The impact of artificial intelligence on communication is profound. From the ethical implications of AI use to the exciting potential of AI for brand messaging, there’s no question that we have entered a new era of marketing and public relations.
On a recent episode of Plat4orm’s podcast 4 the Record with Valerie Chan, Zoetica Media founder Kami Huyse offered insights and advice for communications professionals on how to integrate and embrace the power of generative AI into their daily work.
How Generative AI Can Become Part of Your Agency’s Workflow
When it comes to deciding whether and how to use generative AI, “you definitely need to look at what you think it’s going to do for your agency,” says Kami.
“I don’t really believe in it being the output engine for the agency quite yet, meaning that I don’t see it as ‘write these blog posts’,” she says. “What I’m using it for mostly within my agency as the basis work, the research work at the bottom.”
She uses a variety of tools, among them Anthropic AI’s assistant Claude, which she likes because “you can upload a PDF, you can upload a bunch of PDFs around research around a specific audience or around a specific topic, and you can get a really great distillation around that particular topic in such a way that you have a brief.”
“So I like using them for creative briefs to help us to create something that is a little bit more informed than having to go out there and having to do it all yourself,” she adds.
Inform Your Clients That You Use Generative AI
“We definitely are talking to our clients about it, especially the ones that we create those types of pieces for… and I’m teaching some of my clients how to use it for their work flows,” she explains.
Clients are quite receptive to generative AI being used as a tool, with Kami sharing a recent example. “I’m actually doing a research project right now using AI and they were like, ‘I’m so excited to see how we’re going to use AI here.’ And part of our contract is to teach them how to use it as well.”
Adhere to the Highest Possible Ethical Standards When Using AI
Kami recommends communications professionals adhere to the highest possible standards when it comes to using generative AI in their work.
“AI takes the content that’s already created out in the world and synthesizes it. So if there’s any bias in society… then it’s going to put it into the work. You have to correct for that, and there’s great ways to do that,” she says. “You can train the AI as you’re putting [information] in, what to look for, what to think about, what to avoid.”
When it comes to limitations, “one of the things AI is not great at is common sense,” she feels. “We are the chefs, we need to be able to wield the tool and we need to be able to train the tool.”
Furthermore, “we should be having all kinds of conversations around it because it's being baked into every single tool.” Assume that “any kind of software you’re using right now is going to have AI in it.”
In an AI World, Confidentiality Needs to Be Protected More Than Ever
“You need to really consider creating an internal AI bot. You probably don’t want to dump all your stuff into ChatGPT,” she suggests. “By the way, you can go into the settings in ChapGPT and tell it whatever you put into it, that it can’t keep it and it can’t use it for training. The problem then is you don't have [access] all those cool little trained bots.”
The good news is that “there are tools coming out that absolutely you can create your own bot, like with your own content, that doesn’t get used by the AI, the large language model,” she explains.
Pro Tips on Using Generative AI
Kami shares a few additional recommendations on how to get the most out of generative AI:
- Teach AI to speak like you speak, using your standard word choices and tone
- Teach it how to speak in your client’s voice
- Create a set of prompts that you can use over and over again
- Create a ‘recipe’ to obtain customized prompts for specific tasks
- Keep your eyes on legal regulations and cases that impact and involve AI
She goes into detail about how to do all this in the podcast, so listen to the full podcast for more.