Understanding Neurodiversity & Inclusion  

In today’s rapidly evolving world, the growing popularity of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming various aspects of our workplace experience. One area where AI is making a significant impact is in learning and development, particularly in assisting the neurodivergent community. Neurodiversity is the idea that neurological differences, such as autism, ADHD, and dyslexia, should be embraced and accommodated as part of the natural human spectrum. 

The Importance of AI in Supporting Neurodiverse Employees

Workplaces have started to embrace the competitive advantage of those who think differently, with research revealing that neurodivergent individuals can be 30% more productive than their neurotypical colleagues, are less prone to cognitive bias, and usually more consistent in rational decision-making. AI-driven apps and technologies are now providing invaluable support to neurodiverse individuals in their learning endeavors. In this post, we will explore how AI is helping neurodiverse learners bridge the gap between language and reality, absorb vast amounts of information, and prevent cognitive overload. 

AI Tools for Enhancing Neurodiverse Learning 

Tool 1: Otter.ai

Otter.ai is an extensive, interactive chat app for meetings that can be used through Zoom or other online meeting platforms. When Otter is employed, it will automatically transcribe live meeting notes, highlight key points, capture shared slides, incorporate slides into the notes, synchronize calendars, and even assign action items for participants. These features allow people to stay engaged and focused on what is being shared in meetings or live learning sessions, rather than worrying about taking notes and missing what was said. 

Tool 2: Read&Write

Read&Write helps people who may struggle with literacy. This support tool will read text aloud, help readers understand vocabulary, and proofread their writing. This software can use predictive text to help with comprehension and provides gamification and audio study guides for higher engagement. 

Tool 3: Co:Writer

Co:Writer is an assistive technology that uses AI to help users overcome writing challenges. This tool not only edits spelling and grammar, but can suggest better word choices, sentence fluency, and provides audible feedback to the learner while they write. This is particularly beneficial for individuals with conditions like dyslexia or ADHD, who may encounter challenges in this area. Another function of Co:Writer, is that users can deploy the speech-to-text function if typing is challenging – which can be a valuable accommodation for individuals with motor skills challenges or those who find it easier to express their thoughts verbally. 

Tool 4: GitMind 

GitMind  uses AI to help people create mind maps and organize the flow of information. It directs users to free flow thoughts and information, and GitMind can use this to create connected ideas and patterns. GitMind also offers generative AI powered thought training that can result in higher cognition, public speaking, and communication skills. 

Tool 5: Brain Power/Empowered Brain 

Empowered Brain is an AR/AI software incorporated in a pair of smart glasses, i.e., Google Glass, that helps the wearer interact with others and improve social-emotional learning. People who find it difficult to read facial cues, recognize emotions, or respond based on other visual cues can use these glasses to identify cues and improve their social-emotional skills.  

It is important to note that some neurodiverse individuals, particularly those with sensory processing differences (common in conditions like autism), may have heightened sensitivities to certain sensations, including those related to touch, pressure, or objects on the face. This heightened sensitivity could make wearing glasses initially uncomfortable or overwhelming. 

Working together, humans and AI can create an inclusive culture where everyone has the ability to succeed.

Implementing AI Tools for Inclusivity 

AI developers have used their knowledge to provide neurodiverse solutions for the workplace, tailored to each user’s unique needs and skillsets. Users now have access to personalized learning, emotional and sensory support, and assistive technologies to be competitive in their workplace environment.  

Are you wondering how to create an inclusive work environment at your organization? At GP Strategies, we offer a wide array of AI tools to assist clients in creating that innovative workspace.  

As with any AI tool, it is important to remember there may be risks involved when sharing information. If using any of these tools for work or learning environments, be sure to check with your organization’s data handling process.

About the Authors

Robyn Orbegozo

Robyn is an Innovation Learning Consultant based in Phoenix, AZ with 27 years’ experience in the Learning and Development space. She has served many roles including technical support manager, assessment manager, corporate trainer, and high school teacher. Robyn earned her Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice Administration, Master of Arts in Secondary Education, and Master of Science in Administration and Security from University of Phoenix. She also holds a Master of Public Administration from Grand Canyon University and is active with The Training Industry where she earned her Certified Professional Training Manager (CPTM) credentials. Robyn is passionate about education and enjoys helping organizations assess their training needs and achieve their learning goals.

Nic Girvan

A leader of impactful and unique learning innovations, Nic Girvan is GP Strategies DEI, Director of Learning and Delivery. With over 20 years’ experience working within Learning & Organizational Development, Nic blends her expertise in adult learning theory and general psychology to create hard hitting and inspirational interventions, that promote culture change and transform working environments. As a previous award winner for innovative instructional design, Nic is driven by the desire to lead her learning services to deliver truly impactful and ground-breaking DEI interventions. Not one to shy away from ‘unusual yet successful’ learning shake ups, Nic inspires her services to break industry boundaries and move beyond ’tick box training’. A truly inclusive and authentic leader, Nic works closely with both instructor-led and digital design teams to ensure her services offer not only return on investment but go beyond client expectation. A committed thought leader for effective training efforts, she regularly publishes blogs, articles, and thought pieces to promote the importance of effective training investment and transformative DEI upskills.

Our Director of Global Diversity and Inclusion, Angela Peacock, recently hosted a panel with three DEI leaders from different industries: Juan Fernando Lopera, Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer at Beth Israel Lahey Health; Deepa Arjan, Global Learning and Leadership Development Director at Avanade; and Eleanor Goichman Brett, Global Inclusion Consultant at GP Strategies.

Four key themes emerged from the panel’s lively discussion about what constitutes a successful DEI strategy.

4 Tips to Develop an Impactful and Durable DEI Strategy

1. Define Your Business Case

We’ve all heard that you need to engage your leadership team and get their buy-in for any organization-wide initiative. DEI is no different. The best way to get those stakeholders on board is to build your DEI strategy around the business needs. You should be able to answer questions about why it’s important to the business and how it will help the business succeed.

