The rapid adoption of AI has meant significant opportunities realized. But are there opportunities actually being lost? Is there a hidden trade-off that is unknowingly being made? In part one of this series, the focus was on AI risks. In this segment, it’s all about AI lost opportunities.

Four AI Lost Opportunities

No brand voice: While it is possible to tweak how ChatGPT writes (“In the style of ____, write…”), this relies on the AI platform to already know what your brand’s voice actually is. And while it is possible to “teach” ChatGPT by feeding in examples of text already written, there is significant nuance to copywriting. What brand voice is most effective for a particular audience? How should the brand voice be modified given the specific role of the writer? What are the future aspirations of the brand, that should be foreshadowed in current communications? What sensitive words or concepts, based on current news items, should be avoided? All of these are challenging for an AI system to address. And therefore what it generates will never be completely on target: it will be suboptimal… and a missed opportunity.

No competitive differentiation: If every competitor used the same (or similar) prompts, then the output will be more or less the same. Which means that blog posts, brochures, proposals (and really everything) will sound like, or look like, generic-ish ChatGPT content. Differentiation from your competitors means that your approach — including your ideas and how they are communicated — needs to be uniquely your own.

No innovation or new thinking: By their very nature, large language models (eg. LLMs such as ChatGPT) take a huge number of variables, and build an algorithm. This algorithm is driven by your prompts, queries its database, swills the results together, and delivers a response in a clear and concise fashion. Nowhere in this process is there a function called “generate completely new facts.” And unless you have a private LLM, nowhere in this process is there an encyclopedic knowledge of your organization’s data, capabilities, performance, or strategy. And LLMs simply cannot make the intuitive leaps that are so integral to the innovation process. For these three reasons, relying on ChatGPT and their ilk to drive innovation is foolhardy. And an opportunity lost.

No brainpower: capability is lost. What happens when the majority of the organization’s writing and editing is done by ChatGPT? When that capability is no longer available (or valued) within the organization? While the issue of risk was covered in part one of this series, the opportunity that is lost here is more nuanced. There simply isn’t someone around when you need writing or editing done, and so the task (freshen a pitch deck, review a critical email, write a speech for the CEO, etc.) needs to be addressed in another fashion. Which means relying on ChatGPT, or using a freelancer who may not understand the nuances required, or just skipping the task altogether. Opportunity lost.

Does this topic resonate? Reach out to Randall: he can present it to your group.  (More presentation topics)
Download Randall’s professional credentials: Speaker credentials one-sheet or Management Advisory credentials.

Content Authenticity Statement: 100% original content: no AI was used in creating this content.

@RandallCraig (Follow me for daily insights)
www.RandallCraig.com: Professional credentials site.