Operationalizing AI: How to actually use AI tools in your day-to-day

A few years ago artificial intelligence (AI) was still something of a far-off dream for most CMOs, when its practical applications and uses for marketing teams weren’t fully realized yet. The 2022 release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT quickly changed the game for much of society, and over the years, many marketing organizations and departments have quickly adopted it and many other similar AI tools into their workflows. From Microsoft’s Copilot to Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude, more tools in the AI arsenal have been made available to the general public, giving businesses a plethora of testing grounds to dip their hands in, if they haven’t already.

Adoption doesn’t always mean success, however, and it is important for many marcomm teams to study and understand the tools available to them so they can fully realize the benefits. If you’re still stuck at the experimenting stage and wondering how to take your team’s AI game to the next level, remember that AI is just another layer to your operations and will rely on a strong foundation to succeed.

Map AI to your existing tasks and communications

Instead of figuring out how to start with AI tools and agents, think of which existing steps in your workloads could benefit from some help. This could be anywhere from simple research and drafting and editing to content creation, campaign planning, and performance analysis. In an Axios HQ webinar last month, Lindsay McCallum, head of platform & research communications at OpenAI, shared some of the AI best practices for her team, including:

• Automating the filtering and triaging of press releases and email communications to efficiently manage intake, routing, flagging, and assigning throughout the team
• Using custom agents to generate high-quality first drafts rapidly in a specific executive brand voice
• Using integrated AI in browsers, such as the recently released Atlas, to filter information, analyze web content, summarize dashboards, prepare Q&A materials, and more
• Connecting AI tools to other platforms such as Slack and Google to summarize key points, monitor team conversations for insights, and create custom knowledge-sharing workflows.

Are you running a smaller marketing team or even working solo in marketing at your company? If you’re charged with accomplishing more with less, think of the tasks that can be easily passed on to new or junior team members, such as:

• Coming up with headline and subhead options
• Editing drafts for grammar, spelling, and punctuation
• Coming up with image or graphic ideas for sets of text
• Drafting templates for projects that may require high volume or a repeatable structure

A quick audit of your current workflow can flag simple or useful tasks that AI could assist with. From generating SEO keywords and A/B testing ideas to drafting executive summaries, plug AI in where your team could benefit from it the most, so they can focus more on reviewing A/B testing results and delegating action items from executive summaries.

Accelerate, not eliminate, your team’s best talents

The fear of AI as a replacement for human work is a real concern in marketing, communications, PR, and similar industries, but it is important to remember that the successful use of AI still requires human supervision and refining. The technology works best by augmenting and enhancing what your team can do.

For example, writers and communicators can draft options for any set of text — such as emails, marketing copy, report summaries, and social media posts — then select, edit, and tweak accordingly. Data-minded marketers and reporting teams can also benefit; McCallum also discussed leveraging the technology at OpenAI for analysis and critical thinking of large sets of information, freeing up her team for more strategic tasks.

Recent innovations in AI tools are also bringing opportunities for team members to collaborate within platforms. Last November OpenAI introduced a group chat feature for select users on certain ChatGPT plans in Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, and Taiwan, making it possible to bring people together into the same ChatGPT conversation. McCallum said that internally, her team has adopted group chats for real-time collaborative messaging and asynchronous communication.

Set an AI culture from the top

As with any new technology or innovation, marketing teams will see positive impacts when setting shareable, documented best practices across the organization. Using secure, enterprise platforms also ensures more rapid knowledge sharing and the development of responsible AI use norms. Standardizing things like brand guidelines, compliance practices, data protections, and common prompts also helps enable faster adoption throughout operations.

When onboarding a new junior team member, it’s not expected for that person to automatically know anything and everything about the company they’re working for. The same mindset works for adopting AI into team workflows — all groups should understand their roles in helping to integrate AI into the team and take the time to train the tool so it’s as accurate and reliable as possible.

Start small, with tasks that AI can easily assist, then build up gradually to more experimental or niche use cases, such as social media monitoring, custom tool building, and even internal app development.