Navigating the AI revolution: The impact of Artificial Intelligence on todays business landscape

The majority of the work we do at On The Same Page Consulting is creating written content for our customers. Because of this, we feel that the uprise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in business is especially relevant to our team.  

Not surprisingly, we have spent a lot of time discussing what the effects of AI are going to be on our business and industry. In our team conversations, many of us have shared concerns about the ways that AI may be used as an alternative to our services, but we have also extensively analysed the ways that we can use AI as a tool, to support, but not replace our jobs.  

We believe that because of the immediate and potential effects on our business, it is crucial to both appreciate the numerous advantages of AI, whilst also regularly scrutinise and evaluate the negatives, to understand its full impact on our industry. 

We have created a list of the positives and negatives that we have discussed as a team and how these may effect our business or businesses like us. 

Here are the negatives as we see them: 

1. Job Losses and Workforce Displacement  

The Creation of easy to access platforms, such as Chat GPT has allowed individuals and businesses who in the past would have required a writing service from experienced individuals, to create large amounts of written content very quickly.  

Concerns raised by the media, and something we have discussed as a team, is that people will begin to become reliant on AI for all writing services, and businesses that provide high quality writing services from experienced professionals, will eventually see a decline in work opportunities.  

This is 100% each organisation's choice and as a business that exists to support other businesses and organisations, we support individual and organisational choice and self-determination.  

We have concerns about the idea of replacing human writers with AI because we know that the quality of the outputs from AI are not there yet. There are many reasons for this, and these will become more clear as you read on.  

2. Quality of work discrepancies 

The integration of AI into the corporate writing and content creation industry also raises concerns about the quality of work available by services like Chat GPT.  

When comparing a business plan written by an AI writing service to something written by experienced professionals, there are discrepancies in the level of attention to detail.  

What we have seen is that some businesses and organisations are using AI, like ChatGPT to write documents FOR them. Whilst the documents appear professional at first glance, there are many tell-tale signs that AI has been used without much editing.  

People can absolutely ask ChatGPT to create a business plan, a project plan, a policy or procedure using AI... BUT... the bot writer that is creating the content, doesn’t have the human experience of the culture of the organisation, or the context of the other documents that have informed the policy, the language use of the organisation and the humans in it or a full understanding of the background to why the document is being written.  

Whilst many of these things can be entered into an AI writing tool, it still will produce content that is slightly off mark and lower quality than the work we can produce. Let's be clear - the English grammar use is fine, but the writing is flowery and overuses certain words like fostering or expert or guru 

Further, AI is unable to collaborate with the business in the same way as a human. Things like the tone of the writing or 'voice' can vary wildly from the business’s other documents, the format of writing can be difficult to read if you are a plain English reader, random words can be added in that are not used by the humans and examples provided can be completely out of context.  

We strongly recommend that organisations retain employees that can write WITH AI and not replace all writers with a bot writer.  

3. Retraining and Upskilling Challenges:  

The rapid evolution of AI technologies does and will require a continuous commitment to employee retraining and upskilling. This presents a challenge to businesses as they will have to invest time and money into the training of employees and potentially bring in new team members to manage software that they wouldn't need if humans were doing the work.  

This also becomes a challenge to employees. Being willing to continue learning and changing the way you work with AI will become a new and important factor for being hired and being seen as a relevant employee once hired.  For example, where once we would have needed human editors, now we only need some editing to be done by our writers because the computer software does a lot of the checking. (For example, I just typed softward and Microsoft Word fixed it for me.)  

OTSPC has begun working on writing guides in our process manuals about how to use AI effectively because we think it is an important tool to know how to use. We have openly discussed how everyone in the team has already been using AI and have been encouraging everyone to implement its use for things like asking simple questions, writing rough first drafts and solving problems. 

Now some positives: 

1. Time and Cost Savings Through Automation: 

One of the primary advantages of AI in business is its ability to automate routine processes and tasks. This not only saves time but also reduces operational costs. By delegating repetitive tasks to AI systems, employees can focus on more complex and strategic aspects of their roles, leading to increased overall efficiency. 

We asked our team for examples of how they use ChatGPT:  

"The only time I have really used it to do anything was to describe a building process that I was unfamiliar with to help write a small project plan for a tender." 

"I use it all the time to create the first draft of content. Sometimes it’s a whole plan and sometimes it is one or two sentences. I find that it removes hours of thinking and planning time per week because I can ask for a starting point and then just edit edit edit. The finished product often looks NOTHING like the first draft, but it still saves me time and our clients’ money." 

"I love that I can ask it to tell me how to create a formula in excel. I was stuck the other day and just wrote the words to describe what I wanted and provided the example, and it gave me the formula in 10 seconds. So much quicker than watching a video on YouTube or reading three articles online in forums." 

"We use Calendly for booking meetings. It saves hours a week on those pesky back and forth emails and phone calls." 

“I find it helpful for things like turning a list of dot points into a paragraph. I always have to edit its output to my liking, but it really speeds up the process for that kind of thing” 

“I mostly use it to create drafts for social media captions for the business. It allows me to create a first draft quickly” 

2. Social Media management/ Writers block 

AI offers the ability to turn a very basic list of ideas into a piece of usable content. When aiming to post 3 pieces of social media/marketing content every week, this service allows you to brainstorm your social media/blog/ marketing ideas and ask chat gpt to spit out a draft.  

At OTSPC, we have agreed that it is much easier to edit something, than to create it from scratch. So even if the first draft is nowhere near what is wanted, we have somewhere to start from.  

This also translates to writer’s block when creating content for customers. As a team we have discussed that ChatGPT can be priceless to break out of this kind of block, so that we can save more client time and money. 

"I use it as a starting point.  Usually just getting started on a document is the hardest part so having the help of Chat GPT to draft those initial words, I then can edit to my liking." 

3. Error Reduction and Minimisation of Human Error 

AI systems, when properly implemented, have the potential to significantly reduce human error. Repetitive tasks that are prone to mistakes can be automated, ensuring consistency and accuracy.  

In our line of work, things like editing, picking up ways to optimise writing and turning complicated ideas into plain English are a perfect way for AI to be implemented and thus reduce human error.  

It can ensure that every part of a document is reviewed, even if the writer working on it has accidentally skipped a sentence.  

This is essentially a watertight way of preventing the accidental, but sometimes unavoidable mistakes that come with being a human, and it can elevate the quality of what is produced - whether it is appointment booking or writing. 

In navigating the AI revolution, a nuanced understanding of both the positives and negatives is crucial.  

While the potential for job losses and workforce displacement, quality of work discrepancies and difficulties retraining employees are concerning: the myriad of advantages - including time and cost savings, social media support or writers block and error reduction and minimisation position AI as a key tool in the pursuit of organisational efficiency.  

At OTSPC, we believe that the key lies in embracing AI responsibly, by fostering a culture of continuous learning, and striking a delicate balance between technological innovation and human-centric values.  

However, the decision on how to effectively incorporate AI use into your work ultimately lies with your organisation, and warrants a serious conversation between team members in order to make their own collective decision.