As 2023 came to a close, prominent dictionaries, publishers and universities announced their choices for word of the year. This annual selection is usually the result of popular usage, news events or hot topics that are on people’s minds around the globe — such as quarantine in 2020, vax in 2021 or permacrisis in 2022, just to name a few. 

Not surprisingly, Collins English Dictionary has named “AI” as its word of the year for 2023. AI, short for artificial intelligence, is a term that describes “the modeling of human mental functions by computer programs” — which has indeed dominated the headlines last year, but for all the hype around it, we still don’t know what its long-term impact will be. Will it take your job or support it? That is the question.

While most organizations are not ready to deploy AI at scale because they lack strong data infrastructure or the controls needed to make sure the technology is used safely, AI-powered writing tools are readily available to enhance corporate communications, generate content, refine style, as well as enhance readability and clarity. From supporting research and ideation to getting your thoughts organized or finding flaws in your writing, there are several tasks that lend themselves well to using AI.

From start to finish

While AI tools remain clunky and robotic, offering incomplete or inaccurate information, an AI chatbot is a great place to start researching a topic by asking questions to learn more or bringing some order to your existing research, such as interviews or transcripts. AI tools can also help you simplify complex data, find patterns, extract key insights, identify supporting arguments — along with weak spots — and get a strong first draft started.

Because of their limitations, today’s AI tools are not cut out to do your writing for you, but they can help you throughout the process. Once you have a strong working draft, you may revise your prompts to let AI generate progressively better drafts for you. And once you have a final draft, you may feed it to the AI tool of your choice to find and correct errors, as well as suggest opportunities for clarification or simplification. 

Use with caution

AI can be an excellent resource for business writing, as long as you have a clear understanding of its capabilities, select the right tool and structure your prompts accurately to ensure the final output meets your business standards, objectives and style. AI can assist in generating ideas, suggesting content structure, correcting grammar and refining language — however, it's not perfect and may sometimes generate irrelevant or inaccurate information.

Start by defining the purpose of using AI for your business writing. It could be for drafting emails, creating web content, generating reports or improving overall communication. Then choose the appropriate platform or interface — there are various options tailored to your specific needs. For example, subscribing to ChatGPT Plus may give you considerably better search results, while others may handle larger documents or reports more effectively.

Once you settle on the right tool, focus on framing your prompts or queries clearly. Specify the type of content you need (e.g., sales email, marketing copy, product brochure). Provide context and any necessary details to guide the tool’s response. Then use the AI-generated content as a starting point, reviewing and refining it to align with your brand voice, tone and objectives.

While AI may not be capable of critical thinking or solving all your writing challenges, it can act like a reliable writing partner that does the heavy lifting, as long as you supplement its assistance with your expertise, judgment and a thorough review to check for style and accuracy.