What risks are on the minds of Fortune 500 companies adopting AI for content?

The rapid development of AI, turbocharged by the 2022 launch of ChatGPT, has shaken up the online landscape – Copyright AFP Josep LAGO

Many enterprises are using generative AI to create content in some capacity. With Google’s new AI Overviews feature producing inaccurate information and users worried about false outputs resulting from AI models, society is once again reminded that correctness reigns supreme when it comes to AI-generated content. Consequently, many enterprises rank correctness as the most important quality of their content. 

With the rise of AI-generated content and the increase in the amount of content, how clear is the content being produced? While the correctness of AI-generated content may be top of mind, issues related to clarity, the degree to which readers understand words and ideas, cannot be ignored.

The importance of clarity in enterprise content… and the risks of unclear content

In a new survey of Fortune 500 companies including Amazon, AT&T, Cisco, Ford, Philips, Siemens Energy, and ServiceNow, Acrolinx, the AI-powered content governance software, has dug into how its customers prioritize clarity, rank it in comparison to other writing qualities, and practice clarity in their writing. The output has been shared with Digital Journal.

The research reveals that 61.2 percent of enterprises said clarity was the most important factor to their enterprise. An additional 30.9 percent still considered clarity important, while only 6.7 percent said clarity is only somewhat important.

From a business perspective, writing with clarity has a number of benefits. Not only is the customer experience improved as a result of easy-to-understand writing, but translation to other languages also becomes streamlined when content is more straightforward. In addition, the use of plain language has made information more accessible to others, especially neurodiverse readers.

When readers are not aligned with what content means, enterprises face detrimental risks. The negative consequences of unclear or ambiguous content on enterprises that were most cited were ineffective knowledge transfer (43 percent), and product misuse or regulatory risk (22.4 percent). However, 17.6 percent of enterprises suffered from longer editorial cycles and 17 percent cited missed sales opportunities due to lack of clarity in content.

Enterprise strategies to maintain clear content

Knowing the critical importance of clarity, how can enterprises achieve it when developing content? Here nearly 75 percent of enterprises utilize a corporate style guide with clear rules on grammar, tone, terminology, and more. Regular content audits were deemed as important by 46.7 percent of enterprises surveyed to identify inconsistencies in content and correct them 42.4 percent said a centralized content management system for easy collaboration helped to achieve clarity, while 31.5 percent relied on free tools to check for clarity and readability.

From improving readability and sentence structure to leveraging more plain language and consistent terminology, these qualities of clear content are the cornerstone for inclusivity and comprehension in workplaces. When companies achieve clarity in content, the benefits are significant – streamlining processes, enhancing collaboration, and allowing for faster communication and decision-making.  

The future of generative AI in creating content

With generative AI playing a more significant role in tasks across organizations, enterprises need schooling on how to create content that audiences actually understand. In fact, today’s content writers are benefiting immensely from AI flagging their content as ineffective or high risk. Despite the accuracy of information being of utmost priority, enterprises must ensure that the clarity of the content they are publishing is just as important.