It is good to know I am not alone. Recently, I have read or listened to strong thinkers in their respective domains question if AI can be used in their day to day. I too have had these observations in my own day to day. To be really clear, I see the power of it and how it can be used to solve certain problems, mainly jumping steps from start to finish.
That said, in my day to day as an SEO leader, I am struggling to adopt it as a power user. Despite this, I remain open and excited to the new technology so that I can adapt my skills and experience to stay relevant in the field of SEO. Here’s a few tactical ways I’ve been reading about using AI:
Here’s a few AI ideas I am most excited about:
Generative AI and Retrieval Augmentation Generation (RAG) have a chance to completely change the point and click experience that the graphical user interface (GUI) brought us. The GUI was an unlock in technology that opened up computers to more industries. Prior to that, workers in certain industries couldn’t see value in computers.
My Take: I totally see how this concept applies to desktop software applications specifically. I’d love to chat with software versus trying to figure out how to use it with a series of clicks and sometimes waiting each click. The best use case I can think of is chatting with something that is hooked into data I need to get at. So instead of knowing SQL or point and click steps in Tableau or Looker, I can tell the computer what I want. This is great and something I’d use. My thought is this use case is very specific to desktop experiences and not mobile. The tap, type, scroll, read experience on mobile is totally different. I am not entirely convinced that AI chat is integral to the mobile experience as so much of mobile use is browsing articles, social media, and search. Maybe it does catch on via mobile or simply is complementary to existing search, social, and other products?
The best way to familiarize yourself with Generative AI is to identify a problem you have and try solving it with AI. That is where the magic will be felt.
My Take: About 6 months ago, I came across this experience. There was something I was dying to do for about a year but was trying to solve it with someone who had expertise in a certain area. The problem was I could not get the internal or external help. Enter AI. I began trying to solve the problem myself with AI and it proved to be useful. I compared against other LLMs and learned about each and then shopped it around to others on my team who supported the use case. We then worked to productionalize it. This felt to me like magic and the use case fit AI perfectly.
I remain excited and interested to see where this new technology takes consumer behavior.