Yes, the DEI strategy should focus on improving the experience for all employees, potential hires, and customers, but it should ultimately fit into the business’s overall needs and strategy. For example, Juan Fernando Lopera discussed on the panel how he made the business case at a health insurance organization by leveraging the need to fill a gap in revenue. Lopera successfully made the case that if the business addressed health disparities in racial and ethnic minorities, they could drive down medical costs and, therefore, make up for their gap in revenue.

This is just one way to engage your leaders. You can also tie DEI initiatives to those leaders’ compensation or yearly bonuses if that fits your organization’s overall goal.

2. You Must Hold Everyone Accountable

Putting together an impactful DEI strategy is one thing; executing it is another. All levels of an organization need to be engaged and aware of the strategy for it to work. Organizations often launch DEI plans but only engage the top levels of an organization. A successful DEI strategy must cascade down to all employees. Awareness is key. Craft internal communications to regularly connect with your people and ensure that everyone understands what you are trying to achieve and why.

To ensure that your stakeholders stay on mission, consider giving them specific tasks that they are responsible for. For example, you could assign your COO the responsibility of managing one of your ERG groups, giving them some skin in the game.

Understanding the different needs of your organization, especially regionally and culturally, is critical to creating an effective DEI strategy across the board. This is when it is important to focus on awareness and listening to your employees’ feedback. Know the data and your benchmarks, engage your people, and change your strategy with their feedback as needed.

3. Consider the External Viewpoint

An effective DEI strategy can do wonders for an organization’s public image, especially regarding hiring and customer acquisition. People want to support and work for organizations that align with their own values. For example, an organization that is taking meaningful steps to improve diversity and inclusion for minority employees will align with potential hires and customers who value that same thing.

Focus on the values that are important to your organization, and you will engage and attract those people who believe in the same things. On the flip side, if you aren’t true to your organization’s beliefs and values, it can backfire, which leads to the final point.

4. Be Authentic

In a world with lightning-fast media, interconnected social communications, and a generation of workers that can sniff out fake intentions in a second, authenticity is critical to the success of your organization. Over the last few years, we’ve seen a huge jump in DEI initiatives following several cultural movements, but not all of them were rooted in genuine intentions or backed by data.

When you are creating a DEI strategy, have a reason. Again, align with your business plan. Why is this important for your organization? Don’t just jump on the bandwagon and pledge to increase diversity hires because that’s what you think you’re supposed to do. Look at your data. What does your organization really need, and how can you design and implement a plan to make a difference?

Create a DEI Strategy that Works

Great DEI strategies have many moving parts, but if you focus on these four things, you will set yourself up for a much more successful future.

Listen to the full panel recording here.

About the Authors

GP Strategies Corporation

GP Strategies is a global performance improvement solutions provider of sales and technical training, e-Learning solutions, management consulting and engineering services. GP Strategies' solutions improve the effectiveness of organizations by delivering innovative and superior training, consulting and business improvement services, customized to meet the specific needs of its clients. Clients include Fortune 500 companies, manufacturing, process and energy industries, and other commercial and government customers.

Building and implementing a successful onboarding strategy isn’t always easy. Too often, organizations put their energy into hiring but fail to invest in supporting their new employees by fully integrating them and setting them up for high performance.

Often, in the absence of a coordinated organization-wide onboarding strategy, the onboarding experience is inconsistent across business units and may even occur weeks or months after the employee starts. Even more often, onboarding can be like a firehose, drowning the new hires with information that may not even be relevant or useful to them. 

These less-than-optimal onboarding experiences will inform a new employee’s perspective on the company and can deeply impact their future engagement and retention. So, how can you engage your new hires and carefully integrate them into your company culture? Develop a 30-60-90 onboarding strategy.

What Is a 30-60-90 Onboarding Day Plan for?

Simply put, a 30-60-90 onboarding plan provides a logical, structured approach to creating an effective and engaging learning experience that properly supports your new hires. It gives them precisely what they need when they need it as they join your company and start in their new role. 

The 30-60-90 onboarding plan is divided into three phases. These phases are broadly aligned with the month before an employee starts and their first and second months of employment. While this general cadence is useful, the timing is more of a guideline than a requirement.

This specific design develops a plan for you to release information over time, as the new employee needs it most. If you thoughtfully and adequately time the release of information—like with our Align, Deliver, and Sustain learning model—you introduce new hires to practical information, cultural norms, and performance expectations right when they need it.

What Should You Include in a 30-60-90 Plan?

When beginning to design an onboarding journey, we often use a Head-Heart-Hand model to help define the right approach for the learner and the organization. The “head” represents logic, the tangible benefits your organization and learners could gain from the program. The “heart” questions what a great learning experience would look and feel like, and the “hand” represents practicalities—what the learning needs to include, and when, to be helpful. 

This Head-Heart-Hand concept can help you determine what is most important to include in your onboarding journey by asking the following questions.

• Head: What can great onboarding do for your organization and learners? As you develop your onboarding plan, you must be clear about your objectives. Your goals should drive the strategic design of your onboarding plan. For example, if your priority is to increase the speed at which a new hire becomes a fully integrated and high-performing member of your organization, you would start by defining the fundamental characteristics of a high-performing employee and ensure you highlight those in your onboarding curriculum design.
• Heart: How does a great onboarding experience make the learner feel? Organizations often overlook how they want their people to feel about their experiences and the organization. Be sure to consider this question. One goal may be to make your learners feel secure and supported in their decision to work for you. Or you may want them to feel confident when they speak about all your organization’s solutions.
• Hand: What does a great onboarding journey provide your new employee? Consider what your learners need to know and when, on the most practical level. To reduce organizational risk, you will likely need to debrief them on basic operating guidelines when they start working for you. Your new employee will also need to know your daily processes and systems from the start, so it’s prudent to include these practicalities early in the onboarding process.

Increase Engagement with Blended and Personalized Learning

A critical line divides ordinary onboarding experiences from exceptional ones: the degree of highly relevant or personalized onboarding experience versus generic, organization-wide content. An approach that deeply personalizes the experience undoubtedly takes longer to create. But a journey that combines both unique and universal learning moments will pay off in terms of engagement and enthusiasm from your new employees.

