and applies it to marketing:
A Character wants something (our chemical engineer wants a more sustainable polymer)
Has a Problem (he can't crack the formulation)
Meets a Guide (this is your company)
Who gives them a Plan (your process, product, or expertise)
And calls them to Action (talk to us, try this, sign up)
That ends in Success (he is able to finally create the sustainable product)
While helping them avoid Failure (the alternative: stalled R&D, missed sustainability targets, falling behind competitors)
The biggest mistake companies make, according to Miller – and I’ve seen this hundreds of times too, is making themselves the hero of the story and thinking their company/product is there to save the day. But in reality, you are helping (or guiding) your customer so THEY can save the day.
In other words, your customer is the hero – and you are Yoda.
Every good case study, every good "product" page, every founder video that goes viral is running this structure, whether the person writing it knew the framework or not.
Back to Why Storytelling Matters More Than Ever
Now that I’ve hopefully convinced you that stories exist in every company, let’s talk about why storytelling matters more than ever in the age of AI.
The obvious reason is because the internet is louder than it's ever been. Articles, social posts, and entire websites can be spun up in minutes with AI. Tools like Canva and CapCut mean anyone can produce a polished promo video or vlog off a template in an afternoon.
The result is that nothing stands out. Articles read the same, posts sound the same, and videos start to blur into one another.
So…because AI can now produce infinite content, the thing that is now in demand is original storytelling created by humans.
But while all that is true, it’s not the most interesting part of why storytelling is in demand.
The interesting part is this. AI itself learns from stories. Language models are trained on narrative structure, human experience, cause and effect told over time. When your audience starts asking AI about your company, your products or your industry, it draws on vast amounts of information to generate answers.
Publicly available websites, articles, research, company information and other online content can all contribute to the information available to these AI systems. And because your online narrative in all these places is the data AI will use to describe you, what you put out there needs to be consistent, distinctive and supported across the areas where your company and industry are being discussed.
How Storytelling is Enabling Communicators to Shape Industry Narratives
The second reason storytelling is in demand is because we now have more market intelligence than ever before. I’m talking real-time data on what people are searching, discussing, and deciding— and it can be diced and sliced anyway you want in minutes with the help of AI.
I’m a data nerd so this excites me, but for those of you who are saying “Data-schmata”, let me explain why corporations and storytellers care about this data.
It again has to do with AI.
As you probably already know, AI has changed the customer journey. While Google hasn’t disappeared, your customer is also using Co-pilot, Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT and other LLMs when researching and searching for answers. In fact, according to a November 2025 report from Semrush, 60% of google searches now end without a click, and when AI overviews appear in a search, it’s 83%.
That means people are letting their LLM of choice do the research for them, and they may encounter your company, your competitors and your industry through an AI-generated synthesis long before they ever reach a corporate website.
Now…remember how I mentioned that what you put out there is the information that AI uses to describe you? Naturally you want to appear in those answers and part of why storytelling is important, BUT…a good corporate storyteller can do more than just have you show up. They can shape the industry narrative and have you lead it.
How do they do that? They do this by understanding the data. Not just looking at the number of mentions, but getting deeper into understanding exactly what the customer asking, the issues gaining momentum, the sentiment, the direction the industry is going and where the gaps are.
That intelligence becomes the raw material that lets storytellers shape what an industry (and your customers) thinks about next, rather than just reacting to what's happening or blending in with everyone else.
This is the same tactic I used to use when I was a journalist.
Think about it. When something happens in your city, let’s say a high-profile court case, every journalist has the same story. But if all the reporters say the exact same thing, none of them stands out. The one journalist who takes it to the next level (gets the exclusive interview, finds a different angle, answers the question that’s on everyone’s mind, etc.) becomes the one people remember and talk about.
The data you have access to today from all the media monitoring and AI platforms enables you to find that angle. And when used well, your “story” can shift how customers think and move entire markets.
What Does Storytelling Mean for the Future of Comms?
In the past, the role of communications has been treated as the function that explains what the company has done: writing the release on a new product, briefing the press, responding to the news.
But today, communications and storytelling can shape what the industry thinks about, talks about, and ultimately understands. The communications role is no longer limited to "here's what we did," but "here's what matters now, and here's why."
And that's what all those storyteller job posts are really looking for when they are searching for talent.
They don’t need someone who can write a nice sentence. AI can do that. They are looking for someone who can define the narrative the rest of the market ends up following.