The big question in the comms industry today is, ‘Will the wolf that walked in through the door-ChatGPT- devour the communications business, or will the business tame it and leverage it for its own use cases’?
If previous stories on the fate of “new technologies bringing doomsday to existing
professions” are anything to go by, chances are ChatGPT could become a blessing, rather than a threat for the communications sector.
A good case study comes from a somewhat unrelated profession – the accountants.
Whenever a new technology related to accounting appeared, fears would grip the
industry saying the “accountants are doomed.” When the first spreadsheet, Visicalc appeared in 1979 (and later its big brother Excel came in the mid-1980s), same fears were spreading.
Years later, today, the profession is leveraging not only Excel, but even SaaS, ERP and cloud-based accounting. Yet these new techs do not appear to have caused any job-losses in accountancy.
In fact, recent projections indicate continued growth in new accountancy jobs despite all the new tech.
The UK Financial Reporting Council:
“Membership of the accountancy bodies continues to grow. The seven bodies in
this report have …over 590,000 members worldwide. The growth in membership
between 2020 and 2021 was 2.8% worldwide. This is in line with compound
annual growth rates from 2017 to 2021 …2.7% worldwide.” (UK Financial
Reporting Council – Key Facts and Trends in the Accountancy Profession).
In the US: “Employment for accountants and auditors is expected to grow by 6 percent from 2018 to 2028, according to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), or about as fast as the average for all careers. This growth is expected to translate into 90,700 job openings for accountants..”(Industry Outlookhttps://firsthand.co/industries/accounting/industry-outlook).
Coming back to the communications sector, let us not miss the good vibes of ChatGPT, that it is an AI force awaiting to be leveraged by the profession.
Jess Todtfeld, Guinness World Record holder in publicity and Public Relations (PR) is all for leveraging ChatGPT for the Comms Business. He runs a ChatGPT course for PR professionals.
Jeff, introducing his Udemy course says:
“ChatGPT and AI are becoming increasingly important tools for public relations and publicity professionals. With the rapid advancement of technology, the media landscape is constantly changing, and PR professionals must adapt to stay ahead of the game. ChatGPT and AI provide PR professionals with the ability to automate repetitive tasks, gather information, and generate insights, all while saving time and improving the effectiveness of their campaigns”.
According to Jeff, ChatGPT can presently be used for the automation of repetitive tasks in the industry. This leads to a very beneficial aspect that the industry would welcome with open hands: Responding to media inquiries in a timely manner.
“One of the key benefits of ChatGPT is its ability to generate press releases, social media content, and responses to media inquiries quickly and effectively. This allows PR professionals to respond to media inquiries in a timely manner, and anticipate and respond to potential questions from reporters. Additionally, ChatGPT can be used to generate talking points and key messages, and gather information and insights relevant to PR campaigns. This helps PR professionals to tailor messaging to specific PR needs and reach the right audience with the right message at the right time.”
The topic outline of Jeff’s course is revealing!
Why?
It is no less than a clear roadmap for immediate uses of ChatGPT in communications:
“Generate press releases quickly and effectively, streamline work and save time,
anticipate and respond to potential questions from reporters, generate talking
points and key messages, gather information and insights relevant to PR
campaigns, generate headlines and subject lines that are relevant, attention-
grabbing, and optimized for search engines, tailor messaging to specific PR
needs, improve the ability to support spokespeople in media appearances, and
organize and structure messaging for spokespeople.”
I would also add “translations” to the above list!
Do you still think that the communications industry will be devoured by the wolf? I do not!
