“If it was easy, it would be done by now.”
Ain’t that the truth? When projects are easy, inexpensive, and quick they are likely to get done. Even tasks that might not be so important have a chance.
When projects look to be difficult, costly, and take a lot of time, it’s another story. Even projects that must be done in order to move the organization forward can become stuck.
Such is the case with preparing your content for AI. If it was easy to do, you would have done it by now. But it is not easy, and most companies have not done it. We all know that AI is coming to our organizations quickly. We also know that our content is not ready.
If we know, then what are we waiting for? Why isn’t every company prepping their content now, while there is still time?
There are many reasons why companies are behind on getting ready for the technology tsunami that is making its way towards our shores. Here are six.
Preparing content for AI is not a priority, yet
I don’t know of a company that hasn’t had at least some talk about a future that includes AI. Perhaps the time horizon for implementing AI seems far off or even undefined. It might be something that is one or two or even five years out.
Since AI is not an immediate priority, there is no sense of urgency to prepare for it. Plus, it seems like AI changes every day. So, what you do today could be outdated when you go to implement AI years from now. Why put in all that work if it might change later?
“No preparation necessary for AI”
Some people at the company are not aware that there’s preparation to be done. Some AI vendors have even made “no preparation necessary” a selling point for their products. For example, you didn’t need to prepare anything to use publicly available services such as ChatGPT or You.com.
Because people are not aware of the difference between using a public service and implementing AI internally, they don’t know the critical importance of content or that they should start preparing now.
READ MORE: Why you don’t want AI to use the wrong content
Current deliverables are due soon, very soon
The need to prepare our content for AI does not negate the other needs we have for our team. The fact that AI is coming does not mean that the projects we are working on will go away. We have to keep working on what is in front of us, or we will be late with content that is critical to the company.
How do we continue to work on current deliverables and prepare content for AI at the same time when we barely have enough time to crank out today’s needed content? It’s easier not to think about it.
Senior management provided an empty mandate
More and more customers are being told by senior management that they “must use AI.” Unfortunately, senior management usually doesn’t know what that means. They are largely unable to describe how we should use AI and what benefits we can expect. Often, “AI” is just an important box that they need to tick for the Board.
Using AI is no small ask. First, you need to decide how best to use the technology.
Do you want to have a natural language generator (NLG) to create new or derivative source content? Should you use natural language processing (NLP) to edit the content? How about using generative AI (GenAI) to create imagery?
Or do you want to use GenAI + retrieval augmented generation (RAG) to provide a chatbot? The chatbot is queried by a user and the AI produces an accurate answer based on the information in the corpus. The corpus is the content that the AI is trained on and has access to.
Perhaps the best use of AI in your organization is for analyzing your enterprise content. What kinds of metrics would be salient to your business for making decisions and taking action?
These ways to use AI take knowledge, planning, and effort. What is a checkbox for your senior management becomes an operational nightmare for you. Without a plan for how you are going to use the technology, you cannot prepare for it.
If we ignore it, maybe it will go away
You’ve been down this road before. Some new technology was going to come in and upend the way you do your job. Maybe it was a new authoring environment or some other new application your team was considering. Or perhaps new hardware or a new workflow.
You know from past experience that not all promises of new software come to pass. While people at your company are excited about AI, you think it is unlikely that anything will change in the foreseeable future. So, let’s just ignore it and hope it goes away.
We are overwhelmed and don’t know where to begin
You know AI is coming to your organization. You’ve been told to get ready for it. But with everything currently on your plate, plus the initiatives that are already planned, plus that vacation to an island you were hoping to take some time (sigh), it’s just too much.
The entire idea of getting ready for AI is overwhelming and can be paralyzing. Just thinking about it raises your blood pressure and keeps you up at night.
You may not even know how to get ready for AI. What do you do first? How can you fit that work into everything else? How do you get more budget? More people? More training? It’s just too much.
READ MORE: The 4 stages of successful AI implementation
Ready or not, AI is coming for you
Regardless of why you have not started prepping for AI, the technology is here. You are already affected by it. Some companies will be early adopters. Other companies will take a “wait and see” approach.
Nevertheless, today is the best time to start preparing your content for AI. Every day that goes by is a day you could have used to start the process. When AI implementation time comes, you will be happy you had the forethought to start preparations when you did. So, let’s get going!
Let us help you tackle the problem of AI readiness. Download our free ebook: AI in Your Pocket.
Val is on the Advisory Board for the Technical Communications Program at the University of North Texas. When not working with customers or students, Val can be found sitting behind her sewing machine working on her latest quilt. She also makes a mean hummus.
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