Also, as you further work through what to cover in your 30-60-90 onboarding strategy, you should consider how you will deliver the information. Blended learning combines different learning modalities to increase engagement and knowledge retention.

A blended learning journey might combine interactive games and social connections as well as more traditional learning modalities like eLearning videos and on-the-job training. These ideas work just as well for remote or hybrid working environments as they do for in-person settings.

30-60-90 Onboarding: An Integrated Journey

After you determine what your organization’s specific learning needs are, what you need to do to deliver on them, and how you can best deliver that information, it’s critical to decide the optimal time to release that information to the learner.

The 30-60-90 plan structures the release of information over time so as to not overwhelm your new hire. It enables successful onboarding that accelerates integration, builds company culture, and ultimately improves retention.

The First 30 Days: The Perfect Learning Moment

The first 30 days of the 30-60-90 onboarding plan are the perfect learning moment because people are like sponges: excited at the new opportunity, engaged, and ready to learn. This phase starts before a new employee begins their first full day of employment.

Although this phase is labeled “the first 30 days,” it can be much shorter. The key is to recognize that this phase is the starting point or foundation for your learners. Everything builds on these early learning moments. If engaging with the learners before they officially start work with you is difficult, the first and second phases can even run together concurrently. The important thing is to differentiate phases and areas of focus for your learner.

The focus of this stage is usually essential preparation on topics like your brand and culture, organizational strategy, and a high-level view of your products and services. These are all useful topics that people can and should learn about, even in the pre-joining phase of their journey. Before the new hires’ first day at work, some organizations encourage them to read and watch selected resources. Other organizations use gamified learning to show the new employees what their company does, how it operates, or who its core customers are.

Days 31–60: Speed to Excellence

The 60 phase of this onboarding strategy tends to be more knowledge-focused than the first 30 days. Generally, the 60 phase starts as the learner walks through the door. You will likely provide your new employees with information about immediate practical needs in the context of their role within the company and their working environment. Such information may include systems, processes, compliance, ethics, health and safety, and data protection guidelines.

At this point, it can be easy to overload a new employee. To reduce the chances of doing so, consider blending the type of learning you offer. Blended learning may include digital resources, face-to-face sessions, meetings with managers and peers, gamification, on-the-job learning, and planned weekly reflection.

Thoughtfully layering and prioritizing information is vital in the 60 phase. Just as you must avoid overloading a new hire, you must also ensure you don’t underload them. New hires who sit around with nothing to do will likely disengage quickly and wonder if they’ve made the right choice. Getting the balance right and checking in regularly with your new hires is essential.

Days 61–90: Performing Optimally

The 90 phase embeds what your new hires have learned as they transition into independent, productive, and high-performing members of your organization. The 90 phase includes coaching, mentoring, reflecting on success, tackling problems, and gradually learning about more specialized areas.

A key component of this phase is the successful transition of the manager’s role from supporting your new employee to returning to business as usual. Your new hire’s peers also play a vital role in this onboarding stage. Social support can be integral to helping people feel like they belong.

Building Sustainable Success Through a 30-60-90 Onboarding Plan

Onboarding is a process, not a destination. It is the first step into what is ideally a long and successful partnership between your new hire and your company. The impact of onboarding can be felt throughout an entire career journey, with onboarding serving as a sturdy foundation for all future learning within your organization.

The key to all successful onboarding is to build an environment of continuous engagement. Nurture your new employees’ excitement and use it to propel them toward excellence and long-term success.

About the Authors

Andrew Joly

Andrew leads the strategy and consulting faculty in the Learning Experience team, which is at the frontline of delivering creative, innovative and effective learning solutions. He focuses on his personal passion: how technology-enabled learning experiences and communication blends can transform behaviors and performance in the workplace. Andrew has a passion for exploring how new modes and strategies for learning and connection can make a real difference to people, teams, and global organizations.

Digital learning has exploded in popularity over the last several years. As we collectively move away from simple virtual learning and toward building more complex digital learning ecosystems, conversations about what “good” looks like have naturally become a point of conversation.

However, there is no one-size-fits-all answer for success in a digital learning experience. It undoubtedly varies from organization to organization, but it can even vary significantly among individuals within the same organization. To truly gauge what success looks like, we must first deeply consider the goals of our program and then craft a tailored learning measurement strategy that aligns with them.

Establishing a Measurement Strategy: Assess Your Goals

To establish your measurement strategy, consider what’s truly essential for your company. Some popular goals are to:

• Save money
• Enable faster competency development
• Expand the breadth of learning opportunities
• Ensure the engagement of a diverse range of learners

Your organization can and should build a measurement strategy to gauge the success of these initiatives. But even though the primary goal for your digital learning experience may vary, a universal cornerstone of success is always the learner experience.

Gauging whether you deliver a seamless learner experience means examining whether learners are genuinely engaging with the content—how many clicks an article receives, how long participants invest in a knowledge check, and how many learners complete the program. Monitoring participation drop-offs (and pinpointing when they occur) and post-program surveys can also provide invaluable insights. Whether you achieve success should also be fueled by the viewpoint and perspective of moderators and the delivery team, all of whom play a vital role in shaping the overall experience.

Enhancing the Digital Learning Experience

Have you considered what success means for your next learning initiative? For more information about delivering great digital learning experiences, check out our latest podcast, Enhancing and Optimizing Digital Learning Experiences Through Delivery Functions.

About the Authors

Michael Thiel

With nearly two decades of thought leadership in corporate L&D, Michael Thiel has a passion for developing experiential learning that “sticks”. Working on the agency side, Michael has directed award-winning content for some of the most admired brands in the world, including: Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, Lexus, Toyota, Honda, Acura, BMW, Kia, and Sub-Zero Group.

Recent employee research has shown that people seek workplaces that match their values. Employees want to champion their organization’s values, goals, and purpose. But when an organization’s actions are misaligned with the ideals they propose in something like their Code of Conduct, employees may blow the whistle, walk away, or both. This reaction is rooted in a concept called rational loyalty.

Although trust is earned over time, it can crumble instantly, underscoring the urgency to evolve a code of conduct from a virtue-signaling compliance requirement to a dynamic embodiment of values that can guide an entire workforce. So, how exactly do we align our code of conduct to our aspirational values?

