Communication Archives

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How AI Is Changing The Way We Communicate: The Future Of Interaction

April 7, 2025 No Comments

The way we communicate has evolved dramatically over the last decade, with the technological advancements of smartphones, social media and instant messaging changing the global landscape.

However, one of the most transformative shifts in communication today is the rise of artificial intelligence (AI). From personalized chatbots to speech recognition systems, AI is fundamentally altering how we interact with both machines and other people. This article delves into the impact of AI on communication, offering a statistical view of its influence and potential future.

1. The Rise Of AI-Driven Communication Tools

AI-powered communication tools are proliferating across both personal and professional spaces. Businesses are integrating AI into their customer service, while individuals are adopting tools like voice assistants, predictive text and even AI-generated content. According to a report by Statista, the global market for AI-based chatbots alone is expected to reach $1.34 billion by 2024, up from $190 million in 2016. This growth indicates not only the popularity of AI solutions but also how rapidly they are being adopted across industries.

AI-driven tools such as natural language processing (NLP) allow machines to understand, interpret and generate human language. For instance, Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant and Apple’s Siri rely heavily on NLP to respond to verbal queries. The increasing sophistication of these systems has led to a surge in voice-based interactions. A 2021 survey from Voicebot.ai found that 58% of U.S. adults reported using voice assistants on smartphones, smart speakers and other devices, highlighting the shift toward voice as a primary mode of communication.

2. AI’s Role In Real-Time Communication

One of the most powerful applications of AI in communication is its ability to facilitate real-time interactions. AI can assist in translating languages instantly, helping bridge communication gaps between people who speak different languages. Google Translate, which employs machine learning techniques, has drastically improved over the years. The introduction of neural machine translation in 2016 allowed for more accurate translations by understanding context and sentence structure.

Moreover, AI-driven transcription services are making meetings, interviews and educational sessions more efficient. A 2021 report by PwC highlighted that 86% of executives believe AI will play a major role in the way their companies conduct meetings, with many relying on AI to transcribe, summarize and analyse discussions.

3. The Explosion Of Chatbots And Virtual Assistants

Another area where AI is profoundly changing communication is the widespread use of chatbots and virtual assistants. These tools are reshaping customer service, marketing and even internal communication. AI-powered chatbots are not only capable of handling simple queries but are also becoming increasingly sophisticated through machine learning, offering personalized responses and even emotional intelligence. For example, IBM’s Watson can process natural language, understand context and engage in complex conversations, which is a step forward from traditional scripted responses. This increased capability is encouraging businesses to integrate AI chatbots into their customer support systems.

The growing reliance on AI for communication is not limited to businesses; it’s also impacting social interactions, suggesting that AI’s influence extends beyond formal communication to casual, day-to-day exchanges.

4. Ethical And Privacy Concerns In AI Communication

While AI is revolutionizing communication, it also raises concerns regarding privacy, data security and ethical considerations. AI systems require vast amounts of data to function effectively, often pulling from personal conversations, email exchanges and social media interactions. This raises the question of how this data is stored, accessed and used.

According to a 2022 survey by Pew Research, 81% of Americans feel that the potential risks of AI—particularly regarding privacy and data misuse—outweigh its benefits. Furthermore, 72% of survey respondents expressed concern about AI systems that could manipulate public opinion or spread misinformation, particularly in social media settings.

As AI continues to play a role in communication, it will be crucial for governments and businesses to develop guidelines and policies to ensure responsible usage. For example, Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has set a precedent by establishing strict rules around data collection and usage, especially for AI applications. However, as AI’s influence expands, more robust global regulations may be required.

5. The Future Of AI In Communication

Looking ahead, the future of AI in communication holds exciting possibilities. From real-time language processing to deep learning algorithms that can predict the nuances of human conversation, AI is poised to continue changing the way we interact. As AI becomes more advanced, its applications will likely expand into even more personal areas, such as health communication, education and entertainment.

The key to understanding AI’s future in communication is recognizing its role not as a replacement for human interaction, but as a supplement to it. By automating routine tasks and offering real-time insights, AI can free up humans to engage in more meaningful, creative and emotional exchanges.

AI is reshaping the way we communicate in profound and far-reaching ways. From voice assistants to chatbots, language translation tools and workplace collaboration platforms, AI is enhancing the efficiency, speed and accessibility of communication. However, as we embrace these innovations, it is essential to address the ethical, privacy and data concerns that come with this technology. With the right balance of regulation and innovation, AI has the potential to make communication more inclusive, seamless and impactful than ever before.

