It’s basic economics. When something is easy to get in big quantities, its value goes down.
That’s why the advent of ChatGPT and other AI tools scared people in the communications business. Including me.
A blog post or an article would take me hours, or even days, depending on the complexity. And I could charge big bucks for it.
Overnight, that same blog post could be generated in mere seconds. By anyone.
Suddenly, the value of our work as writers and communicators plummeted. And that led to a lot of fear about losing our livelihoods.
I was not immune to this and I began wondering if I had to polish up my long-dormant bartending skills to be able to make ends meet.
But I’m no longer worried. Here’s why.
Communicators Have Been Freed
In the past, much of the value of the work communicators did was about time. In agency terms, "billable hours."
We got paid for the time it took to research, write, and revise our work. Our value was disproportionately tied to the time it took to type words on a page.
We’ve been valuing the wrong thing, and ChatGPT has come to free us from that.
Our value lies not in the time it takes to type words, but in the ideas, intention, and emotion behinds those words.
ChatGPT can do the research and typing, but it still needs the inspiration.
That’s where the value of the communicator lies, and we are finally free to claim it.
How Can Communicators Claim Their Value?
We’re still at the infancy of AI, and it’s only going to get better and more powerful.
Will it be able to produce writing that’s less clunky and full of unnecessary adverbs? Definitely.
Will it be able to produce original thinking and inspiration based on human emotion and experiences? I don’t know, but I have my doubts.
But what we can do as communicators is commit to being better.
We can advocate to our clients and bosses to value meaningful, emotional, human stories over transactional “content.”
And most importantly, we can commit to building our own personal brands.
Too many communications professionals neglect their most important client: themselves.
By sharing our own stories, ideas, and experiences, we not only reclaim our own value, but we also can inform, inspire, and uplift others.
Let’s see ChatGPT do that!
If you don’t know me, my name is Chris. My mission is to help executives unlock the power of their stories.
Can I help you? Let’s have a 15-minute chat to find out!