The Purpose of Codes of Conduct

Codes of conduct are increasingly written to meet the demands of an external audience such as suppliers, clients, and local regulators. This trend may explain why codes of conduct are often presented as branding and marketing materials with glossy images and bland, aspirational statements.

Such outward-facing documents may serve a purpose, but they distract from what codes of conduct should be. Codes of conduct should be inward facing, first and foremost, and provide employees at all levels of the organization with a practical guide on:

• What their organization stands for
• How the organization makes values-based decisions
• How the organization expects its employees to behave
• The kind of behavior employees should expect from their colleagues

The Difference Between Values and Compliance

Codes of conduct often cover both values and compliance, but the distinction between the two can easily be lost. Put simply, values are “what we choose to do,” and compliance is “what we are required to do.” This may be oversimplified; however, ethical conduct is increasingly subject to legal and regulatory obligations. Where this crossover occurs, it is essential for codes of conduct to clearly distinguish between an employee’s ethical, regulatory, and legal obligations.

Generally, values set higher standards than laws or regulations. They also fill the gaps between laws and regulations and provide guidance where the applications of laws and regulations are unclear or open to interpretation.

Your Organization’s Culture: Aspirational vs. Actual Values

We must live by our codes of conduct actively, not passively. They must be integral to the employees’ lived experience, not just a document that is pulled out when something goes wrong. Your organization’s purpose and values must resonate with and be part of day-to-day conversations from the top down. Those values should be referenced and recognizable in every interaction and in every internal and external decision.

3 Ways to Make the Aspirational Culture in Your Organization’s Code of Conduct the Actual Culture

So, how does an organization close the gap between the aspirational and the actual? How do they move from “this is how we would like to be” to “this is who we are”? Answering these questions involves considerable and sustained effort.

Here are our top three tips to get started.

1. Revisit Your Code of Conduct

Corporate values should be integrated into every policy and procedure, from recruitment and supplier selection to strategic decision-making in client conversations and about employee welfare. It should be a golden thread that joins everything else together.

Be sure your Code of Conduct:

• Makes clear what your organization stands for
• Clarifies how you make values-based decisions
• Describes how you expect employees to behave
• Explains the behavior that your employees should expect from their colleagues

Another thing to consider including in your code of conduct is an ethical decision-making framework. Ethical decision-making frameworks are often included in codes of conduct but are rarely referenced in actual meetings. Decisions are rarely tested or explained through the means that organizations have established for themselves for making “difficult” decisions.

Making values and decision-making frameworks part of the everyday discourse of an organization develops a shared ethical vocabulary and a way of expressing, discussing, and resolving ethical issues.

2. Celebrate Values

Many learning programs on codes of conduct focus on incidents, punishments, and ethical failures. This approach associates conduct with wrongdoing. But values are positive, not negative, so it is important to shift the focus to a celebration of good conduct.

Using scenarios in learning videos is a great way to illustrate organizational values. Showcasing employees making good decisions and managers applauding them for doing so is a powerful way of changing behavior and sustaining that change.

3. Maintain Continuous Education

A single training course on a code of conduct is unlikely to bring long-lasting organizational change. eLearning starts the conversation, but that conversation must be sustained through an ongoing program. Micro and spaced learning techniques are a great way of keeping the conversation going.

A Compliance Partner Can Bring Your Code of Conduct of Life

At GP Strategies, we are experts at bringing corporate purpose and values to life and embedding them successfully at all levels of an organization through practical and thought-provoking learning solutions. Learn more about how our work can help revitalize your Code of Conduct and insert your values and compliance requirements into everyday learning moments.

About the Authors

Renato Hoxha

Too often as learning and development (L&D) professionals, we struggle to prove the efficacy of our learning programs. Sometimes we don’t know quite what to measure. Even more often, we don’t know how to measure our impact. Why is that? To show credible impact, we need to approach measurement like scientists do.

Let’s say your sales department wants to improve sales volume. After a thorough needs analysis, you develop and deliver a rigorous sales skills training program. Now you want to know if it’s working. You look at the sales of your trainees and are thrilled to report that the trained salespeople are selling, on average, ten more units the month after training. Are these results credible? (Spoiler alert: probably not.)

Embrace the Science of Measurement

What are we really trying to do when we measure the impact of our learning programs? In essence, we are conducting a science experiment. And like any good science experiment, we must start with a hypothesis.

In our sales training example, our hypothesis could be, “Employees attending the new sales skills program will sell more units.”

But we need to be careful. Simply showing an increase in unit sales might not be the most credible metric to share with your stakeholders. What about the employees who did not attend? Did they improve? Was there a new product launch or more enticing customer incentives happening at the same time?

Measure More Accurately with an Observational Design Approach

In a science experiment, we need to account for other plausible explanations. One of the best ways to do this is to use test and control groups. The test group gets the new training, the control group does not.

This scientific approach is the same general method used in other disciplines. Researchers conducting clinical drug trials use it, and so do marketers evaluating an advertising campaign’s effectiveness. Does Drug A yield better effects than the placebo? Did Campaign A increase website traffic more than Campaign B? We compare the results between groups.

When comparing test and control groups, we should expand our hypothesis to reflect them, like so: “Employees attending the new sales skills program show greater sales improvement than those not attending.”

By framing the hypothesis this way, we set up our experiment. We identify how we will show success (or failure) by comparing the improvement in sales performance between our two groups.

In the L&D world, we rarely get the opportunity to run a true clinical trial, however tempting that may be. Instead, we follow an observational design approach. This means we study what’s already happening in our environment. We do not handpick the group that gets trained (the test group) versus the untrained group (the control group). We simply analyze the metrics from each group and compare them.

By truly testing our hypothesis and considering prior performance, our measurement is now more credible.

• Original Results: On average, trained salespeople increased sales by ten units the month after training.
• Revised Results: On average, trained salespeople increased sales by ten units the month after training. Untrained salespeople averaged a sales increase of six units during the same period.
• Further Refined Results: On average, trained salespeople showed an incremental sales increase of four units over the untrained salespeople the month after training.