Feature Image Credit: Getty

By Kurt Allen

Follow me on LinkedIn. Check out my website.

Kurt Allen, CLSSBB, Vice President, Marketing & Communications at Notre Dame de Numur University. Read Kurt Allen’s full executive profile here.

Sourced from Forbes

In News

MARKETING VS COMMUNICATIONS: WHAT’S THE BIG DIFFERENCE?

April 23, 2024 No Comments

By Ashley Simpson

The good news is that marketing and communications have some overlap that makes both a great move for your career. They are both a core component of a robust marketing strategy, but they have slightly different focuses.

NUMBERS AND STATISTICS VS. WORDS

The first and most significant difference between marketing and communications is how success is measured.

Those responsible for marketing strategies are focused on the bottom-line numbers: how many clients or leads are brought in, campaign performance, and profit. Marketing managers know exactly who they are targeting and use market research to do just that. Statistics are a core component of marketing.

Communications strategies are more focused on the words used to relay a feeling to that ideal avatar that the marketing strategy targets. Oftentimes, they rely on copywriting to create content for a wide variety of customers and outlets. They might write newsletters for email marketing, copy for a landing page, and blog content.

OUTCOMES VS. ATTITUDES

Because of the last difference, it might be clear to you that there’s another difference between those who have a communications degree and those who have a marketing degree.

Namely, they concern themselves with two dramatically different levels of success.

Marketing managers are typically concerned with the outcomes of a digital marketing strategy. They want to know what the bottom line of the advertising effort is costing them and if it has a great return on investment (ROI). If there is no discernible outcome, then the marketing department will need to refocus its efforts.

On the other hand, corporate communications is focused on the attitudes of those public relations campaigns. Communications focuses on how people feel about a brand and if the target audience is likely to view them favourably. It’s less about the numbers and more about the feeling.

SALARY DIFFERENCES

Last but not least, there is a salary difference between marketing and communications careers. For those who are more concerned with the bottom line, a marketing career may be the better option. It tends to pay more than communications in the long run.

Entry-level marketers make an average of $48,752 annually, while marketing managers make about $140,000 annually.

Entry-level communications representatives make slightly more at $62,101, while managers make about $123,777.

While you may make more initially from communications careers, marketing has the better salary if you are looking for a career you can stick with long-term. However, they are so similar at higher levels that it may pay off to score that higher starting salary associated with communications careers.

WHAT IS MARKETING?

Now that we have the differences between marketing vs communications out of the way, it’s time to think about what each one offers individually. Pursuing a marketing degree means you are going to be thoroughly invested in the nitty-gritty details of marketing campaigns.

Marketing covers promoting and advertising for the company you work with to help them find new clientele who will contribute to the bottom line of the business. It’s a lot of strategic planning and statistics that prove that target customers are being reached with a campaign.

In other words, marketing focuses on emerging technologies to help leverage these capabilities for financial profit.

WHAT IS COMMUNICATIONS?

Unlike marketing, communications focuses on both written and spoken communication. Instead of looking at the numbers, a communications degree helps you to focus more on the experience of the ideal customer avatar. Everything about it is designed to be customer-centric, including the essential experience of intercultural communication.

It’s about the quality of the relationship you’re nurturing over how many leads and sales you make. Communications professionals want to make a lasting impression rather than just making a sale in the here and now.

While the goal is ultimately the same (help customers find a brand they love), they take different forms. Communications is often focused more on inbound marketing such as content creation, including writing a blog post or email campaigns. Marketing is more focused on outbound marketing, reaching new and potential clients. If you choose to work in communications, you may want to consider becoming a content marketing consultant.

SIMILARITIES IN MARKETING VS COMMUNICATIONS

As you might have gathered, there is a lot of overlap in what a marketing or communications role may play. Both are focused on improving company perception, though one is focused on the dollars and the other more so on brand management.

Here are some similarities that might lead you to study both marketing and communications as your ideal career path forward.

DESIRE TO REACH AN AUDIENCE WITH A TIMELY MESSAGE

While communicators focus on the actual wording of the message, both marketers and communications majors will want to reach an audience with the right message at the right time. While communications majors might work on inbound marketing and marketers work on outbound, both aim to improve the lives of their target audience.

