Comms teams are dinosaurs and I welcome the meteor
Across every role, industry and business, Artificial intelligence is profoundly transforming the way we work. And generative AI specifically is already revolutionising communication roles.
Here at Edif…
… Ok, the C-Suite have gone. It’s just us now. We can all admit it. Generative AI is scary. The scale, the speed, the accessibility. It’s hard not to be a little worried that extinction might be beckoning.
And well… I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that is our time is indeed up. The good news is that it’s about damn time. AI is going to revolutinise what we do and how we do it, but what that ultimately means for us is less time doing the horrible grunt work and more time actually doing the good stuff.
So sit back, grab your apocalyptic beverage of choice, and let’s take a practical look at:
How AI can take you and your team to the next level
How you can start harnessing its possibilities today
Why the best implementations of AI will always need a human touch
Where AI is going to have the biggest impact
Content creation
AI tools like ChatGPT can quickly produce decently written content on virtually any topic with just a few prompts. This gives us an unparalleled ability to start semi-automating tasks and dramatically improve efficiency. Emails, social posts & blog copy are all prime candidates for generation at scale.
While current AI is great at churning out readable content, impactful comms require authentic human insight, strategy, and creativity. The real sweet spot is combining AI's scalable production capacity with the contextual decision-making, emotional intelligence, and empathy only people can provide.
Case-study 1: This blog
Problem: This is the output we got for the intro to this blog after a couple of rounds of refinement through Claude. Be honest, would this have grabbed your attention and got you to read the article?
Solution: We sent the output copy to our marketing manager, who used their knowledge of our audience and copywriting experience to refine it into the finished product.
Outcome: Instead of our marketing spending a day writing and researching this blog, they were able to do it in a couple of hours
Customer personalisation
Personalisation remains the holy grail of marketing and comms, the golden ideal that we all strive for. Great audience segmentation means talking to people in a voice that resonates with them, about products they want, through the channel that suits them best.
And AI represents a significant step forward for personalisation. Tools like Anyword allow you to break up visitors to your pages based on their intent and interest, and then serve them the content that will most resonate with them.
Case-study 2: Moving Waldo
Problem: Moving Waldo has 3 very distinct markets: 2 types of B2B and 1 B2C segment
Solution: They’ve begun to use AI-powered tools to assign each customer to one of several profiles, using data such as the expected timing of a moving date, how a referral has moved through its user network and the language that the user has viewed their site in (they operate in Canada)
Outcome: Conversions and customer satisfaction are upa, and marketers are able to deliver personalised comms to their audience without a huge amount of manual data entry and analysis.
Extracting data-driven insights
AI offers us an unprecedented ability to analyze data and detect subtle patterns that we would either be unable to notice on our own, or would take a significant time investment to identify.
With tools like Tweet Hunter and Anyword, you can analyse both your existing content and content to find what your audience loves about your content and the wider industry and use that to generate more of what people actually want to see. Instead of needing to pay a hawklike attention to what’s trending and what generates clicks, you can trust AI to perform that same analysis for you, and adopt a much more data-driven approach. The result is an ability to create relevant, targetted media in a fraction of the time.
Case-study 3: Coca-Cola
Problem: Coca-cola wanted a deeper, data-driven understanding of their customers
Solution: Coke has been able to segment customers based on shared behaviors and drivers, track campaign reach through image recognition, and understand brand sentiment by analyzing social media conversations.
Outcome: The comms team now has an excellent supply of AI-powered data and analytics to inform their wider strategies and ensure a deeper resonance with target audiences.
How to start adopting AI today
So how do you get started with AI? You could sign up for one of our mini-labs, hands-on bootcamps designed to get you going in just 3 hours. Or if you’re just dipping your toes and want to explore integrate AI into your team function, we have several recommendations:
Start with well-defined use cases — Begin by identifying specific pain points where AI could improve efficiency or effectiveness. Starting small with defined use cases allows for controlled testing and learning before expanding AI's role.
Audit your data -- Your existing content and data is crucial for properly training AI systems. Assess its quality, formatting consistency, completeness, and accessibility. Flawed data inputs will lead to flawed outputs.
Set clear guidelines — When providing prompts, be very specific about what you want AI to produce, including desired tone, formats, length, purpose, and other parameters. The prompts effectively shape the results.
Review all outputs — Never simply accept AI-generated content as the finished product. Continuously train systems by rigorously reviewing outputs, flagging errors, suggesting edits, and providing feedback.
Focus on augmentation — Position AI as a tool for enhancing your team's capabilities rather than replacing roles. Proactively address ethical concerns and potential biases.
Foster collaboration — Encourage creative collaboration between AI tools and human experts focused on leveraging each other's strengths. This promotes trust in AI as a partner versus threat.
Final thoughts
The organisations and teams that emerge as the long-term winners will be the ones that realise AI is a perfect partner and supplement for people, not a replacement. At Edifai, we're committed to helping teams start to do just that: unlocking your own potential through AI and freeing you from the mundane to focus on the things you do best.
