If you’ve been questioning the hype around GenAI and feeling underwhelmed by its capabilities in recent months, rest assured, you aren’t alone. We recently gathered comms leaders at a roundtable about harnessing GenAI capabilities for comms, and the shared sentiment of disillusionment was evident. While Gartner’s GenAI Hype Cycle shows this is to be expected, it doesn’t make navigating this period any easier. So, what can you do about it?
Why are we feeling disillusioned with GenAI in comms?
Comms leaders pointed to several reasons why communicators are “fed up” with GenAI. For one, many businesses have been slower than expected to roll out GenAI, often owing to the complexity of onboarding new vendors and dealing with privacy, security and governance concerns. Second, many communicators feel that the reality of GenAI’s capabilities is at odds with the hyped expectations. As leaders discussed at the roundtable, is GenAI much ado about nothing if the use cases are so limited?
Third, leaders noted how difficult it is for their businesses to demonstrate ROI. We all know how expensive GenAI is and quite understandably, organisations want their investments to reap the rewards. But, as a new technology, this is likely to take time. The hard reality is, that not all investments will pay off. Finally, comms leaders at our event noted how much work is involved in maintaining a GenAI system. GenAI is only as good as the information you put in – and this takes time and effort – something we were told we’d have more of as a result of GenAI!
So what can you do about it?
Go beyond the low-hanging fruit
It’s not surprising that many of us are feeling disappointed about the range of GenAI use cases for comms. Generating a meeting summary or headline ideas was novel at first, but naturally, we expect more. At Kademy, we categorise GenAI’s capabilities into three main categories: create, deliver and capture.
You can download a PDF copy of the framework here.
The ‘Create’ category, which includes content ideation and generation represents the low-hanging fruit that most of us have already gotten to grips with. However, it’s the ‘Deliver’ and ‘Capture’ categories, which cover how we use GenAI to improve processes, capture data and demonstrate impact, that hold enormous untapped potential. Unlocking these capabilities will undoubtedly require time and effort – as well as patience – but it’s important that we don’t stop with the low-hanging fruit.
Be clear on when you shouldn’t use AI
Identifying new use cases is critical, but we also need to acknowledge that we simply don’t need to use GenAI for every task. A clear example is influencing stakeholders and managing relationships with leaders, where communicators’ experience and expertise can’t be replaced by GenAI. Be clear to your team that although GenAI is a great assistant, it can’t surpass their skills and capabilities.
Consider how you can keep employees engaged – and learning
If you are feeling disillusioned with GenAI, your team likely is too. There’s no need to sugarcoat things. Be open and honest with your team, acknowledging where your business is with GenAI within the context of the Hype Cycle, and listen to their views.
If you’ve identified potential problems or inefficiencies you could address with GenAI, but don’t yet know how, consider whether you could task team members with learning about the use cases and sharing their findings with the rest of the team. You could also encourage your team to reach out to other teams to find out if their colleagues have different or more advanced use cases.
Think about what your business leaders need from you
As businesses double down on demonstrating ROI, consider what information your leaders need from you. They’ll want to understand if GenAI has saved time and money, addressed business challenges and boosted productivity.
You may have limited quantitative data, but you will likely have some numbers highlighting how GenAI supports your team. For instance, if you previously paid a contractor for translation tasks, you can quite easily quantify the time and cost savings achieved through GenAI. However, you need to acknowledge that GenAI can support some of your team’s activities but cannot substitute your team’s expertise.
Waiting for the Slope of Enlightenment
No one can say with certainty how long we’ll remain in the Trough of Disillusionment on the GenAI Hype Cycle or if we’ll see linear progression to the next phase – the Slope of Enlightenment. As we wait for things to develop, keep in mind that GenAI is just another tech-enabled tool that can assist us with our work.
Despite the hype, GenAI can’t replace communicators and it can’t perform all the tasks expected of us. Focus on identifying the most valuable use cases that can save you and your team time and money – and remain curious and open to safe experimentation.
Help your comms team embrace GenAI
With GenAI’s capabilities evolving rapidly, many communicators are still working out how best to apply it to their work.
That’s why we developed GenAI for communicators, a brand-new training programme designed to help your team embrace GenAI for comms. In a highly interactive 90-minute workshop, your team will get the opportunity to:
- Discover various GenAI use cases and how they can be applied to their work.
- Learn how to prompt effectively and use GenAI as their comms co-pilot.
- Hear how fellow communicators are maximising the potential of GenAI in their daily work.
Get in touch to find out how your team could benefit.
