By Molly Soto, Senior Account Supervisor

By this time, it’s clear that AI has impacted the world. What isn’t crystal clear is how it will change society going forward, but we know that it will! In fact, AI has been transforming the world for a while and continues to advance rapidly. In October 2020, the World Economic Forum predicted that by 2025 AI would displace 85 million jobs but create 97 million new ones, citing the top skills communicators need to stay relevant in the workplace as analytical thinking, creativity, and flexibility. As communicators, we should confidently approach the future by sharpening the skills we already possess to become experts at analytically, creatively, and flexibly communicating through prompts with AI language model chatbots like ChatGPT, Google Bard, and Microsoft Bing.

Below are three actions to equip you when using chatbots to challenge your thinking, elevate your work, and keep yourself relevant, all while building upon top skills you already possess.

Analyze how you communicate with AI chatbots
Taking a step back to think through your approach and cover all the needed details will significantly improve the outputs you receive. I often compare this to how I approach laying out the foundation of a communications strategy or getting someone up to speed on a large project. It’s as simple as thinking through HOW you communicate with a real person to construct strong and strategic prompts. Consider the questions you think through when preparing for a conversation:

• Who am I talking to?
• What do they already know and need to know?
• How should I define success to them?
• How can I communicate this to them in an easy-to-understand and straightforward way?
• Can I break this down into smaller pieces of information to help them think in a step-by-step approach?
• Can I provide examples that will help bring this to life?

Use these questions, but now think through how you can prepare your prompt by giving the proper background knowledge needed for the chatbot to create meaningful and relevant responses. Think about this as a dialogue.

Allow yourself to view other perspectives and consider different approaches
In other words… be creative! Allow yourself the ability to explore and refine by interacting with chatbots and having them show you what you haven’t considered. Here’s a real-life scenario:

You are writing an implementation plan for people leaders within your biotech company that walks them through promoting your new intranet to engage global employees. Create a persona for the chatbot. Put yourself in their shoes.

1. Who are you? I am a middle manager at a biotech company.
2. What are your needs? Attitudes? I am struggling to engage my team due to a spectrum of learning styles. I want this rollout to be successful, but realistically, I don’t have a solid understanding of my role in communicating.
3. What do you already know? What is your level of knowledge? I have been involved in some of the planning meetings with HR, marketing, and communications. I know the timeline and overarching strategy. I am not clear on the details and my role.
4. What is your personal brand voice? What style and tone do you use in communicating with your team? I am invested, I want to see my team succeed, and I want to be trusted. I am sincere, but I also like to make sure my team laughs sometimes!

Use these details to tell the chatbot WHO you are. Then ask it for help drafting the implementation plan. Try out different personas and ask the chatbot to show you multiple responses based on these different personas to open your mind to perspectives you might be missing in your communications. Compare and contrast these responses. Did you miss something? Could you expand your communications to be more inclusive?

Approach prompting with flexibility
This will equip you to find a solution, simplify or expand a task, or open your mind to explore new and fresh ideas. Interacting with a chatbot is not limited to the initial response. You can have back-and-forth exchanges as you expand upon or reframe your original request. Here are some things you can request:

• Simplification
• Translation
• A different tone or style
• A different layout, like a table or chart
• Parameters – character counts, paragraph lengths, etc.
• Even have the chatbot help you create prompts for other AI tools!

Within that flexibility is also the ability to start over and begin a new conversation. Prompting does not have the same limitations as human interaction. You can always wipe the slate clean and begin again.

I remember when cell phones first emerged, and my grandmother told me at the time, “the world will never be the same.” I responded, “But now I can call you anytime I need you.”

AI is changing our world, and it will never be the same… but it was never meant to be! I encourage you to be excited about the advancements, use them to your advantage, and continue growing and learning as technology continues to evolve. Along the way, you will most certainly sharpen your own skills in communications and strategic thinking. A win-win.

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