This article was contributed by Katherine Drury who sits on the Executive Committee for the PRSA Technology Section. At the time this blog was posted, the author was not employed at Microsoft.
Generative AI is as abundant as natural gas on a dairy farm. And while historical AI at a dairy farm could sort the cows, new generative AI can create a brand new fictional breed that texts you when it’s milking time!
Due to the overwhelming chatter about generative AI capabilities, it’s likely been a minute since your last reflection about legacy technology features and what those AI classics can do for you. Besides Netflix’s AI recommending “Clarkson’s Farm” to assist you with understanding more about farming, let’s discuss two foundational technology platforms delivering on our daily business needs – Google and Microsoft.
These two companies created a symphony of automation and AI features well before “Generative AI” became a global buzzword. Despite the frequency of the AI conversations, it can often feel like a significant undertaking to keep up with the overabundance of tech changes and how to apply them to your daily work.
And that’s why I’m here to share a few noteworthy new capabilities and remind you of a few classics (can we call them classics if they’re only a few years older?), that are worth keeping in your back pocket.
Google Alerts (AI)
- What it is: A content change detection and notification service.
- What it does: The service sends emails to you when it finds results such as web pages, news, articles, or scientific research that match your search terms. It is a free tool that lets you monitor mentions on the web.
- What it’s good for: Saving you search time and making you first to breaking news relevant to your space.
- Get Started: Google Alerts - Monitor the Web for interesting new content
Google Trends (AI)
- What it is: A website that analyzes the popularity of top search queries in Google Search across various regions and languages.
- What it does: The service shows the search interest and popularity of topics, issues, events, and more across the globe.
- What it’s good for: Great for brainstorming relevant topics to write about for your audience!
- Get Started: Google Trends
Google Voice Typing (AI)
- What it is A feature that allows you to type and edit by speaking in Google Docs or in Google Slides speaker notes.
- What it does: The service works in multiple languages and accents, including English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, and more.
- What it’s good for: Saying your content aloud while you are creating it can lead to more engaging and relatable writing. This allows you to do that.
- Get Started: Type & edit with your voice - Google Docs Editors Help
Google Gemini (Generative AI)
- What it is: A family of multimodal large language models (LLM) that power the Gemini chatbot.
- What it does: Gemini was built to be multimodal, which means it can generalize and seamlessly understand, operate across, and combine different types of information including text, code, audio, image, and video.
- What it’s good for: Generating responses to your queries. For example, it can brainstorm creative content for press releases and social media, all while staying on brand and factually accurate. Tip – always ask it to cite its sources.
- Get Started – Gemini (google.com)
Microsoft Focus Mode
- What it is: A feature in Windows 11 that helps you minimize distractions. It integrates with the Clock app with features like a focus timer and music integration.
- What it does: Allows you to zone in on your writing, content creation, and public relations work. When you’re in a focus session, apps in the taskbar will not flash to alert you, badge notifications on apps in the taskbar will turn off, and you will receive a notification when your focus session has ended.
- What it’s good for: Time blocking and focusing.
- Get Started: In the Start menu of your device (if you have Windows 11), follow the steps below to turn on the focus mode - From your settings menu, Select > Settings > Focus > Start Focus Session OR from your Clock app (located in the bottom-right hand corner of your screen), select Focus
Microsoft Templates (Not Generative AI originally)
- What it is: Microsoft Templates are pre-built document templates with useful and creative themes from Office. Templates can include calendars, business cards, letters, cards, brochures, newsletters, resumes, cover letters, presentations, social media and much more.
- What it does: You can download free, pre-built document templates from Office when you open any of your Office apps, like Word or PowerPoint for example. Then follow the steps below to access the templates. Open Word > select File > New and browse the templates. Or visit the site below.
- What it’s good for: Supplying you with a starting point for your content.
- Get started: Free templates for social media, documents & designs | Microsoft Create
Microsoft Copilot (Generative AI)
- What it is: An AI-powered productivity tool that leverages the power of LLMs and integrates your data with the Microsoft Graph and Microsoft 365 Apps.
- What it does: Microsoft Copilot works alongside popular Microsoft 365 Apps such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, and more. When copilot rolls out to your company, type a prompt into Microsoft Copilot like “summarize my meetings and action items from today’s meetings, chats, and emails” or “summarize my meetings for tomorrow” and watch as Copilot recaps and helps you proactively plan in just a few seconds, saving you an abundance of time every day.
- What it’s good for: Summarizing long email threads and chats. Generating basic starting points for Microsoft documents.
- Get Started: https://copilot.microsoft.com/
Microsoft Clipchamp – Text to Speech (AI)
- What it is: Clipchamp is a video editor designed to make video creation easy for anyone whether you have experience or not.
- What it does: The text to speech feature uses AI to generates voiceovers from the text you provide it.
- What it’s good at: Creating crisp voiceovers in various languages for your videos.
- Get Started: AI voiceover generator. Text to speech with lifelike voices (clipchamp.com)
Share your techy wisdom
Now that you’ve finished reviewing some of the tech above, let me know in the comments or via LinkedIn what tech you would recommend public relations professionals preserve or add into their playbooks. Then let the AI take over and enjoy a recommendation or two from your favorite streaming service.