How Organizations Thrive in an AI Driven World
AI has become the source of incessant conversations and debates. It has changed the way that organizations do business, and it is both an exciting and overwhelming new technology.
Businesses and nonprofits that integrate AI with resilience and agility will usually find themselves ahead of the curve and create opportunities that increase their capacity. It’s not so much about keeping up with the technology; it is also about using it wisely while maintaining the human edge through authentic storytelling.
AI is a tool that helps an organization to reach its goals more efficiently and is useful for drafting communications, analyzing information, generating ideas, and automating repetitive tasks. It cannot relate to a target audience, decide what an organization needs to accomplish, or correct broken internal processes, so people bring the experience and judgment required that make AI come to life. A strategy may be to increase donations by strengthening donor relationships, focusing on impact stories, and creating opportunities for donor engagement. Understanding the distinction between the tool and the strategy matters.
There comes a point where organizations should ask themselves, “What are we spending too much time on?” Constantly drafting routine emails? Creating similar social media posts? Summarizing meeting notes? Assembling reports? These are all tasks that could be made easier with AI automation, and though AI can help with all those things, it needs direction to function optimally.
After using AI to brainstorm, draft, or summarize ideas, the next step is to analyze its output. Is it accurate and useful, or is there something missing? Does it reflect the brand voice, and is the messaging authentic? Does your messaging to a customer or stakeholder feel automated? (Which it never should!). Oftentimes, AI-generated content that sounds AI-generated can be off-putting and make the organization appear disingenuous. AI is intended to make the processes easier, not remove the organization’s personality and voice.
An organization's digital ecosystem is more than just its website; it includes social channels, email communications, online presence, digital marketing, and now organizations are increasingly appearing in AI-powered search tools. These platforms can impact the audience's experience across channels, and if they haven't been updated, they may lack consistency and cohesion.
AI systems can help conduct website audits, improve content across platforms, identify inconsistencies in messaging, and find gaps in brand presence and audience engagement. The end goal is for the organization to feel the same on all platforms and deliver a clear mission, so the audience can quickly understand why its work matters and what their call to action is.
Businesses that are unsure about their online presence should perform a digital platform audit, reviewing their website and social channels. They may also elicit audience participation through surveys to gain insights into the relatability of their messaging and brand presence and identify gaps or inconsistencies.
Finally, organizations don’t have to become AI experts overnight, and they don’t need to implement every new AI tool that is created. If they are clear about what they are trying to accomplish and identify one or two AI solutions to help solve those problems, it will make the AI automation process much simpler, a lot less overwhelming, and a lot more useful.
Need help auditing your organization's digital presence? Let’s connect! I help organizations connect strategy, brand, and digital communications, and find ways to incorporate AI into their workflow. You may not need to overhaul everything. My goal is to help businesses work smarter, more efficiently, and maintain the human voice that makes them relatable to their audience. We’ll start by analyzing what’s working and what isn’t, and build from there to identify practical ways to make existing work even better!
