Last week our Teak Media team participated in an AI workshop hosted by The Kendall Project in the Cambridge Innovation Center. Right in the center of Kendall Square in Cambridge, a mecca of technology, science, and engineering innovation, it was the perfect environment to learn about AI solutions that will help us stay ahead of the business curve.
With a focus on AI-driven value creation, the workshop brought to the forefront the ways in which artificial intelligence can help us solve real business problems, enhance our operations, and ultimately help us work more efficiently for our nonprofit and socially responsible clients.
While some of us came into the workshop as AI novices, with little AI experience, others were already AI power users. All of us were AI-curious, wanting to know more about how this new and improving technology can help us be better and more effective professionally and personally.
So, while AI might have seemed intimidating or threatening to some of us at first, as new technology always is, once we understood the basics of how to work with it to get what we want out of it, we were on our way. Here are some of our team’s major takeaways:
If you are clear on the problem, you can get clear solutions.
We defined some of the problems we were hoping AI could solve, including automating repetitive tasks like media monitoring or developing action items from meetings. With these tasks completed and managed through AI, the team would be able to devote more time to strategic and creative work like storytelling, relationship-building, and amplifying the voices of our nonprofit clients. We are already envisioning the way that AI be like our own personal executive assistant.
Just as we would loop our executive assistant into meetings and share documents and emails with them so they could do their EA job, we understand we will need to provide AI with context. Context is king when using an AI solution. We need to tell the AI exactly what to pay attention to, and the more data we provide, the better the output will be. AI doesn’t inherently know what matters; we must guide it, providing it with high-quality data and clear instructions.
The idea is that “the questions we ask define the solutions we get.” As PR professionals, we’re always asking “So What?,” or “why does it matter?” We use the power of questions to unlock the information we need–– getting background on our clients, figuring out what media will be interested in, and the context they will need to write their stories. AI is not much different, as it relies on the context and focus you give it to offer an informed response. The better the question, the more effective AI can be.
No surprise here: this blog was written with the help of ChatGPT. I did this by providing the context AI craves and told it what to pay attention to. I fed five of my past blogs and writing samples to ChatGPT and told it to learn my voice, style of writing, and the language I use. Then, through a series of refinements, I gave the AI information about the workshop, The Kendall Project, a list of my colleagues’ takeaways, and our copious notes from the day. This gave me a base blog about our day in my style of writing from which to work. Then I went in and gave it that special human touch and feel that only I can provide in less time than it would have taken me to write the blog from scratch. From there, this blog went through two editors who did not use AI to edit the grammar and make it more concise.
This blog is a reminder of a critical truth: AI is only as good as the people behind it, and it’s not a threat to our industry – it’s an opportunity. Embracing AI is not about replacing human creativity or judgment, it’s about augmenting it. It is a tool that we can customize to meet the unique needs of each organization we work with. Human talent will always remain invaluable, especially when paired with the right AI solutions. At Teak Media the AI tools we choose must be guided by human insight, proper and relevant context, and the company’s values.
It’s crucial to embrace change rather than fear it. AI is not going to take our jobs, but a person or company who uses AI might. This reality underscores the need for us to stay ahead of the curve, adopting AI solutions that enhance our work. From predictive analysis in PR campaigns to real-time crisis management, AI tools can assist us in providing more precise and timely support to clients moving forward.