Get Curious About What You Can Uncover

Taking prior performance into account is critical, but often it is not enough. The observational study approach presents problems not found in the clinical trial, where participants are carefully selected for specific attributes (such as demographics or health history). With an observational study, we need to rule out plausible reasons besides our training why someone’s performance may have improved. If we don’t address these other factors, a skeptical stakeholder will certainly challenge our findings!

Consider questions like these:

• Did newer salespeople benefit more from training?
• Did results vary by region?
• Did results vary by type of customer (e.g., size or industry)?

Get curious and ask questions to uncover whether our new training program contributed to the increase in sales or if it was something else. Exercising curiosity and critical thinking go a long way in identifying and ruling out plausible alternatives. In fact, each of the above questions becomes another hypothesis to prove or disprove.

As we test these alternatives, the chance that we will discover some very interesting things is high—and we will better understand what factors (in addition to training) are driving performance.

3 Steps to Improve Your Learning Measurement

1. Start with a Solid Hypothesis

Think about what you want to know and frame it as a hypothesis. Remember, a hypothesis is a well-thought-out proposition. For instance, we don’t simply hypothesize that “Our new onboarding program will be useful.” We hypothesize that “Newly hired employees completing our new onboarding program will have a lower 90-day turnover rate than new hires completing our old program.” The latter is much easier to test.

2. Put Your Hypothesis to the Test

Now it’s time to put that hypothesis to the test by pulling and analyzing data. Let’s assume this onboarding program posted good results. It showed a reduction in 90-day new hire turnover from 21% down to 12%. Can the onboarding program take all the credit? Now is the time to account for those other plausible explanations in your analysis. Get curious, exercise critical thinking, and dive in. Ask yourself, what else is going on that could affect my outcomes?

Let’s say that your organization also launched a mentorship program shortly after starting the new onboarding program. You will want to explore whether the onboarding or the mentoring (or a combination) led to the reduction. This requires adding another hypothesis or two and digging deeper.

Might some demographic variable influence the reduction in turnover as well? You may want to dig deeper into your analysis. Try segmenting the data by variables such as region, age of new hire, and level of education. Expanding your hypotheses to include factors like these will enrich both the insights you gain and the credibility of your results.

3. Plan to Take Action

At the outset of a measurement project, clarify your intent. Why are you measuring? How will you use your findings? Ask yourself:

• Am I measuring to prove it worked and to show we experienced a return on investment?
• Am I measuring because I genuinely want to know how to improve the program?
• What will I do if the results are unfavorable?
• What actions am I prepared to take based on the results?

Imagine if you discovered that new-hire turnover was influenced by the onboarding and mentoring programs both. What would you do? What if your sales training program only worked for salespeople selling into Customer Group B? How would you respond?

Asking these questions provides you with insights that are catalysts for action. Approaching measurement like a science experiment encourages deeper thinking into the cause and effect of workplace performance and encourages candid discussions about how to improve your offerings.

The Journey Toward Continuous Improvement

Measuring the impact of learning is a journey. Embrace it with a scientific mindset. Your measurement doesn’t have to be perfect—even modest measurement efforts will provide more information and insights than you had before you started! Sometimes, a simple and directionally positive shift is more than enough to initiate change.

Get started! We know you’ll be hooked.

Check out our Measurement Academy and learn how we help organizations uncover valuable L&D insights every day.

About the Authors

Bonnie Beresford

Bonnie Beresford, PhD, is a Senior Director of Performance and Learning Analytics at GP Strategies. Bonnie is widely known and respected as a leading authority on measuring the business impact of human capital programs. She is a popular conference speaker and co-author of the book, Developing Human Capital: Using Analytics to Plan and Optimize Your Learning and Development Investments. Bonnie will be your host for this learning experience. With over 20 years of experience in the field, her hallmark is linking investments in people to measurable business outcomes.

I need to be honest with you: I love PowerPoint. I do. I really do. I know, it’s not cool to admit that, but I am in my happy place when I’ve got the time to craft a really well-done slide deck. PowerPoint is my creative muse, and I’m often told that I’m pretty good at it. (I’ve created a YouTube channel largely dedicated to the craft of building professional PowerPoints—Presentation Plus-Ups.)

So, the question—and the underlying fear milling about in the back of my mind—is this: can generative artificial intelligence (AI) replace me? Are my PowerPoint and presentation crafting skills soon to be relegated to the dustbin of time? Am I a 21^st century blacksmith?

These are questions I’ve spent some considerable time contemplating, and the answer is no. Despite the hype and a few tempting videos on social media, generative AI in a standalone format like Open AI’s ChatGPT can not currently generate a professional turnkey presentation (nor the code to “hack” one) in a few clicks. The technology is not there in a raw untrained form. Now, with that being said, there is still a lot to like here, so follow me on the ins and outs of my learning journey. I’ll show you the end product I received and unpack the pros and cons of it all.

But first, here are a few disclaimers…

Okay, now that we’ve handled the backstory and requisite disclaimers, follow me on my journey. And, if you’d prefer to watch a video of my journey, check out the link below.

How ChatGPT Can Make Your Next PowerPoint Presentation

Generative AI Presentation Workflow

According to AI thought leader Josh Cavalier, the question of whether AI can generate a presentation is his “#1 workflow request.” So much so that he’s created a LinkedIn post and a nicely done PDF where he outlines three ways ChatGPT can be used to generate a PowerPoint presentation.

With Josh’s acknowledgement and permission, I put each of his recommended methods through their paces and found that his first workflow recommendation (using Word 365) was by far the most accessible for those not wearing pocket protectors.

Step #1: Develop Your ChatGPT Inputs

First, we’ll assume you’ve already created an account by visiting OpenAI. If you’ve done that, it is time to roll up your metaphorical sleeves and feed ChatGPT some inputs. Think of your inputs like the creative brief you might give an actual human being. Share details about the task, the audience, the topic, and any other desired details. Do your best to “feed” quality directions in, and you will be rewarded with a cleaner end product.

Following Josh’s recommendations, here’s a quick lift of my input text:

Task: Create a PowerPoint presentation.

