Making AI a content copilot, not an autopilot

While AI has long powered many of the tech-driven aspects of our lives, from emails to vehicles to smartphones, generative AI has dominated headlines recently not only for its capacity to imitate human writing, image and video generation, but also for its rapid evolution.

Chris Gee, founder and CEO at Chris Gee Consulting, who coaches and advises corporate leaders on content strategy and the tools to carry it out, addressed the future of AI as a productivity tool for organizations and communicators in an interactive session at Ragan’s 2024 Employee Communications and Culture Conference.

While touting its potential, he cautioned listeners to think about generative AI as a good source of only the first draft of a given piece of work.

“Think about AI as a copilot, not autopilot,” Gee said. “Don’t let AI do your work for you. I almost like to think about AI as a really, really knowledgeable intern who just happens to have access to a ton of facts and information, but also will just make things up if they don’t know the answer just like my toddler would.”

Gee’s talk was heavily qualified by reminders to keep generative AI’s greatest hazards in mind, and to protect yourself from these pitfalls. These include: