A New AI Site Where Professionals, Public Relations Practitioners, and Leaders Can Easily Ask Powerful Questions, and My Digital Twin Will Reply
www.CrisisGuru.ai
I built a digital twin as an experiment to instantly share with you what I’ve learned in nearly 50 years of advising leaders through tough, touchy, extremely sensitive situations. As the site came together, and to my own surprise, there are more than 2.5 million words in my twin, which is the product of my many books, hundreds of articles, essays, podcasts, webinars, videos, and hundreds of other content I produced during my career.
This is my legacy to the public relations profession, which has been so attentive to my success and my perpetual gift to you. Remember, I’m still here, so you can call or contact me anytime, 24/7 at jel@e911.com or 203.948.7029.
Another more practical reason for this special site is that too many communications professionals and CEOs lack access to a resource who’ll tell them the truth first. In this new age, AI can be your superpower for good to make informed and ethical decisions if you are a leader, or you can learn how to make extraordinarily helpful recommendations and be a constructive, ethical influence on leaders.
| Remember, AI processes need to be used ethically, and answers produced by these tools need to be verified independently. There are risks in using all AI technologies. |
To explore the accuracy of this technology and to what extent it can be applied in our profession, each month I will take a real question from “Ask Jim,” make it an anonymous case study, and critique my digital twin’s response directly.
Please give it try yourself. You can “Ask Jim” at CrisisGuru.ai.
Case Study #1 – A Real Question to “Ask Jim,” and the Result The Question to “Ask Jim” Is: “How does my university prepare for the conviction of one of its leaders next month for child pornography?”
Additional explanation:
“A university had an incident where a department head was arrested for child pornography. Sentencing is next month. I do not know other details but will be having a call with the president later today. I assume, but cannot know, if the person was dismissed or put on leave. I do not know what previous communication was shared internally or externally. My sense is the university need not say too much other than to reiterate what steps they have taken. I’m sure they are concerned that the sentencing will dredge up the university’s name in media and social media and they don’t want to be affiliated with the negativity of this person’s actions. Thoughts?”
“Ask Jim” AI Response (Unedited)
“Good morning. Let me think through what you’re describing here.
You’ve got a serious situation unfolding. An admissions director arrested for child pornography, sentencing coming next month, and media will absolutely circle back to the university when that happens. Your instinct is right, but it needs sharpening.
Here’s what matters: The university has already made decisions about this person. Those decisions, and the timing of those decisions, are now part of the institutional record. Whether the person was dismissed immediately, put on administrative leave, or something else entirely, that decision tells a story. So does silence about it.
Your sense that “we need not say too much” is understandable but incomplete. The university does need to say something, and it needs to be said before the sentencing, not after. Here’s why. When the sentencing happens and the name hits the media again, if the university has said nothing, every stakeholder – parents, faculty, donors, prospective students, current students – will wonder: When did we know? What did we do? Why didn’t we say anything?
That silence creates a credibility vacuum. Reporters and critics will fill it with their own narratives. The sentencing will dredge up the name, yes. But a prior, clear, decisive statement from the university positions the institution as having acted appropriately, having taken the matter seriously, and having been transparent about it.
What the university should communicate now, before sentencing:
Acknowledge the situation directly. Name the person. State what happened (the arrest, the charge, the status). Say when the university became aware. Then say exactly what action was taken and when. If the person was terminated, say it. If they were put on leave, say it. Make clear the university acted promptly and decisively to protect students and the institution.
Then commit to supporting any victims who come forward. Commit to reviewing institutional safeguards. And commit to cooperating fully with law enforcement.
This is not about protecting the university from “association with negativity.” That’s already happened. This is about controlling the narrative by being first, being clear, and being honest. The sentencing will still get coverage. But the university’s prior statement becomes the frame: Here’s what we did. Here’s when we did it. Here’s what we’re doing now.
That approach costs you far less reputationally than waiting for the sentencing to hit and then scrambling to explain why you didn’t say anything until you were forced to.
One more thing: Before your call with the president, find out exactly what communication has already happened internally and externally. Know the timeline. Know what was said, to whom, and when. That’s what the president needs to know you know before you sit down together.”
Jim Lukaszewski’s Analysis: Pass or Fail?
Pass. In my judgment the answer is useful and focused, given the details provided by the questioner. But in my career coaching CEOs, this answer needs additional specificity about the concept of readiness and more fundamental information about responding to these types of situations in general. In other words, the AI nailed the tactical response but missed the strategy.
There are four crisis realities that always confront PR executives and CEOs:
Crisis Reality #1
Crisis defined: A surprise event that is a people-stopping, product-stopping, or show-stopping, reputation-redefining, trust-busting situation that creates victims and often explosive negative visibility. The defining ingredient in crises is the creation of victims, which can be one, some, or all of three types: People, Animals, or Living systems.
Crisis Axiom #1
Few problems are ever crises, but all crises are serious problems.
Crisis Axiom #2
No victims = no crisis – just another of the many daily business problems CEOs will be held accountable for successfully managing.
Crisis Axiom #3
Effective response times are now measured in minutes rather than hours. Actually, they always have been.
Crisis Reality #2
There is a universal Grand First Response Strategy for responding to genuine, victim-producing events that, if ready, can be activated in minutes.
- Stopping the production of victims
- Managing the victim dimension
- Communicating with employees
- Notifying those who are indirectly affected
- Coping with the self-anointed, self-appointed – the legacy media and new age, and backbench gripers and so-called experts used by the media who always show up
- Activating your pre-organized situation response platforms and processes
- Managing the record from the start
Crisis Reality #3
Reduce and STOP using the phrase “Crisis Management.” This is a PR word that frightens people, agitates media coverage, revictimizes those injured, and often delays prompt and appropriate management responses to adversity. Readiness is the management process for projecting, detecting, preventing, responding, and recovering from the adversity that problems cause.
Crisis Reality #4
The main challenge of readiness is recognizing and preparing to deal with the eight dimensions of readiness for mission-critical situations:
- Detailed, ongoing timeline of events
- Operational readiness
- Victim response readiness
- Trust/credibility readiness
- Emotional readiness
- Professional expectations readiness
- Ethics readiness
- Readiness to extract, assess, and establish lessons learned continuously
©2026, James E. Lukaszewski. Contact the copyright holder at jel@e911.com for information and reproduction permissions. Editing or excerpting is forbidden.