Role: Professional PowerPoint Designer

• Organizes content efficiently

Audience: Prospective client

• Cares about value
• Cares about innovation

Create: PowerPoint presentation on innovation at GP Strategies

• Include an introduction slide.
• Use headings and bullets.
• Use markdown code.
• Exclude the slide number.

Intent: Educate audience on innovation at GP Strategies within the different divisions.

• Provide details focusing on our innovation.
• Highlight specific case studies.

After that, I clicked the magical green paper airplane icon and sent my query to the AI neural network. What happened next was pretty impressive. 

Slide

It created the title and agenda

Slide

A series of slide headers and bullets were nicely detailed.

Slide

While this is fundamentally solid information, it does not align with our very specific philosophy. In other words, these results still need to be interpreted by a seasoned professional.

Slide

In terms of finding different examples of solutions, ChatGPT did not excel at finding “plug and play” innovation examples. There is a lot of generic content here. But, if I had a proprietary version and could feed AI some specific dossiers, I bet it could parse out some very distinct information for me.

Slide

Again, very solid middle-of-the-road content. Not bad for a few seconds work with some relatively untrained data inputs!

Slide

It even provided some handy tips on how to transition this outline into PowerPoint.

This is impressive stuff. In a matter of seconds, Open AI’s ChatGPT knocked out a very solid outline that I could edit and refine. Of course, curating the bespoke images, graphic compositions, and media examples to support this would be way outside its realm at the moment, but as a research assistant, I’m buying what ChatGPT is selling—and apparently so is Microsoft, to the tune of 10 billion dollars!!!! They are in the middle of embedding ChatGPT’s essential goodness into a new feature called CoPilot that will deliver seamless AI support right into your favorite Office 365 products, including PowerPoint, Word, and Excel.

Step #2: Transfer from ChatGPT → Word365 → PowerPoint

For now, this is still a manual transfer affair. Which begs the question, and as Zoolander might ask, “How do I get the files in the computer?” I followed Mr. Cavalier’s lead and tested out his recommendations:

1. Open Word365 (Microsoft Word’s web version).
2. Select and Paste in the copy from ChatGPT.
3. Select File > Export to PowerPoint.
4. See what happens.

File > Export to PowerPoint presentation to auto-build your slides

You can choose a Microsoft design theme. (Hot tip: Just pick the white paper version and select your company theme later.)

Open. That. Presentation!

The end result is…well, it’s something. Here’s each slide…and here’s your very own copy if you’d like.

Slide

I obviously stuck with the basic PowerPoint Design recommendation. In reality, this would get swapped out for a strict corporate identity. Still, it’s fun to see what Microsoft’s Designer aligns with the text. (It sort of looks like Microsoft Designer grabbed a pic from the Hollywood classic, A Beautiful Mind.)

Slide

This reads like, “Hello. I am a robot putting words on a slide.” I would want to convert this into normal content, but there are a few useful keywords here. I like “showcase the power of innovation” and “driving value.” Those may be keepers.

Slide

The combination of PowerPoint’s generative Designer suggestion and the content of the bullets is a start. It looks like PowerPoint has entered its Mustard Phase. I like many of the core topics, but the words could use some reworking.

Slide

There’s a fair bit of both hallucinations and truthiness going on here, so while this is all interesting stuff, it’s not exactly usable. To make lemonade out of this content, I would reframe the slide’s focus. Something like: “GP Strategies – Innovation Overview.” Then the bullets would make sense. Each of these bullets has worth, so I could see developing unique feature slides to expand on the story. In this instance, the results are serving as a catalyst for ideation. Well done, Open AI!

Slide

Here’s a great example of where you need to be careful with generative AI. The bots are not terribly concerned with facts or truth, so this case study and the accompanying information may or may not be real. Still, if you read the stats as a placeholder, you can give it a pass and investigate later whether this is actually a case study worth mentioning.

Slide

I like the words on the page, but I would want to see if there is a real example to back it up. The fact that the AI bot even suggested this as a case study is very impressive. And, I like the concise “Challenge/Solution/Result” framing. These are excellent guardrails to provide a real-life human.

Slide

A respectable summary-ish slide. There’s stuff to work with here.

Recap: How Good is ChatGPT at Making PowerPoints?

As an unfiltered standalone, generative AI’s initial work product might do if we were talking about a fifth-grade report on what Mom or Dad does for a living. But, as it stands, it is not quite ready for Madison Avenue. 

Additionally, there are numerous hallucinations within the content—in particular, the case study slides. You’d want to give this to a seasoned presentation crafter to parse out what’s real, what should be removed, and what should be investigated. These are the types of responsibilities that would still fall under the role of a trained professional human. This gives me comfort. For now.

There is also the art and science of cadencing the flow of a compelling presentation: the slide builds and animations; the selection and placement of media such as videos, compositions, and GIFs; not to mention the curation and editing of media throughout the organization. And we haven’t even discussed the topic of audience interactivity! Hey, there is still a place for us humans! This gives me even greater comfort. For the long-term future.

ChatGPT’s Core Strengths for PowerPoint Creation

In terms of pushing forward a presentation, where does ChatGPT shine? Here are a few areas that are quick and easy “wins” for someone looking to accelerate their presentation development.

AI Win #1: Turbocharging the Presentation Outline Process

The process of entering in a few prompts and receiving worthwhile presentation outline content in seconds is precisely the type of result that legitimately justifies the hype. Moreover, by including special prompts requesting “markdown” formatting, as illustrated in this article, professionals can further streamline the transfer of content from ChatGPT→Word→PowerPoint in a rapid 1-2-3 workflow.

AI Win #2: Unblanking the Page

By its very nature, generative AI shines at generating content! For those that struggle with staring at a blank page, tools like ChatGPT will at least give you something to react to that you can edit or adapt using further prompts. Writer’s block, begone!

Essential Tips for Responsible AI Usage

Because the nature of this article focused more on the mechanics of whether ChatGPT can generate a PowerPoint presentation, I’d like to highlight a few important caveats around what we should and should not be doing as we use AI to speed up our presentation workflow.

