What about: AI & Communication

The beginning of a new work environment

AI models such as Stable Diffusion, ChatGPT, and Midjourney offer multiple opportunities to simplify and accelerate work processes. In this context, the debate continues to intensify around the question of whether the technologies are capable of true innovation or only appear to reassemble data in new and creative ways. Regardless of this, it is certain that completely new business models will also become possible with the new work processes – mostly in direct connection with blockchain and the cloud, the Internet of Things, NFTs and virtual or augmented reality. Companies such as Adobe with Firefly and Google with Bard are already implementing AI in their applications with promising results.

Volatile times characterized by massive competition therefore await the global economy. Companies must continuously rethink and adapt not only their individual value creation and their position in the market, but also their own use of AI.

The new role assignment

The question is no longer whether artificial intelligence will generate competitive advantages, but how exactly this advantage is to be generated in detail in comparison with all the other companies also using AI: What makes a company unique? How can change be communicated internally in the corporate culture and externally in the form of branding, and then implemented sustainably? What kind of leadership does such a process require, and how can employees be recruited to fill new role profiles and assume responsibility?

Of course, artificial intelligence can also help answer questions such as these – but the actual implementation in the company necessarily remains a matter for humans. They are called upon to question their own mindset and culture.

Artificial intelligence must be curated

Culture Shifts starts with the topics that are to be shaped by people in the long term. Our expertise in AI creates the foundation for a successful transformation that is taken seriously and noticed both within the company and externally. The fact is: AI not only creates new solutions, but also new problems: The appeal of artificially generated images, for example, is declining day by day because they seem generic and users often only reproduce what already exists. Texts from ChatGPT help brainstorming and creating first concepts, but often sound boring or characterless. Multimodal AIs combine the media of text and image quickly and purposefully, but nothing really new can emerge in the process; surprise effects wear off. 

With the advent of AI, skills such as selection, evaluation and curation are becoming increasingly relevant. The AI needs precise and goal-oriented instructions including contextual knowledge, then results must be sensitively evaluated by humans and finally selected. Only then can a brand world be convincing in terms of content and aesthetics. In fashion, brands such as Louis Vuitton and Balenciaga are already demonstrating how such a brand world, fine-tuned down to the last detail, can look and appear authentic.

In future brand worlds, AI-generated images and videos will form a unit with text content that is also AI-based and designed by humans at the highest level. The final decisions for or against a certain content, for a certain storytelling with text, visuals and design must be made by actual people. This requires many years of expertise, creativity and the corresponding intuition.

With our communications consulting and formats such as the A Forward Shift Workshop, we at Culture Shifts lay the foundation for a successful internal and external presentation in times of advanced AI. We define and design clearly contoured brands, strengthen the corporate culture and create the necessary self-image to survive in a competitive environment dominated by AI and to make the (subtle) distinction.