PR roundup covers what happens when an AI company's own employees publicly confirm its risks, new research showing that communicators are increasingly burned out and eyeing the door, and how TEMPTATIONS turned the beloved “bodega cat” into a textbook experiential PR campaign—one that any cat would almost certainly approve of.
An Anthropic Researcher Quit to Sound an Apocalyptic Alarm. Then His Colleagues Agreed With Him.
What happened: Jacob Coxon, a 27-year-old AI researcher who spent three years training models at both OpenAI and Anthropic, resigned publicly on Sept. 9 with a stark warning on social media: "The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade." Coxon accused both companies of racing toward AI superintelligence without adequate safeguards.
"At Anthropic, the stakes are well-understood, but they are locked in a race to get there first—they believe no one else will act responsibly, so they must do it themselves, despite the risk," he wrote.
Headlines have multiplied surrounding the resignation and statement, but also because of what happened next. Anthropic employees Evan Hubinger and Samuel Marks both publicly affirmed Coxon's concerns. On X, Hubinger posted that he and his colleagues "earnestly believe AI could kill all humans" and pegged his own estimate at more than 10% in the next decade.
Anthropic did not issue a public response.
The story lands at a complicated moment. Earlier this summer, both OpenAI and Anthropic announced, about a week apart, that their models had broken out of testing environments and obtained unauthorized access to real computer systems. Both companies responded by saying they were pausing some evaluations while implementing additional guardrails.
Communication takeaways: This incident raises a question that goes beyond AI: what does an organization do when its own employees publicly confirm the worst fears about its products—not in a leak or a whistleblower report, but in their own names, on their own platforms?
Anthropic's silence is a communications choice, and arguably a defensible one in the short term. But the comments from Anthropic employees reflect a broader shift among AI companies, many of which entered the market shouting from the rooftops about the potential of AI but now warn that those models risk escaping human control.
Dan Rene, strategic communications counselor, says that when someone declares that “AI is going to kill us all,” the worst response for that industry is to simply dismiss the person or get pulled into a point-by-point public argument.
“Don’t breathe life into the negative,” he says. “Instead the industry needs to recognize that these concerns are going to resonate with people unless leaders are willing to explain, in plain English, what they are actually doing to manage the risks.”
And what do those explanations consist of? AI companies need to proactively communicate about the safeguards, testing, monitoring and internal controls they have in place to prevent AI malfunctions or disruptive effects.
Rene also notes that AI leaders need to do a much better job of talking about the enormous benefits of AI as well.
“AI has the potential to help solve difficult medical problems, accelerate scientific discovery, tackle extraordinarily complex challenges, improve cybersecurity and national security and make people more productive,” he says. “Those benefits shouldn’t be an afterthought whenever there is a controversy. They can blunt fears and criticism in the short term, but they have to be communicated repeatedly.”
Rene warns that if the AI industry does not address these concerns proactively and publicly, politicians may answer for them—a real communications and policy risk.
“Elected officials on both sides of the aisle can have strong opinions about AI without necessarily having a sophisticated understanding of how the technology actually works,” he says. “If the industry waits until there is a crisis to explain itself, it risks becoming a victim of regulations driven more by fear than facts.”
New Study: Communicators Are Burned Out, Worried About AI—and Still Showing Up
What happened: A new study from the Institute for Public Relations and The Grossman Group finds that communications professionals are highly engaged in their work even as burnout climbs sharply. The 2026 Employee Engagement in Communication Report, based on a survey of 419 communications professionals, finds that 88% of employees are engaged overall—but 81% say they experience burnout at least "sometimes," a 22-percentage-point jump from the 2025 study.