They are passionate about the companies they work for and want the world to know about what is being offered.

INCREASE PERFORMANCE AND RECOGNITION OF THE BRAND

Despite having different sets of tools to manage any given marketing plan, both roles are focused on driving more sales to the company. Marketers concern themselves with the bottom-line numbers, but that doesn’t mean those in communications careers don’t care. They simply pride themselves on how well the words they write drive sales.

Both want the business to take off and see massive success. After all, their jobs depend on it. While they have key differences in what matters to them, performance is at the heart of all they do.

SKILLS REQUIRED FOR SUCCESS

Whether you work in marketing or communications, you will still have to have some of the same skills. As with most positions these days, you need excellent interpersonal communication skills. You should be able to communicate with the team you are on, as well as other departments, to yield the best results.

Plus, you will need to have a great deal of creativity to get the company’s message out to other people. No matter what your niche, you will have to come up with innovative new ways of reaching people via marketing campaigns or content marketing.

PLATFORMS USED (SOCIAL MEDIA, WEBSITE, COMMERCIALS, ETC.)

Of course, there is also significant overlap in how marketing and communications professionals reach their given audience. In today’s world, social media is one of the most prevalent areas where industry trends are leading both marketers and communicators to market.

The specific message you send and the specific platform you use will differ, but you should have some familiarity with all of them.

There are also more traditional means of communicating a message to a prospective customer: print ads, website content marketing, Google ads, commercials, and more. There is a seemingly endless list of potential platforms that both marketing and communications professionals will need to understand.

It’s all about delivering information by any means necessary, whether that requires social networking, press releases, or some other means of hitting the right audience at the right time.

COULD YOU USE A MARCOMM DEGREE?

Many people find that they don’t want to decide between marketing and communications. Both aspects of the marketing plan are interesting to them. This is why many schools are now offering what is known as MarComm degrees, where students double major.

This allows the overlap to work in your favour. You can earn the high-dollar compensation of a marketing manager while working with the words and content of the communications department. It makes you more versatile in the industry and gives you an endless supply of potential positions.

Many programs will allow you to get your bachelor’s degree in both areas which can be great for your potential income down the line.

FINAL THOUGHTS: WILL YOU CHOOSE MARKETING VS COMMUNICATIONS?

Do you have in-depth knowledge related to running a marketing campaign or focusing on content marketing? It might be time for you to think about making a career path out of those skills, which could start with going back to school for a marketing degree or a communications degree (or both!).

Whether you want to write website content or analyse the numbers, there is likely something in one of these two career paths for you to follow if you love digital marketing. Consider whether you might be well suited to making a job switch to one of these fields!

Here are some other courses for business that might help you to jumpstart a new career in these areas!

By Ashley Simpson

Ashley is an experienced freelance writer with an enthusiasm for finding creative ways to earn money online. She uses her passion for words to share what she has learned with the world.

She spends most of her time blogging for a multitude of websites and consuming everything she can get her hands on in relation to personal finance and side hustles.

Sourced from Niche Pursuits

In News

How to Schedule a Text Message on iPhone

March 15, 2022 No Comments

By Amy Spitzfaden–Both

Can you schedule a text message on iPhone? You can if you know how!

Have you ever wanted to schedule a text message on your iPhone? Maybe you want to send weekly reminders of chores to your family or automatically let your spouse know when you’re heading home. Scheduling a text message makes sure your text will get to your desired person at the desired time. Let’s learn how to schedule a text on an iPhone.

How to Schedule a Text on iPhone

Learning to schedule a message on your iPhone is super handy if you want to send reminders on specific days, or even when you’re performing certain actions, like leaving the house, or going to sleep. In order to schedule a text message, you’ll have to set up a Shortcut to do it, which can be a little intimidating, but it turns out it’s pretty easy! To learn more about iPhone shortcuts, check out our Tip of the Day newsletter. Now, here’s how to schedule a text on your iPhone:

