You\u2019ve probably heard all the buzz about Elon Musk\u2019s AI platform, Chat GPT, but can it really do the job of a communications professional?<\/p>\n
The short answer is no – not in 2023, anyway.<\/p>\n
As Australian universities threaten to return to \u2018pen and paper\u2019 exams, and software that claims to \u2018detect the use of AI’ offers a temporary solution, it\u2019s clear artificial intelligence is causing a stir.<\/p>\n
As communications professionals, \u00a0talk of AI-assisted writing tools and natural language processing (NLP) was enough to get our attention, but not enough to worry us just yet.<\/p>\n
We are professional storytellers, who work with clients to unearth their stories and craft exceptional content that leads to business growth and brand recognition. Until AI is able to build genuine relationships, we feel safe in our ability to give your stories legs!<\/p>\n
Call us old fashioned, or better yet, realistic, but AI isn\u2019t capable of doing the job of a well-rounded communications professional and like the hype around self-driving cars, this too has been exaggerated.<\/p>\n
PR and communications requires a human touch, which is what we do best at Pitch.<\/p>\n
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AI<\/strong> as our partner in content<\/strong><\/p>\n Instead of viewing AI-writing tools as a threat, we consider them a valuable resource to do things like establish optimal keywords for SEO, optimise content for specific platforms, translate audio to text, and analyse existing content for accuracy.<\/p>\n The human touch we spoke about earlier is integral to ensuring careful use of tone, consistent brand strategy, and strategic communications written by humans, for humans.<\/p>\n Here are five examples of how we anticipate using AI to be beneficial in the marketing and communications space:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Limitations of non-sentient intelligence <\/strong><\/p>\n AI technology only generates content using established information. Nothing is original, nothing is new, and form takes a back seat to function.<\/p>\n Our main gripe with AI is that it\u2019s biased, depending on the data used to \u2018train\u2019 or build the models being used. It isn\u2019t for or against anything it writes about and, as a result, we find the content lacks emotional engagement.<\/p>\n Another limitation is that AI models can be difficult to interpret, in that we never really know how it arrived at a decision or output. An example of this would be if it has established a predictive social media trend, without offering any justification (which is usually the case).<\/p>\n Many of us at Pitch cut our teeth as journalists, so fact checking and thorough background research is central to how we operate. AI doesn\u2019t cite its sources for output text or recommendations, and put simply, that\u2019s a problem for us.<\/p>\n Additionally, AI is still in the early stages of development, and its capabilities are still quite limited compared to human intelligence. AI models have a hard time dealing with situations that humans can handle with ease, such as understanding context, sarcasm, and irony, or reasoning through complex problems that require creativity. It also goes without saying that it cannot tell a story quite like a human can \u2013 meaning the content it spits out can be repetitive and not very engaging.<\/p>\n While AI has the potential to harness the true power of the wonderful and wacky information highway we know as the internet, it just isn\u2019t quite there yet. At this stage, we choose to use AI responsibly and ethically as an \u2018assistive\u2019 tool\u2014at best.<\/p>\n We firmly believe, after much deliberation and intensive office-based \u2018research\u2019 using Chat GPT (involving speed writing challenges, accuracy tests, and tricky style challenges), that we are simply better writers than any AI!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n