Communication professionals to step up and keep pace with AI
It’s been just over six months since we released the 2018 inaugural communicating Artificial Intelligence (AI) survey results, which captured and benchmarked what communication professionals around the world are observing and doing in communication about AI.
While it’s still far too early to identify best practices or any consistent strategies when it comes to communicating about AI, the 2019 survey did identify what is being done by those already communicating about AI, and what can be done in an informed and decisive way. I think the theme of this survey is about stepping up to the plate and being valued as communication professionals and indeed a profession, if we are to truly keep pace with our role in a rapidly changing environment.
"It's time to ask ourselves some very tough questions about our capabilities, our position as strategic advisors and how we are adopting AI tools within the communication function."
The survey found that well over 50% feel that communication professionals are not ready and able to lead organizational AI communication and 63% feel the communication industry isn’t preparing professionals for a leadership role in AI communication. To help us we should look to those organizations already communicating about and dealing with AI issues for guidance, and the results indicate financial services, advertising and marketing may be the industries to follow for insights and learnings on communicating about AI.
With 84% of respondents believing AI will give communication professionals an opportunity to provide significant value to the organization, we need to start adopting AI tools to increase our capacity and allow us to spend more time on strategic activities. The great news is, some communication professionals are already using content aggregators, media monitoring tools and chat bots within the function and plan to adopt content generation tools, virtual reality, data collection tools, as well as tools to help them measure success.
The insights gained from the 2018 and 2019 studies will inform the second part of this research, with global focus groups and reviews from various industry papers being used to build a playbook for communication professionals, due for release later in 2019.
We hope you enjoy reading and sharing the results of this survey and thank those who have taken part and will continue to take part as we develop the playbook.
We asked some of the CSCE faculty members and other senior professionals for their thoughts on the report and their personal take on where our profession is heading with companies and consumers on a fast track to adopt AI.