Open your Shortcuts app.
At the bottom of the screen, tap Automation.
Tap the Add icon. If you don’t see the Add icon or have any existing automations, skip to step 4.
Tap Create Personal Automation.
In the New Automation menu, choose your text message’s prompt. In this example, I will use Time of Day, but there are lots of options to choose from.
If using Time of Day, choose from Sunrise, Sunset, or Time of Day to set a specific time to send the text message.
Under Repeat, select Daily, Weekly, or Monthly.
If Weekly or Monthly, select the day(s) of the week or month. For Weekly, all the days of the week will be automatically selected, so tap any day to deselect.
Tap Next.
Tap Send Message.
In the box that says Send “Message” to Recipient, tap “Message” to compose the automated text.
Tap Recipients to choose your recipients.
Once you’ve chosen your recipients, tap Done.
Tap Next.
Review your automation and toggle Ask Before Running on or off, depending on whether you want your iPhone to ask you before running the automation.
Tap Done.
You can now find this in your Automations tab.
To delete the automation, just swipe left and tap Delete.

Now your text messages should send right on schedule (unless you deleted the automation)!

By Amy Spitzfaden–Both

Sourced from iPhone Life

In News

When Communication Is At Its Best, So Is Innovation

February 28, 2022 No Comments

By Alex Goryachev

Now is the time when many leaders are looking into the future, deciding where to invest their valuable time and resources. Digital transformation, innovation and workplace model change is undoubtedly high on the agenda. Sadly, in my experience, most of these much-needed initiatives will fail.

I believe that the single most critical element that separates innovation success from failure is communication. After all, sustainable and successful transformation requires us to communicate, communicate, communicate. And then? Communicate some more. When communication is at its best, so is innovation, and here is why:

1. Unlike invention, innovation can’t exist without communication.

The lonely innovator is a myth. Solo innovation does not exist. Unlike invention, it’s a team sport. Working in solitude may lead to invention, but not innovation because it requires communication with others.

Innovation only happens thanks to groups of people working together to achieve specific goals. It is at its best when it’s a result of communicating across inclusive, diverse, cross-functional teams that are empowered to make decisions and enact change. As a leader, it’s your job to create an environment where teams like these can emerge and succeed.

2. Digital transformation requires focused communication.

The internet transports hundreds of millions of emails, not to mention countless media posts and news articles, every hour of the day. As a result of digitization, we are bombarded with information that we often can’t even comprehend.

As you execute on digital transformation initiatives, you will inevitably make it much easier to communicate, leading to a higher volume of content. It’s essential that you plan for that and communicate precisely and consistently, thus helping separate the important content from the noise.

3. Ecosystem co-innovation puts communication into the spotlight.

Customer experience gets a lot of credit, and rightfully so, but when it comes to innovation, you’re looking at the entire ecosystem, not just pockets of the population. To bring change, you must communicate effectively with multiple audiences, understanding what they care about and how best to connect with them.

Internally, the focus is not just on your employees, but also on your fellow leaders, managers, executives and stakeholders. Externally, you’re speaking to your customers and partners of course, but you also want to make your voice heard by the rest of your industry, competitors, collaborators and the public, as many of them are potential consumers or employees.

Innovation is also about constant active listening and is impossible without an inclusive dialogue. If you don’t listen, you’ll never understand what problems your customers, employees and partners have that you can solve with innovation.

Communicate or get left behind.

Despite all the above, open avenues of communication and transparency are lacking in most companies, causing employees to lose focus and disengage, executives to discard innovation as a trend and the public to lose interest in your efforts. Clear, consistent communication is rare, and normally focuses on messaging, not listening.

Ironically, investment in communications is generally the last priority in many innovation teams or programs. Leaders pour money into hardware, software and engineering capabilities, basically anything but communications. The irony is undeniable: Given the pace of technology, many technical skills will be obsolete within a few years, but leaders are happy to fund their development. Communication skills and shared institutional knowledge, however, will stay with employees throughout the rest of their careers, benefitting all.

As a leader, you must understand the importance of communication and fund it properly. Your vision, strategy, plan and metrics must then be communicated both internally and externally. Your goal is to demonstrate the value you are generating and how your organization is capturing that value to help employees, customers, partners and the public.

As you consider how your organization will shape the future, don’t forget to communicate, communicate, communicate.

Feature Image Credit: getty

By Alex Goryachev

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website.

Alex Goryachev is a Chief Innovation Officer specializing in Strategy, Digital Transformation & Global Ecosystem Development. Read Alex Goryachev’s full executive profile here.

Sourced from Forbes

In News

When Communication Is At Its Best, So Is Innovation

February 28, 2022 No Comments

By Alex Goryachev