Why Storytelling Is Back and How AI Brought It With It

In the business world, storytelling is making its rounds again as both a buzzword and a strategy. It bubbles up every 10 years or so as a new thing that every organization and leader should be doing. It's having its moment right now because of the anxiety rippling through every business, driven by the change AI is thrusting upon us.

As artificial intelligence reshapes how we work, we're reaching for something it can't replicate: authentic human stories.

According to the Wall Street Journal, "storyteller" or "storytelling" was mentioned on earnings calls and investor days 469 times this year through December 11th. That's up from 359 times in all of 2024 and just 147 times in 2015.

"Those who tell the stories rule society." - Plato

Here's why storytelling is the spark your business needs right now, and why this tipping point in the AI adoption curve is pushing us toward something uniquely human, something organic.

Connection

As technology slips further into everything we do, as it becomes a layer in every one of our interactions and activities, it reduces a great deal of friction from our lives. Sure, we feel more

productive, more informed, more accomplished, and self-sufficient, but we also feel more disconnected from each other than ever. We are becoming more isolated.

When we chat with AI instead of colleagues, when we automate instead of collaborate, we lose something essential. Human connection requires a little friction. A little surprise. A little unpredictability. It’s what holds our attention and what drives new ways of thinking.

So while AI drives us apart in many ways, it is also driving us toward craving more human connection. Stories give us the connection we’re seeking. Make sure your stories are personal and human, not overly complex. If you’re new to stories, it’s the same thing you’ve heard about PowerPoint slides. Keep it simple.

Change

Stories comfort us in change. Stories are our earliest tools for navigating change, and we are certainly experiencing one of the biggest changes of our lifetime. Our brains crave stories when everything feels uncertain. Stories calm our nervous systems and help us learn how to move forward.

Your stories don’t always have to be positive or happy – they need to be real. In fact, we often seek out stories of danger, novelty, and heroes. We love to see the underdog overcome the odds that seem impossible to overcome, because we want to see ourselves overcome those odds.

This is why understanding story frames will help you stand out. Think the Hero’s Journey or Star Wars. Your business story may not be as epic as saving the galaxy from the evil empire, but you can still use the force.

Authenticity

As a career storyteller, I can tell you that authenticity is the number one element of any good story. However, the authenticity I am referring to here isn’t being driven by a deep human need; it’s being driven by the agentic AI. And it creates a huge opportunity for those who take advantage of it.

Agentic AI is really good at research, calculation, summarization, matching, and recommendation. It’s these last 2 that have storytelling being mentioned over 200% more times in just 2 years on investor calls. Agentic AI is consuming everything—scraping the internet for training data, prioritizing human-generated content, looking for what's novel and authentic. Don’t believe me? Here’s what AI said when I asked it directly: Yes, AI systems are aggressively seeking and consuming new data to train, improve, and stay relevant, often prioritizing high-quality, human-generated content to enhance their capabilities. This process includes using vast amounts of information from the internet, including books, articles, and websites.

It’s no longer about optimizing the algorithm, companies and brands need to stand out as genuinely helpful, authoritative – MORE HUMAN. Love it or hate it, Agentic AI is not going anywhere; there is too much money riding on it, so we must adapt.

The good news? AI can summarize, but it can't originate. It can recombine, but it can't create from lived experience. It can't tell your story. That's your competitive advantage.

What Comes After You Hire the Storyteller

Hiring a storyteller or learning how to be a storyteller is just the beginning. Step two is understanding what makes your business authentically unique—today. Not according to a 2016 brand guide. Not based on what your competitors are doing. So if you have to start with a brand exercise with your leadership team, do it. Get clear on what makes your organization unique and authentic. Now is the time to stand out.

One thing that makes you unique is your people. Your people are full of human, authentic, unique stories. Tell your people stories; your employees' stories are proof that your business is unique, authentic, and human. How they solved customer challenges. How they innovated.

Those stories? That's your kindling. Telling your authentic story matters now more than it ever has. AI is being used to research, calculate, and summarize so much of our search and information collection and it is looking for unique in-formation that doesn't match the pattern of every other business if you want to stand out as a business to people or are searching for you it's imperative at this moment to understand what differentiates your business what is unique about your brand, your voice and authentic tell that story so AI can match you with your best customers.

AI is good for research, calculating, and summarizing, but humans are still best at storytelling authentically to other humans.

We all feel disconnected and we are looking for connection and commonality in the world around us. Technology now has a layer into every one of our interactions and activities.

Nathan Wadding is founder of Kindling Culture Agency.