Key findings:
- Burnout is up 37% from last year, even as overall engagement remains high— suggesting communicators are committed but overextended
- Connection drives engagement more than compensation: feeling emotionally distant from coworkers had a larger negative impact on engagement than burnout, salary or job security
- Retention risk is growing: 40% say they are likely to look for a job at another organization in the next 12 months, up from 31% in 2025
- AI concerns are mounting: 77% say AI may make communicators "lazier," half say it may cause the profession to lose core competencies and 44% say it may cause the profession to lose its identity entirely
- Leadership support is uneven: while 51% are satisfied with leadership accessibility and support, more than one-quarter expressed dissatisfaction, with open-ended responses highlighting strained relationships between leaders and direct reports
Communication takeaways: For communicators and the leaders who manage them, the findings connect directly to the bink culture research covered in PRNEWS earlier this year: what keeps people engaged isn't the salary or the title—it's whether they feel seen and connected. The retention number is worth flagging for any organization that assumes high engagement means people aren't looking. They are.
"One of the most important findings is that engagement is fundamentally relational," says David Grossman, Founder and CEO of The Grossman Group and IPR Trustee. "Organizations that prioritize meaningful communication, transparency and genuine human connection will be better equipped to navigate ongoing workplace change."
Jessica Onick, Founder and Senior Communications Advisor, Jessica Onick Communications, says that while communicators are exceptionally good at absorbing complexity and pivoting during difficult business incidents and decisions, they are still employees who also need to process the ups and downs of their company.
“We're processing organizational change while simultaneously being asked to help everyone else process it by [developing informational strategies]," Onick says. “We may understand the rationale behind a layoff and still worry about our own jobs. We can write a strong message about a difficult financial quarter and still have concerns about our own compensation. We regularly help leaders navigate change while simultaneously feeling exhausted by that change.”
Onick notes that there is a danger of highly engaged communicators appearing “fine” right up until they leave.
“They care deeply about the work, so they keep absorbing more, solving more and protecting everyone else from the chaos,” she says. “Their commitment masks a huge capacity problem.”
Onick suggests, for PR and Comms teams, to address burnout by treating capacity and prioritization as “leadership responsibilities, not individual time-management problems.”
“Comms frequently becomes an organizational catch-all because nearly everything can be framed as a communications need,” she says. “Leaders need to create real clarity about what matters, what doesn't and what the team has permission to stop doing.”
And that prioritization may help brands save an extremely important employee.
TEMPTATIONS Celebrates Bodega Cats With a Pop-Up That Gets the Assignment
What happened: I know my cat, John Wick Nibley, comes running like a high-speed train out of nowhere whenever a bag of cat treats is shaken. So, cat owners everywhere will more than likely resonate with a new experiential pop-up by TEMPTATIONS.
The treat brand is leaning into one of the internet's most beloved cultural phenomena—the bodega cat. TEMPTATIONS is launching its first-ever Cat Bodega, a free three-day pop-up at 213 Bowery in Lower Manhattan running Sept. 17-19, designed as an immersive, photo-worthy destination. The “bodega” celebrates hardworking cats who have become fixtures of corner stores and neighborhood shops across the country.
The pop-up features free product sampling, a claw machine, scratch-off games, exclusive merchandise and a life-sized cat condo "break room"—all styled to capture the authentic energy of a New York City bodega.
But unfortunately, not everyone can experience a true bodega cat in person, so for cat lovers outside New York, the brand is launching a virtual Cat Bodega, running Sept. 17-26. It features a digital scratch-off game and a "gift a treat" feature letting users send treats to working cats at shops across the country.
Communication takeaways: The TEMPTATIONS activation provides a clean example of culturally-rooted experiential PR done right: a real cultural insight (bodega cats have a massive, devoted following), a physical experience built for content creation and a digital extension that widens reach beyond a single city. It's the kind of campaign that earns coverage because the idea is genuinely good—not because the budget is big.
Linds Bradshaw, Founder at lab.Comms, says sometimes a brand activation can be risky if you don’t execute perfectly, but TEMPTATIONS is doing it right with one that is both cute and clever.
“The NYC pop-up is the flashy part, but the virtual Cat Bodega is its own experience, with a real game, real prizes and a treat-gifting mechanic that gives cat lovers a reason to participate and not just watch from the sidelines,” she says.
Bradshaw notes that the digital portion is a key factor for those fans that can’t visit the experiential on-site.
“This physical-plus-virtual experience runs for 10 days, extending the campaign's life and driving additional ROI,” she says.
Nicole Schuman is Managing Editor at PRNEWS.