Embracing a changing landscape has never been so accessible.  

This week, the humans of Team 106 journeyed to Riverside House to demystify the realities of AI with help from a recent white paper from the Institute of Internal Communications. As communicators, we were keen to learn what fresh insights they’d mined at the forefront of this new technology.  

We were treated to a selection of evangelicals, sceptics, and new believers on the subject of AI, taking the form of speakers Tom Dunmore of The Inform Team, Over the course of ninety minutes, three speakers, and several flavours of crisp, we were challenged to:   

• Rethink our existing relationship to tech advancements.  
• Consider how using these technologies impacts client relations and: 

• Find how to maintain a human touch whilst exploring all realms possible.  

After a very gracious introduction from Paul Murton, we dove head first into the insights gleaned from early use AI.   

It’s Already Here  

Jennifer Sproul, Chief Executive of the IOIC, introduced us to where we are today with AI, specifically that it’s already become a multi-billion-dollar sector with the trajectory to reach a trillion. As much as this feels like an incredible feat in such a short space of time, she brought us back to the subtle intimacies that technology has accrued over the years. 

How To Embrace This Ethically  

Next up, Tom Dunmore of the Inform Team, led a fun and lively talk about the range of possibilities that are already at our fingerprints. He took us through a variety of visual games demonstrating the sophistication of AI today, including transforming a picture of himself into a ‘scary’ robot and duped us all with his game of real or AI photos. We then took a look at what’s already in the works with plans for ChatGPT’s own app store launch and that infamous regulatory conversation between Rishi Sunak and Elon Musk. Ultimately, Tom built upon the first speaker’s points about how we’ve applied ourselves to similar existential questions in tech and recognised our ability to bring out ethical concerns to this experimentation. 

How To Embrace Ethically  

To round out the night, Monika Morgan, the International Communications Manager at Deloitte, treated us to a frontline experience of using AI in internal communications. A first-hand account of the ways that different AI software has saved time, cut down on grunt work, and even helped creative along. She stressed that individuals’ wider work goals can easily be folded into day-to-day tasks. Even outside of work, the technology can be used in figuring out responses to interview questions, coaching, and even first draft of cover letters. Needless to say, after zooming out to the dwarfing prospect of AI on a macro level, it was invigorating to come back to the more direct applications in communications.   

Q&A 

Once the talks finished up, people were eager with their questions. The discussion came upon how we can develop our own insight through using AI and reframe our existing work sensibilities. More importantly, as this software changes (and more importantly how it’ll become more expensive to access), we came onto the more nuanced ideas of how to ethically procure AI alongside how we use it. Fundamentally, we took away that we can all redefine the value of what we do in internal communicators and use AI as a way to develop our own insight, rather than replace it.