AI - Are we ready for what’s next?

The app of the moment is of course ChatGPT, the conversational AI interface built on the GPT-3 large language model. There is no doubt it is a revelation - where it is capable of producing text to a quality that can appear to have been generated by the human brain.

'Appear' is the key word here - the use of ChatGPT brings many advantages - and certainly as a productivity tool, but it begs the question of communications professionals - is it here to take your jobs?

There is no doubt with every tech advancement in the workplace, we will see various levels of task redundancy - but that’s the thing, certain jobs will become redundant, but people never will.

Utilising new AI tools to our advantage means to be able to use them intelligently ourselves, to enhance our work, time and output versus simply replacing the human brain.

AI allows us to automate and become more efficient. Robotic output of content is something we absolutely will see, but not taken seriously by any organisation that values its clients, quality and reputation.

There are skills and nuances that machines will never have, and a human nature that will never adhere itself to them either, and this is the part that we need to remember. Innovation, empathy and emotional quotient will never be replaced by AI.

Augmenting professional skills is different, and something that AI can support us all with. Incorporating new technology into processes and routines will always be a positive and something that every employer must stay aware of, and as an up-skill option for employees and job seekers.

For automated content creation - simply pumping out articles, social media content, reports, press releases and similar could surely replace human input, but will lead to questionable output and isn’t conducive to solid or credible strategy - not to mention creativity.

AI powered chatbots and virtual assistants are a bonus and not to be ignored - already used by many organisations, in 2023 we will see a continuation of this technology being used intelligently for routine tasks, but also as an efficient way to gather data and offer personalised solutions - everything positive here.

Data analysis is where AI can come into its own. When we understand data better, we can make better informed decisions. Data paralysis is not the best use of anyone's time, and with automated help, we can clearly understand the benefits - saving time, and giving us clearer, actionable insights to inform strategy and creative output.

With more personalised data, we can also increase the relevance and effectiveness of any customer or client? contact and campaigning.

For the HR or recruitment industry, ChatGPT will enable workers to generate job descriptions - and when we say generate, it should be a case of simply breaking the back of the admin time versus adding in relevance and nuance. Reporting on performance reviews can also become more automated, for sentiment analytics and anything else that requires time consuming research work. Anything that leaves you with more time for real life human interaction with clients and potential new hires has to be positive. It goes without saying that anyone in the business of ‘people’ would have this as top of their priority list.

Developments in AI-based recruitment platforms look interesting, and something to watch this year - with a promise to find more diversity in talent pools and better accuracy in pre-qualifying candidates with skills matching rather than titles and similar. For scheduling and similar, AI can help manage the pipeline and processes too, with more intelligent options helping with bias and language mitigation and video interviews at early stages.

It’s definitely time to consider AI capabilities as a bonus to productivity and efficiency rather than a scary tech process out to take away our jobs or lower the options for candidates, far from it - it’s exciting times and AI is here to be embraced, to keep us all in jobs.