This AI-generated image looks nothing like Clearview Chief Executive Kirk Ward
The first time I spoke about AI in public was back in 2021 and I had absolutely no idea what a fuss Large Language Models (LLM) would cause.
I’d love to say I saw it all coming but the advent of ChatGPT took me by surprise.
Luckily, I was just vague enough to seem like I knew what was up.
“Artificial Intelligence (AI) is going to fundamentally change how people live their lives and communicators are going to have to navigate major societal change while we work out what it means for our profession. Big data has the power to be truly transformational.”
Kirk Ward, React & Share, 2021
Now LLM-based tools are spreading at lightning speed and their capabilities convince lay people that content generation and all aspects of marketing and communications are fast, easy and basically free.
Seasoned communicators roll their eyes and warn of hallucinations in text generation, wonky images and unreliable video.
They’re right of course, but it won’t always be this way.
The truth is that communicators of all kinds have got AI completely back-to-front.
The real power of this emergent technology is not in its content generation – a fancy trick in my opinion.
The transformative power of LLM based AI is in automation.
And I’m not talking about scheduling or marketing funnels here. I mean the actual nuts and bolts of running a communications and engagement team.
In 2018 I built a internal Marketing and Communications Helpdesk using Asana, Outlook and a Bananatag plug in.
‘Customers’ received an automated (but personalised) email with a ticket number.
Their requests, if they matched a regular product or service, were logged in Asana, assigned to a team member, actioned, monitored to delivery and each customer received a satisfaction survey.
It took weeks and weeks to set up. It disappeared as soon as I left the organisation.
Now, I imagine how much easier that level of automation would be in the era of AI.
I think about AI-based lead management, diary management, advanced data analytics in seconds, and the enormous potential of supercharged research and development.
I think about the time that will be freed up for communicators to plan, set meaningful objectives, map stakeholders, craft messages, engage with audiences and to measure and adjust in a coherent and deliberate way, instead of on the fly.
The possibilities are endless.
If we’re looking at the threats and opportunities of AI in terms of content generation then we’ve got it completely backwards.
Clearview Communications 