There has never been such an exciting and empowering time to work in Tech Comm.
That was my main takeaway from "The Year of the Docs,” Zoomin’s AI Roadshow which wrapped up last week after a whirlwind West Coast tour.
In Denver, Portland and San Jose, we invited an incredible community of content professionals to share the challenges they’re facing, the processes they’ve built, and the insights they’ve gained as they’ve prepared their content – and in some cases their organizations! – to be AI-ready. The universal enthusiasm and engagement we were met with hammered home for me just how important technical communication teams are to the future of this new AI era, and furthermore just how urgent it is that we all compare notes on the changing nature of our roles.
AI is here. It’s disrupting our industry and changing the work we do. As we discussed on the tour, content professionals have three choices for how to respond:
Well, surf’s up: our attendees blew us away with the innovation, creative thinking and just pure hard work they’re putting into emerging from this era of transformation as leaders.
We’ll be hitting more cities with the “Year of the Docs” Roadshow in November, but until then, here are some of my main takeaways from the event.
1. Testing, Testing, 1,2,3
Ensuring the accuracy and reliability of AI-generated content was one of the biggest concerns raised by roadshow attendees. If not grounded on quality content, or if given too much leeway for creativity, AI applications can hallucinate, providing incorrect and misleading information to end-users. The potential impact of wrong answers can’t be ignored, but can, with smart planning and cross-functional collaboration, be mitigated proactively.
Beth Lemesany and Aaron Davidson, from ServiceNow, explained the importance of a detailed risk assessment and mitigation plan. They evaluated the different types of impacts their Gen AI implementations could have, the probability of those impacts, and defined contingency plans for what to do if things went sideways. This, together with a solid testing strategy, gave them the confidence they needed to lead their organization into AI solutions.
Likewise, Aditi Kashikar, of Automation Anywhere, walked us through her team’s process for evaluating a variety of different AI applications that would depend on her tech docs. She stressed the importance of defining an objective standard, one based around hypothetical queries, that could be performed against each application to give a true apples-to-apples comparison. She went on to highlight the importance of working with your partners to improve the quality and capabilities of their offerings. Leading in this new domain means leading change across the board.
2. All your hard work has been leading up to this moment
Though Gen AI can feel like an overnight sensation, the hard, often thankless work required to power AI applications on technical content has been going on for years. The work to unify diverse content sets, to ensure they’re well structured and that all of their content is accurate, meaningful and — above all — helpful, has long been Tech Comm’s whole raison d’être. Now, that unsung effort is finally getting its due, with one attendee describing an All Hand’s Call he attended where the company’s CEO praised the Docs team especially: by bringing Gen AI solutions to customers, they’d differentiated their company in the market and made their department a fundamental asset. A “cost-center” no more.
In most organizations, there isn’t yet a fully defined AI strategy. Instead, it’s being driven by content professionals who are willing to educate themselves and their teams. For many of the participants we spoke to, docs teams had been some of the (if not THE) first teams to introduce AI-powered solutions to their company. Docs teams are pushing for innovation all the way up to the C-level and securing for themselves a critical seat at the table.
3. The roles they are a-changin’
AI’s demands are reshaping content strategies across the industry. Even as Tech Comm’s best practices form a solid foundation for Generative Apps, the focus for writers has started to split. Not only are we writing for people with jobs to do, but we’re now writing to support the machines that will help those same people.
The shift towards AI-driven content requires not so much a reevaluation of our enterprise content strategies, but rather, a commitment to breaking down the remaining silos in our organizations and consolidating our content into common repositories that can be easily accessed by our AI apps. Customers don’t really care about a lot of the arbitrary divisions we create for them, and there has never been a stronger impetus to finally bring everything together.
More than just content management changes, the walls between roles are eroding as well. In many teams, Subject Matter Experts, such as engineers or product managers, are beginning to author more of the content being fed to AI solutions. Not only are these people learning new skills, but many of the content professionals who came to our sessions reported taking courses on AI topics, such as prompt engineering, in an effort to stay ahead of the wave.
4. Collaboration Across Teams
Effective AI integration requires collaboration across various teams, including engineering, security, compliance, legal and web development. Without buy-in from these groups, Tech Comm teams will be powerless to pursue an AI agenda, in the same way that without Tech Comm, these teams run the risk of implementing inefficient, doomed-to-fail applications. Despite the historical divisions between teams in big organizations, the docs leaders we spoke with are already building new alliances. New teams and working groups are being formed as much by shared passion and interest as they are by top-down directives.
Given how new this technology still is, there aren’t yet tried and true methods for organizations to optimize its deployment. It is up to all of us to figure this out for the very first time. When everyone knows a little bit about something, the only way to know a lot is to work together.
Conclusion
The leadership and innovation displayed by our attendees only solidifies my belief that we as Tech Comm professionals are at the forefront of this new AI era, ready to tackle the challenges and seize the opportunities that this new technology presents.
From ensuring the accuracy of AI-generated content to breaking down silos and fostering collaboration across teams, tech comm professionals are now commanding a new, elevated position within their companies. The meticulous work that has been our foundation for years is now gaining the recognition it deserves, driving not just content strategies but also organizational change at the highest levels.
The path forward requires us to stay ahead of the curve, educate ourselves continuously, and lead with creativity and resilience. Together, we are shaping the future of our industry, and the excitement and empowerment we felt last week are just a taste of what's to come.
Thank you for being part of this incredible community, and we look forward to seeing you at our next event. Until then, let's continue surfing this AI wave together.
