AI for Strategy: Accelerating Intelligence

“An AI future requires that we lean into building our own expertise as human experts.”

—Ethan Mollick, University of Pennsylvania, Co-Intelligence: Living and Working With AI

The Hattaway team has been partnering with AI experts since 2023 to help organizations tap this powerful technology to do good work—making the most of its potential, while navigating its perils. 

Starter Toolkit. The Communications Network asked us to help build a toolkit to equip organizations of all kinds to explore using AI in ways that can enhance strategy, creativity, and efficiency.

Team Training. Our clients are supporting AI Communities of Practice for their organizations and coalitions to learn and work together. They’re building knowledge and skills, creating custom tools, and collaborating in new ways.

For example, a foundation is supporting a group of nonprofits in education policy to develop strategies and build tools they can use to drive new narratives and accelerate progress on their policy goals.

Custom Tools. Another foundation is creating a low-cost, easy-to-use messaging tool that puts volumes of narrative research at the fingertips of its staff and grantees—which equips everyone to quickly create effective messaging aligned with a shared narrative strategy. 

Key Takeaways. We’re working with AI to develop and execute research-based strategies for communications, public affairs, marketing, and more. So far, we’re seeing impressive gains—not only in efficiency and productivity, but in rigor, quality, and creativity. 

Below are a few takeaways from our experiences so far:

Use it as a thought partner. AI isn’t “doing the thinking” for people. Talented professionals are learning to work with it mindfully and strategically. With proper guidance, AI can be a helpful thought partner and learning tool to enhance your thinking and expand your capabilities. 

For example, we created a tool to help users develop tailored content and campaign plans based on in-depth audience research. The AI tools help users apply insights from dozens of pages of data to craft messages, images, stories, and experiences for different audiences, which can increase a campaign’s reach and response rates.

Get organized. To make the most of its potential—and avoid problems—it’s a good idea for teams to talk about how they use it and set their own rules-of-the-road. Together, you can identify tools that serve your needs and set guidelines and guardrails that make sense for you.

Organizations are cataloguing helpful tools for strategy development, audience research, content development, and other uses—capturing both “how-tos” and “watch-outs” for each of them.

Make time to experiment. Adopting AI is a hands-on learning process of trying new tools and new ways of working. Through thoughtful experimentation, you can learn to guide the technology to support your work in the most beneficial ways.

For example, social media professionals in a community of practice experimented with tailoring the voice and tone of content for audiences with different political perspectives. They learned new techniques to reach new audiences and drastically increase engagement rates.

To be sure, generative AI raises concerns that call for careful consideration. Ultimately, it’s a tool—its value lies in how you choose to use it. 

The opportunity for communicators is to learn ways to work with this powerful technology to enhance your unique talents, skills, and expertise. 

Please reach out if you’d like to learn more: info@hattaway.com.

Strategy, Science and Storytelling

To achieve measurable impact with strategic communications, we explore answers to questions like these. Al can be a helpful partner for strategic, analytical, and creative thinking along the way.

Strategic Focus: Who must take action to achieve the goal? What must they do?

Audience Insight: What motivates decision-makers? What de-motivates them?

Aspirational Narrative: What ideas frame the cause most effectively?

Winning Words: What language is meaningful and memorable?

Inspiring Images: What kinds of images inspire people to take action?

Meaningful Engagement: What kinds of content and experiences do people respond to?