AI and Advice
The greatest challenge will be finding the right balance between automation and human oversight.
Kai Sprietersbach
AI for gathering information
Keeping track of everything that is happening, and that matters, is impossible to do manually. The sheer volume of information available is overwhelming, and the time required to screen all news and evaluate its relevance is measured in months.
Sophisticated AI systems are the solution. They can screen in a single day what would take a person an entire year.
You do not even need to know, what to look for. Advanced AI systems can act as your judge of what is truly relevant to you.
AI for productivity
With the right commands and data, AI applications can perform almost all standard consulting tasks. Productivity gains are making their way into the consulting industry.
However, every communication must be placed in context. Outside the sender’s context, communication is meaningless. Outside the recipient’s context, communication is ineffective.
Context engineering refers to the systematic design and creation of everything an AI sees before generating a response.
Communications consulting is a core companent of Context engineering. Once the target audience and desired impact are defined, it helps determine which information should be presented to the AI for each specific purpose.
AI and Expertise
Whether AI can or will replace all communications and business consultants is the subject of much current debate. Similar discussions are taking place across many professions. Lists are being drawn up to label which jobs are «at risk» and which are not.
These black-and-white assessments, however, often hinder objective evaluation. Objectivity is rarely a strong suit when it comes to predicting the future.
Economic history shows that progress tends to change how people work and what they do, rather than replace them altogether.
That may not be intuitive, but it has been the more common outcome.
Consulting will adapt to AI’s capabilities. Clients will have the option of working with a person, with AI, or with a combination of both.
Those who prefer AI-solutions can pursue them. Those who prefer human guidance can seek it. And those who want the best of both worlds can have that too.
Neither AI nor human expertise will dominate the field alone.
AI and Research
AI applications can take over or prepare many time-consuming tasks, increasing productivity in consulting.
This is especially true for tasks like analyzing documents and materials, identifying and describing stakeholders and target audiences, conducting competitor analysis, and reviewing legal and regulatory frameworks, and Data analysis.
An AI can generate summaries, even though their quality requires human review.
Specialized models can also develop solution proposals, or at least outline approaches, for well defined tasks and problems.
This allows professionals and consultants to focus on fit and quality control. That, in turn, requires subject-matter expertise and knowledge of the company and its products.
Good communications and business consulting understands you and your business.
AI and Processes
AI applications can design and plan many standardized processes, like media campaigns, including content suggestions, or internal communication procedures for managing organizational change.
They can also design and plan media strategies for IPOs or publications related to capital market transactions.
Processes, and their content, are no longer the exclusive domain of consultants, at least when it comes to standardized processes.
However, special situations and the need for flexibility in times of change are better handled by experienced consultants.
Translating past experience into new, evolving contexts requires expert dialogue. Models have difficulty dealing with sudden change.
Good communications and business consulting is personal.
AI and Content
With the right prompts and data, AI applications can generate nearly all reports required by regulators. They may not always be good reading, but the law doesn’t demand they be.
Instructing an AI to create reports that go beyond mere compliance and actually have impact is a much greater challenge.
Generating acceptance, or even participation, requires demonstrating competence, experience, authority, and credibility.
These qualities are often more readily attributed to people than to algorithms.
Good communication conveys exactly these qualities: competence through clear analysis, experience through relatable stories, authority through insight, and decisive action, and credibility through outlooks and comparisons with past situations.
Good communications and business consulting is committed and accountable.