Member exclusive: Just some of the use cases for AI in comms

By Sean Devlin, editor, Ragan Communications

Artificial intelligence (AI)has been on the mind of nearly every communicator as of late. Will AI replace us? The answer to that question is most likely no, but those who wish to flourish will embrace new ways to apply AI technology to their comms workflows, regardless of their function. Whether you want to use it to outline a blog post or to help generate ideas for marketing copy you’re drafting, AI is an asset that communicators can use to help leverage their honed and developed skills.

Let’s look at how different organizational departments can employ this bold new advancement.

Marketing

When you want to publish content about your employer brand, career opportunities and other front-facing messaging, you may call in the marketing department. How might an artificial intelligence program help your marketers in doing that?

There are quite a few ways! For instance, artificial intelligence can take large data sets and breaking them down into a digestible form. A marketing department might be able to feed an AI survey data they’ve collected and draw some general conclusions they can then use their own skills to turn into something bigger to show off the organization in its best light.

In addition, AI can help marketers brainstorm ideas for copy or create headlines that they want to put on brochures. The skill of a marketer knowing their company is still key here, as only a human being can put that level of finesse into the work. Other functions can include:

• Making suggestions for designs on marketing materials
• Pulling together drafts of short marketing copy such as awards to be edited by marketing employees
• A/B testing copy for different audiences with a mind for inclusive language and subtle distinctions in wording.

Human Resources

It might seem a little odd that some functions of the human resources department might be streamlined using a tool that’s inherently not human in AI. But AI can absolutely help pick up some of the tasks that falls on HR, enabling the people on the team to do what they do best — serve the human beings that make up the organization. Some of the roles AI can assist with include:

• Organizing lists of goals for each employee (i.e. for annual reviews)
• Drafting copy of HR-related company news that goes out to the company (to be edited by HR staff)
• Organizing data sets that HR gathers through company pulse surveys to pull out relevant and usable information
• Culling through resumes for key words of candidates who best fit a role
• Following up with prospective talent through chatbots (these should always be monitored by a real person with respect to cadence).

Internal and External Comms

Ah, comms, the most exciting prospect for you in AI. There are lots of ways, both internally and externally, that AI can help communications do their jobs more efficiently, freeing up comms employees to do the more creative parts of their roles. On the internal side, AI can help comms professionals complete tasks including:

• Drafting copy for intranet announcements
• Compiling crowdsourced testimonials and qualitative feedback for sharing
• Summing up dense information to be shared with the company into more digestible bits
• Breaking down the results of internal polls and surveys and create takeaways to be shared

On the external side of things, AI can also help get the message out to the masses about what your organization is up to. Use cases include:

• Drafting several editions of social copy to give choices and increase ideation opportunities for the social team
• Generating short blogs that can be reworked by the editorial team for the organizational website
• Composing press releases
• Creating media lists for outreach opportunities

AI is here to stay, and while it’s got quite a few applications from a comms perspective, it’s up to us to use it and use it wisely.