The AI revolution in corporate communications, balancing speed, volume, and quality

July 30, 2024

By Thomas McLachlan, Head of Aprio Digital

Generative AI is reshaping the communications industry in profound ways. From marketing teams producing daily content to companies like Klarna using AI to handle millions of customer conversations and replacing 700 of its frontline agents with AI, the landscape is changing rapidly. A recent visit to the AI Summit in London provided fascinating insights into our future, making it clear that AI is already transforming various sectors and impacting how businesses communicate internally and externally.

For communications professionals, this technological revolution will significantly impact our work, lives, and engagement with the world. We’ll need to strike a delicate balance between embracing innovation and maintaining the human touch that gives communication its impact and resonance.

The AI-Driven communication landscape

The integration of AI into corporate communications is not a distant-future scenario—it’s happening now. As Stephen Gillich, Head of EMEA AI Centre of Excellence at Intel, noted at the summit, “Every company is going to be an AI company.”

Gartner predicts that by 2026, “more than 80% of enterprises will have used generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) application programming interfaces (APIs) or models, and/or deployed GenAI-enabled applications in production environments, up from less than 5% in 2023.” This transformation will have far-reaching implications for how we create, distribute, and consume corporate communications. AI-powered tools are dramatically increasing both the speed and volume of content production. From real-time response capabilities to personalised communication at scale and 24/7 hyper-news cycles, the landscape is shifting rapidly, altering expectations about response times and availability.

However, there are challenges to adoption. Gillich shared that in 2023, only 10% of businesses had successfully launched AI products and solutions, with 46% of AI experts believing that architectural challenges are still getting in the way.

Quality control in the age of AI

Maintaining quality in an AI-enhanced environment is crucial. Jane Barrett from Reuters emphasised this at the summit, stating that while Reuters was following a measured approach to including AI, “No story goes out (in a trusted news brand) without a second pair of eyes.” This principle will be crucial for corporate communicators to embrace as we seek to harness the power of AI while preserving the integrity and effectiveness of our messages.

To maintain quality in an AI-enhanced environment, we may all need to adapt our approach:

1. Implement robust human oversight processes in our communications work.
2. Cultivate AI-human collaboration, viewing AI as a powerful tool to augment human creativity and expertise rather than as a replacement.
3. Engage in continuous learning, regularly assessing the performance of AI tools and refining their use based on outcomes.
4. Develop clear ethical guidelines for AI use in communications, addressing issues such as transparency, bias, and data privacy.

Leveraging AI to our advantage

While the challenges are real, AI also offers unprecedented opportunities for communications professionals to enhance their work. By processing vast amounts of data to provide insights into audience behaviour, sentiment, and preferences, AI can inform more targeted and effective communication strategies. Moreover, AI tools can optimise content for different platforms and audiences, increasing engagement and reach, and handle routine tasks like scheduling posts or generating basic reports, freeing up time for communicators to focus on strategy and high-level creative work.

The evolving role of communications professionals

As AI reshapes the landscape, the role of communications professionals will evolve. Rather than being replaced by AI, skilled communicators will find their expertise more valuable than ever, with a heightened focus on strategic thinking, emotional intelligence, AI literacy, and ethics and governance. The human touch in communications—understanding nuance, context, and emotional resonance—will become even more crucial as AI handles more of the tactical work.

Preparing for our AI-enhanced future

Consider these words of Ada Lovelace, also referenced at the AI Summit: AI “cannot originate something by itself, only that which we educate it to do.” In the realm of corporate communications, it will be our responsibility to educate, guide, and work alongside AI to create more impactful, efficient, and responsible communication strategies for the future.

Added extra: Claude.ai helps us build a press release generator

Claude’s latest update provides the ability to rapidly create functional app prototypes, and it’s astounding. Here’s a demonstration of how it helped us build a working press release generator in minutes:

Just for fun: an AI-generated song

To showcase the creative potential of AI in a lighthearted way, we’ve used a combination of Udio and ChatGPT to compose a song based on our AI themes for this edition. Here’s a snippet of “Aprio’s AI Revolution”. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: The articles above were composed with the assistance of AI technology. While AI facilitated the organisation and articulation of ideas, the content reflects genuine insights from the author and has been reviewed and approved by human editors to ensure accuracy and relevance.

For more information about Aprio Digital’s service offering, contact the Aprio Digital team at digital@aprio.co.za