5 Ways to Incorporate AI into Your Content Strategy

The idea of artificial intelligence playing a critical role in our lives has quickly morphed from science fiction into reality. Artificial intelligence (AI) — machines perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information — is everywhere in 2023. As interest grows, its uses have piqued the imaginations of creatives and C-suite executives, who are all wondering the same thing, "Can I harness the power of AI for my work?" 

Saying there are skeptics of AI is an understatement. Legal dilemmas plague the landscape from concerns over students using ChatGPT for homework to image generation platforms using artwork without consent. AI also suffers limitations, like its difficulty drawing hands and using "common sense." As a content strategist, writer, or creator, this may be a relief — robots can't replace your job yet. Humans began creating art by brushing their fingers against cave walls, so there's something poetic about a computer's inability to replicate our hands, but that's another topic for another time. 

What’s often missing from discourse on AI is conversations about leveraging its power, not as a final product or to replace workers, but to aid us in our daily lives. Consider how smart home devices help us set alarms, check the weather, and determine the shelf life of the items in our fridges. Or how a simple Excel function can save hours of mundane work. There are ways to outsource tasks to AI so you can keep your brain power for the decisions that matter, what author Greg McKeown might call "your highest point of contribution." Below are five ways to precisely do this, by incorporating AI into your content strategy. 

1. Upscale Image Quality 

We've all been there. You have a precious photo you need for an article, webpage, or print, but the file needs to be bigger. Older upscaling algorithms attempted to fill in missing pixels accurately, producing blocky low-quality results. Thanks to AI, tools exist that increase image resolution naturally.  

Image quality upscaling involves neural networks continuously training on various sample images to understand photorealistic details better. After learning from millions of images, AI image upscalers can increase resolution on various subjects (portraits, wildlife, landscapes, architecture, etc.) and image types (DSLR, web/compressed, C.G., etc.). Some products like Gigapixel even have free trials — give it a try the next time you're in an image quality jam. 

 2. Increase Accessibility 

The internet is where we read the news, check our work schedules, and connect with loved ones. Unhindered access to WiFi ensures freedom of expression, political participation, and public health. However, 20% of the population has disabilities that make it hard to use it at best and impossible at worst. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) exist to ensure web accessibility, enforced by the Department of Justice. Any quality UX designer will follow these guidelines, but measuring the accessibility of a large website can take a considerable amount of time, and it leaves plenty of space for human error. 

AI accessibility auditing can crawl menus, form validations, and page landmarks, suggesting the best practices and approaches to make them more accessible. These sessions imitate traffic from hundreds of real people, clicking on buttons, using keyboard combinations, and submitting forms while auditing the accessibility and usability of each element. If you're concerned about your website's accessibility, accessiBe, a rising tech platform with $58 million in funding, offers AI auditing as a service. 

3. Take Your Keyword Research to the Next Level 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) improves the positioning of webpages in unpaid (organic) search results. If you're in the content game, you know an SEO strategy is essential for improving the traffic to your site. 

For writers who produce SEO-optimized content, sometimes it's hard knowing where to begin — what topics are opportunistic, and which ones should you avoid? Keyword research tools help writers think of blog keyword ideas, analyze difficulty, and snatch up low-competition keywords and phrases. AI-powered search engines learn from searches to continue learning and improving over time. Free keyword research tools are available, so there's no excuse not to hone your SEO chops. 

4. Personalize Your Content 

People like it when things are or appear to be, created precisely for them. We crave understanding others and feeling understood by them. Brands take steps to personalize content on the web to present us with unique experiences tailored to our needs and desires. 

AI-powered content recommendations optimize customer touchpoints so websites can tailor a digital experience to a specific group of users and measure the impact of personalization efforts. Mobile vs. desktop is one area where you might want to shift your customer experience based on the device.  

If the words "A/B test" excite you, Optimizely offers an experimentation line of products to get you started. 

5. Upgrade Your CX Strategy with Chatbots 

Customer experience (CX) is the next evolution in customer support. Gone are the days of clunky email form fills and phone trees. People are busy, and when they have a question about a product, they want their needs met now, or they'll move on to a competitor. Enter — chatbots. 

Chatbots solve many problems for small teams: they offer multilingual support, support across various channels (website, in-app, social media), and respond to queries 24/7. Chat is also becoming the preferred contact method for Gen Z: according to a recent report, 52% of consumers say chat is their preferred digital offering, but only 31% of businesses currently offer it. 

The best CX teams use chatbots alongside real humans and inject their personalities into their language. You can and should train bots like you train support teams to reflect your personality and values. Is your brand funny, dedicated, or too cool for school? Showcase your brand voice with all your web copy, including your bot scripts. 

Embracing the AI Future 

Being human means we have limited peak hours a day where we perform at our personal best. This time is precious and best reserved for our most important work. Is A.I. an all-in-one solution for reclaiming these hours and outsourcing 100% of our grunt work? Not quite, but there are actionable ways to incorporate it into the workflow of your content. Above are five ways to start small, test as you go, and record your insights. And if the robots ever take over, you'll be on their good side.

Want to learn more ways you can save brain power by incorporating AI into our content strategy? Reach out. We can show you.