Do not upload client data into ChatGPT’s open-source inputs! As my GP colleague, Lorraine Frazier-Aich, wrote in her recent article about responsible AI usage, “Inputting sensitive information into a generative AI is like writing your company secrets in the clouds.” Not only is this not cool, but it is also a violation of trust and data privacy laws and could have much sterner consequences for your career. However, if you’d like to query your favorite generative AI tools by pointing it to publicly available information, that’s an acceptable alternative.

• If you use AI, be transparent. If you are planning to use AI-generated content in a professional context on a 1:1 basis, make sure to cite the work.

• Align with your organization’s plan surrounding the use of AI. At GP Strategies, we’ve established a guiding set of human-centered principles surrounding the use of AI. For any meaningful integration of AI into a company or client workflow, it is essential that we use these as guardrails to keep our efforts in check.

My AI Journey Takeaways: Our Jobs Are Safe

My experience with generative AI has already convinced me of its merit: not as a designer, but as a research assistant. Its ability to be fed information and then return quality outlines—which may be further refined with additional queries—is breathtakingly powerful. Further, the promise of gaining access to future versions of AI protected by a corporate firewall where internal information may be used has me extremely excited about the productivity gains for visual storytelling.

In very real terms, AI is not replacing my role as a creative director. But it has the potential to relieve me (and you!) of some drudge work, freeing us up for higher-level creative pursuits. This makes me very happy. And it should make you happy, too.

Now it’s your turn

By feeding organizationally-compliant quality inputs into the generative AI tool of your choice, I invite you to test the waters using Mr. Cavalier’s recommended prompts and see where it takes you on your next presentation journey. Responsibly, of course.

About the Authors

Michael Thiel

With nearly two decades of thought leadership in corporate L&D, Michael Thiel has a passion for developing experiential learning that “sticks”. Working on the agency side, Michael has directed award-winning content for some of the most admired brands in the world, including: Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, Lexus, Toyota, Honda, Acura, BMW, Kia, and Sub-Zero Group.

The value of project management is in its ability to protect investments and increase the probability of successful project outcomes—both of which make managing costs a critical function. Using the correct cost-visualization tools can enable valuable, robust, and mature conversations with business stakeholders and sponsors at the point of need. 

So, what kind of data visualization is best suited to engage business stakeholders and sponsors? Though the standard cumulative revenue and cost-tracking visualization techniques are important to our business accounting, they fall short of delivering a customer-centric point of view that facilitates a collaborative discussion in a fast-moving environment. 

A burndown chart is a much more effective tool that invites discussion, offers insights, illustrates decision impact, promotes confidence, and can effectively position everyone involved for success. 

What Is a Burndown Chart?

Scrum, commonly used in agile software development, revolutionized software development by prioritizing iterative development, regular retrospectives, and continuous improvement. As teams embraced these principles, they needed a visual representation to track progress and forecast project completion. The burndown chart became a popular tool in agile software development. The concept is the same whether looking at the burndown of points in a sprint or the cost associated with the effort: a burndown chart depicts the amount invested and the total investment remaining against a defined time expectation. 

The burndown chart’s simplicity and effectiveness soon caught the attention of project managers (PMs) across various industries. Many have found applications for burndown charts in marketing campaigns, product launches, construction projects, and more. Regardless of industry or project purpose, the underlying principles remain consistent: visualize investment against time, stay on track, and deliver value. 

Components of a Burndown Chart

A burndown chart essentially comprises two primary lines: the “Budget” line and the “Actual” line, as seen in the example below. The Budget line represents the projected completion rate based on the cost baseline. It follows a downward slope from the project’s total value to zero over its duration. 

On the other hand, the Actual line portrays the actual costs incurred. It illustrates the amount invested against the time elapsed. Ideally, the Actual line should mirror the Budget line, indicating that actual costs align with planned costs. Deviations between the two lines provide valuable insights into project cost performance. 

Why Are Burndown Charts Important for Project Cost Management?

A burndown chart offers PMs and sponsors an abundance of information that can steer project success. 

Visualize the Velocity of Resource Utilization

The Actual line’s steepness reflects the work velocity completed during specific time frames. When the Actual line drops sharply, it indicates a higher resource utilization or more costs used during that period than were planned. Conversely, a more gradual Actual line slope indicates that fewer costs are consumed. This could happen because fewer resources than planned were involved during this period. 

Detect Issues Early

Any discrepancies between the Budget and Actual lines serve as early warning signals, allowing PMs to promptly identify potential issues and action plans. 

Gain Predictive Insights 

By extrapolating current trends, PMs and sponsors can anticipate whether the project will be completed on time and within budget. This foresight can promote important discussions about risk-mitigation protocols, the ability to potentially redirect the product requirement volume, and the potential need for increased funds with enough time to line up more funding while maintaining project continuity. 

For example, the following chart shows a snapshot of this project’s actual performance as of April. We can tell by the Actual line that the project used fewer financial resources than planned in January and February. 

The sharp drop in the Actual line of the graph indicates that, in March and April, resources were used faster than planned; the velocity of cost incurred accelerated in March and April. We can tell by looking at the Actual line that our increase exceeded the planned spending for these two months. 

We can also see that March and April spending exceeded the underspend in January and February. The PM can conclude that if we were to spend at the planned rate—which is represented by the slope of the Budget line—the project would run out of funds before the target contract ends. 

This triggers actions to investigate what caused this increased spending and to determine whether overspending was intentional or circumstantial. If intentional, things are on track, and at some point in the future, we should see a slowdown in resource spending, which would be indicated through the Actual line leveling off. 

If the spending rate in March and April was not intentional, then the PM needs to determine what caused the accelerated spending and create a plan to correct it. Once the cause of the variance (intentional or circumstantial) from the plan is understood, the conversation with the sponsor can occur. The PM can point to variances in the burndown chart to facilitate appropriate conversations about redirecting and reconciling the plan. 

Best Practices for Using Burndown Charts 

Burndown charts provide a potent psychological impact because they show that the available funds invested have been reduced over time. This serves as a forcing function between the PM and the sponsor to discuss the value being delivered against the investment made into the project. The transparency of the burndown chart fosters confidence and trust. 

