Each week we’ll gather headlines and tips to keep you current with how generative AI affects PR and the world at large. If you have ideas on how to improve the newsletter, let us know!
What You Should Know
ChatGPT Turns 2 — Here’s How AI Has Grown
Saturday marks the second anniversary of ChatGPT, OpenAI’s groundbreaking AI chatbot that basically changed every sector in some form, particularly communications. Since its debut, ChatGPT has evolved through seven models, each enhancing its conversational capabilities and broadening its applications.
The introduction of ChatGPT ignited a surge in AI tool development, prompting tech giants and startups to quickly deploy their own tools. Competitors such as Google’s Bard (now Gemini), Meta’s Llama, and Anthropic’s Claude emerged, each striving to meet the bar set by ChatGPT. In only two years, AI has become mainstream at work. According to a report by Slingshot, 79% of employees say AI saves them at least an hour every day, and 34% say it saves them three to four hours daily. Going forward, AI will likely become an even bigger part of our work lives, and training will be critical to making the most of its potential.
Communicators have been at the forefront of AI adoption from the start, leveraging tools like ChatGPT to generate quality content faster. As these tools mature and offer new capabilities, communications professionals should continue to lead by shaping best practices, advocating for responsible use, and demonstrating how AI can enhance — not replace — human creativity and strategic thinking. The next few years will demand technical proficiency and, more importantly, a vision for how this technology can improve effective communication.
Elsewhere …
- PODCAST: Inside Experian’s AI Assistant That’s Making Financial Data More Accessible
- Pretty Much All Gen Z Knowledge Workers are Using AI, Survey Finds
- Trump Eyes AI Czar to Partner with Elon Musk for US Edge
- How an AI Granny is Combating Phone Scams
- New AI Tool Generates Realistic Satellite Images of Future Flooding
- Amazon Doubles Down on AI Startup Anthropic with $4B Investment
Tips and Tricks
AI knows style
What’s happening: OK, not that style. I wouldn’t suggest you ask AI for fashion tips, and I probably wouldn’t know if it’s making good recommendations anyway. AI does know Associated Press style, though, which is the standard for most writing.
The backstory: This is one of those cases where simplicity wins. I’d been trying to get AI to write press releases in AP style and had been asking for the specific style elements it was getting wrong, like the dateline format and using numerals for numbers 10 and greater.
Try this: On a whim, I recently prompted “now make this AP style,” not expecting it to have the context of what AP style entails. Surprisingly, both ChatGPT and Claude made several changes beyond the numerals and dateline that adhered to the AP Stylebook, like adding spaces between em-dashes (no spaces between em-dashes is rising on my list of AI tells), removing Oxford commas (our in-house style at Gregory FCA includes Oxford commas), and properly abbreviating the month when listing a date.
I even told it to change the dateline to a city that doesn’t stand alone like the top 30 markets AP lists, and it correctly formatted the state. Knowing that the leading AI writing tools understand AP style makes it easier to focus on the storytelling and let the AI focus on the details, although it’s always a good idea to check the outputs for accuracy. Even a follow-up prompt of “You’re sure this is AP style?” could go a long way.
Quote of the Week
“The system itself tries to identify what it believes the target to be, and then the operator can assess whether to override it or fine-tune it. The more the feature is used, the better it’ll get.”
— Air Force Master Sgt. Kendrick Wilburn to DOD News on the department’s new AI-enabled cameras that improve airspace monitoring
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