Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to evolve at lightning speed. Barely a day passes without the simulation of human intelligence making the headlines. Take the healthcare sector for example… Generative (gen) AI has already helped scientists discover new drugs to treat both common and rare diseases. Revolutionary AI platforms informed by the expertise of medical professionals have expedited the launch of transformative virtual health care assistants. These automated assistants can help enhance patients’ often complex care plans and in turn, their wellbeing.
The final part of our current AI-themed blog series puts strategy in the spotlight. Strategic development is the key process for determining your company’s objectives and ultimately its future growth trajectory. AI tools are increasingly being integrated into the strategic planning process. But the current AI platforms alone are not sufficient to hone strategies to best effect. As AI can help shape the future of an organisation and help it to effectively manage its future challenges, it’s paramount that these tools are informed, prompted and directed by skilled professionals.
Want to catch up on previous AI content? UP’s previous blogs highlight how AI can enhance the creative process and revolutionise market analysis. Click here to learn more.
Applying AI to Strategic Development
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Establishing measurable objectives: When setting your Key Performance Indictors, AI can help align these with superior data-driven insights.
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Market Analysis: AI tools can perform mass analysis of market and behavioral data to trace trends and draw conclusions where a manual approach would be tedious and subject to error.
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Strategic Direction: Informed AI tools make strategic planning more efficient and help hone the execution of a strategy. AI can help identify a range of potential issues and suggest viable solutions at pace.
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Measurement and evaluation: AI enables rapid adjustments to campaign activity by providing information to the strategist in real-time, thereby keeping strategies agile and responsive. This level of minute-by-minute evaluation is only feasible with AI.
It must be once again stressed that these applications should always be performed and controlled by an informed, experienced strategist. AI is able to provide insights but they must be judged. The strategist must maintain the ability to ask for evidence of the conclusions that the AI is generating.
AI tools are ever evolving and improving - this begs the question will AI be able to make key strategic decisions in future? Several of the world’s greatest inventions happened by accident (including the discovery of penicillin and the creation of the pacemaker). However, the scope for life-changing inventions discovered using sophisticated AI tools and honed by brilliant human minds is game-changing.
At UP, we think that regardless of the capabilities of current and future AI platforms, they must not be used in silo. That’s why we champion our #AlwaysAddHuman approach - especially when seeking the all-important competitive advantage.
Take strategic consulting as an example - regardless of how sophisticated your AI tools are, none are a match for a human-to-human discussion to best personalise consumer insights and bring them to life.
How can UP’s specialist AI team supercharge strategic development? Firstly, our AI-proficient members form part of the agency’s integrated team and we offer AI-supported services across the communications sphere.
UP Strategic Development Workshops: A deep dive for your team – and ours
UP offers a choice of workshops designed to provide AI-powered insights to enhance all aspects of your communications activity.
Our innovative workshops cover everything from identifying target audiences to brand development, social media strategies and new product innovation. The sessions are informal, educational, inspiring and, importantly, fun.
UP also offers bespoke training for your in-house teams on how to use AI to amplify your communications activity.
We can provide training on all aspects of integrating AI into your marketing and communications strategies. UP also supports clients with their AI-powered projects on an ongoing basis.
UP workshops - examples include:
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Inbound marketing
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Crisis communications
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Brand strategy
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Internal communications
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Creative writing workshops
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UP also offers Start Me Up, a cost effective option for startups looking to develop their messaging and launch their online presence. The UP team undertakes a comparison of the alternative offerings that are available. For example, is the start-up disruptive, low cost or a safer bet than a competitor? UP’s skilled team uses AI to analyse the alternative offerings available to rapidly determine the most appropriate messaging and positioning to achieve both standout and competitive advantage.
Training programmes
Examples include:
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UP AI Persona chatbot training. The creation of and training on persona-based custom GPTs, which provide a brand-aware co-pilot to help create concepts, deliver campaigns and generate ‘evergreen’ content.
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These chatbots can be used as strategic sandboxes to enable marketing teams to experiment, innovate, and test new ideas and messaging without the constraints and risks associated with testing messaging in the market.
“By creating custom GPTs that use persona, market, segment, and messaging data, I am creating dynamic knowledge bases that function as strategic sandboxes. These interactive data warehouses function as strategic sparring partners that teams can be used to sanity-check strategies, messaging, and tactics.
Many organisations use strategic sandboxes to enable efficient innovation while also managing risk and optimising resources.
I’ve also been exploring custom GPT use to reorient content towards specific persona needs and personality types, using language and messaging that would most likely resonate with them.”
Matt Wilkinson, PhD, MBA, Senior Strategist, UP THERE, EVERYWHERE.
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UP A.I. Workflow design: The UP team creates workflows that apply multiple AI tools to enable maximum efficiency, insight and engagement.
“It always surprises me what I can get out of a well-trained custom GPT. I increasingly find myself in a situation where I wouldn’t want to depend only on my own strategic conclusions. A good custom GPT is like a sparring partner - it challenges my assumptions, takes me out of my comfort zone, and makes me work harder as a strategist.”
Robert England, PhD, Senior Advisor, Founder of UP FOR LIFE.
UP AI Speakers
Specialists from branding, marketing and life science are available to speak to stakeholders in your business about our approach to engaging AI and ‘beyond the conversation’ applications which bring the benefits of AI to life.
UP A.I. Consultancy
We are a team adept at mastering both the creative and strategic disciplines. We can support you in addressing specific needs, from introducing ethical generative AI practice to your organisation to overcoming creative efficiency challenges to delivering and refining your AI policy and internal training programmes.
AI will continue to transform our world and become yet more powerful. Watch this space for future AI-themed content and insight from UP’s specialist AI team.
Click here to learn more about UP’s diverse range of AI services.
