Navigating AI together: uniting communicators to embrace change

AI can be an emotional topic, and for many, the opportunity for a big productivity boost sits alongside fears around role replacement and the devaluing of skills. Hearing concerns from fellow communicators, we have created a forum ‘Navigating AI together’ to enable us to manage the transition to AI together, safely, ethically, and with positive and open mindsets.

In our first roundtable, we discussed how communications is a driving force that shapes workplace culture, employee experience, productivity, sales, customer service, and innovation. We know it’s not time to hand over communications to robots, but rather to put our focus on leveraging the potential of AI, alongside human expertise. Here is a summary of some of the key conversations that were had during the first ‘Navigating AI together’ roundtable.

AI and communications: setting the scene

At the recent Simply IC conference, established internal communicators explored the impact of AI in their field. During the discussions, they found that ‘AI is generally welcomed by the communications community although still quite scary’.

In a reassuring address at the Simply IC conference, generative AI expert and author Nina Schick emphasised that AI makes communication more important than ever. Instead of replacing the role of communicators, it is likely to highlight the need for real human communication.

Additionally in the roundtable, we discussed how uptake of AI might be slower than the media would suggest. Insights from a survey of 2,000 people in the US shed light on the current state of mainstream AI usage. The results indicated that AI adoption remains relatively limited, with only one in three individuals having tried AI-powered tools. Moreover, most people are not familiar with the companies responsible for these innovations. Notably, younger generations, particularly millennials, lead in embracing AI, while boomers appear to lag in its adoption.

Opportunities and challenges in AI for communicators

Communicators are often juggling large workloads, always trying to do more with tighter budgets and tighter deadlines. If your CEO came to you today and said I’m giving you a budget for an extra head in your team, their role is just to support you, you probably wouldn’t say no. AI has the potential to be a very useful tool in the box.

During our first ‘Navigating AI together’ roundtable, communicators identified several opportunities surrounding AI in communications:

• Simplifying contracts and legal language, making complex concepts understandable.
• Distilling white papers and reports for easier comprehension with tools like ChatPDF.
• Supporting pre-meeting research, providing insights for better preparation.
• Quickly generating thought-starters and creative prompts with tools like AI.
• AI-powered voice narration making video content a more accessible and affordable channel (while considering concerns around cloning voices and deep fakes).
• Ensuring content from multiple sources has a consistent tone of voice.
• Boosting the accuracy, speed, and accessibility of data analytics.
• Accelerating the content creation processes, acting like an intern while prioritising accuracy.
• Supporting annual and quarterly reporting, especially in understanding legislation, regulations, and sustainability challenges.

However, with great power comes great responsibility. The communicators attending the roundtable were cautious of the risks around AI, including:

• The potential for content plagiarism.
• Voice and video cloning leading to the threat of deep fakes.
• Rapid advancements impacting job roles.
• The need to double-check all AI-generated content for consistency and accuracy.
• Over-reliance on AI, leading to dependence issues and deskilling.
• The limitations AI has in intelligence, only being able to use borrowed information.
• Ambiguities in policies, guidelines, and law.
• The ethical considerations surrounding original IP, ideas and, creative.

Navigating AI together: overcoming bias and achieving inclusion

In our next session we will examine the issue of the biases embedded in AI and explore how we can mitigate this bias and harness AI tools to foster greater inclusion and authentic representation.