AI has become a household term in the past twelve months, with McKinsey calling 2023 “generative AI’s breakout year.” The number of AI tools available has skyrocketed, and investors pushed AI stocks sky-high, with Nvidia alone shooting up 230%.
The issue heading into 2024 isn’t whether AI matters. It does. Now, we need to figure out how to use it.
One area that is particularly ripe for AI innovation is communication. Here are some thoughts and a challenge or two to help you understand, embrace, and implement AI’s growing role in simplifying task communication this year.
THE GROWING STRUGGLE WITH COMMUNICATION IN THE MODERN WORKPLACE
The world was already moving toward remote work before the pandemic made it commonplace. Now, offices around the globe have accepted the need to find the right balance of remote, in-person, and hybrid work for their needs.
As distributed work environments become more commonplace, one area that is suffering is communication. Asynchronous work, for instance, has made it difficult for teams to sync up at the same time.
Even hybrid work is a challenge. Harvard Business Review points out that it’s difficult to keep video conferencing software up to date with part-time, in-person employees. Deciding who should and shouldn’t be on a computer in a hybrid meeting is also complicated.
One of the most difficult challenges of all is conveying complex tasks and instructions in hybrid and remote situations. There is limited room for clarification, and asynchronous communication can delay simple conversations.
This is where AI is making a difference.
AI’S ROLE IN 21ST-CENTURY COMMUNICATION
Before AI’s recent revolution, there were already tools available to help with communication for decentralized teams. Video chats and emails are classic options that have kept people connected for years now. When it comes to more complicated instructions and task communication, though, these often come up short. That’s where artificial intelligence (AI) is starting to make a difference by helping to streamline and fill in important gaps in the digital communication process.
One example of this is AI in video. Last year, Canon reported that when everyone used video in a meeting, it made 80% of workers feel more productive. Even outside of a live meeting, videos continue to provide powerful visuals and can speed up otherwise laborious text-driven communication. Zight refers to this as “visual collaboration.” The cross-platform screen capture and recording app adds that visual collaboration platforms help with collaboration that occurs asynchronously between distributed and hybrid team members.
The inherent issue with video, though, is that it’s difficult to discover specific pieces of information within a visual format compared to a text alternative. When a clip contains complex instructions or detailed communications, finding the right piece of data can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack.
That’s where AI comes in. Visual collaboration platforms are rapidly deploying AI solutions to automate data analysis tasks that are difficult for humans to execute. They make it easy to create smart titles and chapters, as well as transcriptions and video summaries.
AI is impacting more than just video format, too. Workflow platform ClickUp uses AI to help users both summarize other comments and format their own. Translation tools like Google Translate utilize AI to enhance sophisticated conversations between international team members.
Of course, AI tools in any communication capacity can never work entirely on their own. The real magic happens when you, the user, apply them efficiently and effectively.
2024: THE YEAR OF AI APPLICABILITY
A senior reporter at MIT Technology Review recently referred to 2024 as the year “generative AI might actually become useful for the regular, non-tech person.” As the innovative generative AI models of 2023 find more useful applications this year, though, it will still fall on you, the user, to find ways to apply it properly.
Even in an area as fundamentally human as communication, using AI will take deliberate thought. This starts with knowledge, which is why you’re here, right? Understanding the role of AI in simplifying complicated communication in the workplace is a good starting point. Use this to conduct further research into each AI tool that seems like a good fit for your needs. As you do this, ask yourself the following questions:
- What value does this AI tool provide?
- Is this tool useful for me, my team, or both?
- What is required to learn to use the tool effectively?
If the answers to these questions encourage you to adopt certain AI-powered tools, the next step is to learn how to use them. Take the time to invest in a thorough understanding of how they work. Use demos, online videos, and other resources available to gain a degree of comfort with each tool. You can even use AI tools like ChatGPT to help with the learning process.
From there, start looking for ways to integrate each tool into your daily communication habits. This could be using AI on a personal level to simplify a longer comment from a coworker. It could also apply on a universal level, such as tagging and organizing an instructional video for an entire remote office.
Either way, AI has the power to revolutionize complex communications in remote work settings. At this point, the only factor required to turn that potential into reality is your willingness to embrace the change.
Chalmers Brown is the Chief Technology Officer of Due.
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