The New Technical Communicator: From Documentation Writer to AI-Human Bridge
Skill Number 2 in our series: Modern Technical Communication
“The technical communication field is evolving faster than ever,” says Dr. James Kim of MongoDB. “The winners will be those who start preparing now.”
This second post in our series is a little different than the format of the others. I want to discuss what we mean at Firehead by “Modern Technical Communication”. Maybe that seems a little meta for a series on skills technical communicators will need, but I think it’s important to establish what the modern is in technical communication, and why the old stuff isn’t working anymore. Consider this one setting the stage for why “Modern Technical Communication” is a new skill set.
GenAI is just the tip of the iceberg for technical communicators. Our workflows are changing drastically to serve the needs of AI – we’ll need new skills to do our work – some that are entirely new with the technology, and many from cousin content fields. We’ll get into that in detail in this series. And many new things will develop during the course of this series, no doubt.
This evolution in our work isn’t just happening in AI companies. From manufacturing to healthcare, technical communicators are being thrust into surprisingly strategic roles—roles that many of us weren’t prepared for.
“I don’t write documentation anymore—I orchestrate it,” says Sarah Chen, lead technical communicator at Databricks. “AI generates the first draft, but my job has evolved into something much more interesting: ensuring AI’s output actually serves human needs.”
Yes, humans are still vital in the process, but only if we learn to how to adapt and strategise, and use AI as a tool. And then, our future is pretty optimistic.
The Good News: AI Falls Short in a Lot That Only Humans Can Do
“The biggest mistake companies make is thinking AI can handle technical documentation on its own,” explains Marcus Rodriguez, Documentation Lead at Tesla. “We learned this the hard way when our AI-generated maintenance guides led to confusion among service technicians in 2024.”
Rodriguez’s experience isn’t unique. A survey of 200 technical communication teams revealed three critical gaps where AI consistently falls short:
- Context and Nuance:
While AI excels at generating basic procedural documentation, it struggles to understand the broader context of how users actually work. At Siemens Healthcare, technical communicators now spend 40% of their time conducting user research—something AI can’t replicate.
- Cross-functional Communication:
AI can’t navigate the complex politics of getting input from engineers, designers, and product managers. “My role has become more diplomatic,” says Chen. “I’m the bridge between AI’s capabilities and our team’s needs.
- Quality Assurance:
AI hallucinations remain a serious concern. Technical communicators are evolving into content validators, developing sophisticated processes to verify AI-generated documentation against source code, SME input, and user feedback.
The New Technical Communication Workflow
We’ve worked with some effective technical communication teams using AI in specific ways:
- First Draft Generation: AI creates initial documentation from code comments and API specifications
- Consistency Checking: AI tools flag terminology inconsistencies across documentation sets
- Translation Management: AI handles initial translations, with technical communicators focusing on cultural nuance
- User Testing: AI analyses user interaction data to identify documentation gaps
But humans remain essential for:
- Strategic Content Planning
“AI can generate documentation, but it can’t decide what needs to be documented,” a technical communicator at Microsoft. “We spend more time now on content strategy—determining which features need detailed guides versus quick references, and how different pieces of documentation work together.” - Complex Troubleshooting Scenarios
At SpaceX, technical communicators work with engineers to document edge cases and emergency procedures that AI struggles to anticipate. “AI is great at documenting the happy path,” says their Lead Technical Writer, “but humans excel at asking ‘what if?’ and documenting recovery procedures.” - User Experience Design
“Documentation is becoming more interactive,” notes a UX Writer at Adobe. “We’re creating documentation experiences that adapt to user behavior—something that requires deep empathy and understanding of human psychology.” - Regulatory Compliance
In highly regulated industries like healthcare and finance, technical communicators ensure documentation meets complex compliance requirements. “AI can flag potential compliance issues,” says compliance specialist Dr. Sarah Chen, “but it takes human judgment to navigate the grey areas of regulatory interpretation.” - Cross-cultural Communication
“We’ve found that AI often misses cultural nuances,” reports Y. Tanaka, who leads documentation for Toyota’s international markets. “Human technical communicators are essential for adapting content to different cultural contexts and ensuring nothing gets lost in translation.”
Nevertheless, AI is becoming profitable and installing itself in our workflows. Statistics compiled by Dataiku and Databricks from surveying 400 senior AI professionals at leading global companies present an unambiguous case for GenAI:
- 90% are adopting GenAI
- 84% are investing over $1 million this year
- 65% of organisations reported positive ROI from GenAI use.
- 60% fewer businesses voiced extreme concerns about AI
- 62% expanded AI into HR and 49% into legal
You can download the Daitaku-Databricks report ‘Secure Your Strategic Edge with GenAI’ on this link.
In addition to integrating concepts from parallel content fields, modern technical communicators are soon going to need to quickly grasp the requirements of even more fields that affect us. A few topics topping the 2024 list included:
- RAG (retrieval augmented generation)
- HCI (human-computer interaction technologies)
- Metadata and Paradata (see our August 2024 newsletter)
- Semantic SEO (featuring in our January 2025 newsletter)
- Knowledge Graphs (coming in our March 2025 newsletter)
- Agentic AI (more below and in our February 2025 newsletter)
- Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs)
Upskill! Upskill! Upskill!
A Menlow Ventures Report also identified that despite the overall positive outlook, more than a third of survey respondents had no clear vision of how generative AI would be implemented across their businesses. The study cautioned: ‘We are on the brink of a talent drought… Brace for soaring competition and 2-3X salary premiums for already well-paid AI-skilled enterprise architects becoming the norm.’
Read the Menlow analysis of compensation trends for the top 1% of AI technical talent here.
We at Firehead foresee a greater need for technical communicators to enter the realms of corporate strategy and oversee the rollout of AI-backed technical projects, including designing, testing, and documenting results.
The AI revolution is lending a new definition to the term ‘transferrable skills’; the TechComm field is becoming so diversified and the range of disciplines so broad that this ‘transferability’ is becoming the default in the same sector.
We have never been more optimistic about the careers of well-trained technical communicators. We believe the 7-11% job growth numbers are still too conservative. So, look up because 2025 is bringing a bumper year of opportunity for modern technical communicators!
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