Follow these three best practices when sharing a burndown chart with a project sponsor to make a demonstrated impact. 

Share Regular Updates 

Visibility breeds confidence. Share regular updates through a monthly or even weekly burndown chart to build trust between the PM and the sponsor. Having conversations around the investment that is actively being made enables discussions about project health and any necessary adjustments that could create further alignment with project objectives. 

Communicate with the Team

Frequent communication increases collaboration. Frequent discussions allow all stakeholders, including the PM, to candidly address the project at hand and the ecosystem in which it lives. This partnership enables a broader perspective where the project’s needs stay at the forefront. Further, this format allows the PM to invite the stakeholders to partner in the decision-making process, which ensures that customer value is always delivered, even in an unpredictable environment. It embraces and enables agility. 

The burndown chart catalyzes changes in stakeholder discussions. Instead of conversations fixated on budget constraints, they shift to conversations about the impact of changing business priorities and how to handle remaining funds. The conversation shift to adjusting priorities and optimizing resource allocation is powerful because it makes PMs and sponsors focus on the value created by the funds already invested. 

Adjust Plans Based on Burndown Data

Real data fosters better decision-making. The burndown chart is rich with data and easily accessible and actionable, supporting data-driven decisions for the sponsor and stakeholders and putting the PM in a good position to discuss value. As programs compete for funding during budget cycles, the data provided will support an informed decision-making process for leadership. 

Harnessing the Power of Burndown Charts 

By embracing the burndown chart, PMs can develop deeper partnerships with sponsors and stakeholders to drive data-driven decision-making. It changes the stakeholder conversation to one focused on delivering value and remaining responsive to changes. 

The burndown chart provides a level of predictability, control, and confidence because the stakeholders can visualize the data, participate in the decision-making process, and see the impact of their decisions. 

Reach out to us for project management support to drive success with your next initiative.  

About the Authors

Rocky Ellens

Rocky Ellens is a GP Strategies Sales Enablement Practice leader, helping drive client business-to-business sales team performance. Rocky has over 15 years of experience providing innovative thought leadership and performance consulting across Fortune 100 clients in Manufacturing, Retail, Finance, Food and Beverage, and IT market segments. He holds an MS in Human Resources and Organizational Development. He is a retired Army Colonel experienced at providing a foundation of leadership training and teaming designed to pull work groups together in pursuit of a common objective or goal. Follow Rocky on LinkedIn

Bill Loudon

Bill Loudon, Director Business Consulting, has over 20 years of delivering solutions for Fortune 500 companies. He specializes in defining and executing initiatives, programs and projects that enable companies to achieve their strategic goals and objectives. Specifically focused on increasing productivity. He works with organizations to develop, implement, and adopt solutions to business problems. With a focus on people, process, technology, and data to bring those solutions to life. Bill is an expert in program/project management, agile at the team level and agile at scale. He has his MBA from Wake Forest University and Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Humboldt State University. Among his certificates are Six Sigma Black Belt and Project Management Masters Certificate from Villanova University.

Many organizations are looking at how to make their daily processes more efficient, and a primary way to do this is by introducing a new and effective technological solution. However, the success of a tech change can be supported or inhibited by your company culture.  

Identifying whether your culture is a risk factor before implementing a tech change can ensure your adoption is smooth and successful. 

The Link Between Company Culture and Technology Change

When introducing a new technology into an organization, many leaders don’t consider how their company culture may affect its success—either positively or negatively.  

Sometimes, when we introduce new technology, people will resist the change. It’s either because they’re allowed to (as there isn’t enough structure holding people accountable)or because company leaders haven’t looked at whether their current culture will inhibit or support the change. 

Usually, a company culture has been established for so many years that it’s difficult to change. In a change-averse culture—or culture in which people aren’t held accountable to change—technological changes are usually much harder to establish. 

Take, for example, a company in which several departments use different systems where leaders want to implement one system for all departments to make the whole organization more effective. Perhaps the company has been siloed, with each department working in its own vacuum. A culture that allows a siloed organization will inhibit this new technology change. The tech can be implemented regardless, of course, but it’s unlikely to breed the desired results without changing the culture first.

How Do You Know If Your Organizational Culture is a Risk Factor?

Until a company culture is understood, no multimillion-dollar tech implementation will take the organization to where the leaders want it to be. Tech does not drive culture. Instead, tech implementation tends to uncover cultural aspects that will inhibit the tech to reaching its capacity. 

To assess whether your organizational culture may be a risk factor to your technological change, organizational change management (OCM) professionals will conduct assessments looking at the magnitude and readiness of change in the organization.  

The results of the assessment will allude to your company culture and will answer questions about your organization, like: 

• Do you have history of success with change? 
• Does your organization embrace change? 
• Does our organization have the unwritten rules, behaviors, and culture for this project to be successful?  

To this last question, anything other than a definite yes is considered a red flag.  

If it’s possible that your culture may inhibit a tech change, you might want to consider doing a cultural assessment. There are tools to help with this, or you could bring a cultural change expert into your organization to work with you to make the shift.  

How Will a Change-Averse Culture Affect Your Tech Change?

Culture is ingrained. It takes years to establish. It’s the way we work, the way we function. Culture is what makes a group of people who they are. On an individual level, culture is also deeply established—a person’s beliefs and support structures are all included. Culture must be looked at both at an organizational level and at an individual level.  

If a change-averse culture isn’t addressed, and people don’t adapt properly, this can prevent the change from happening altogether. Additionally, if people are not ready for change, they may find ways to work around the new technology or may use it in unintended ways.  

How Can You Address a Change-Averse Culture?

Change needs to start from the top. Leaders must show a level of visible and active support for a change. There needs to be a definite understanding that the company culture will adapt to this solution, or the solution will not deliver to expectations. 

If it’s necessary to lead a cultural shift to ensure the success of a tech solution, people must be held accountable. If a leader has allowed a person in their company to inhibit the tech solution, the leader is inadvertently contributing to the culture that won’t allow change. Everyone needs to be held accountable. 

Behaviors contribute to company culture, and these behaviors are either contributors or inhibitors to change. To achieve organizational change, behaviors must be changed on a micro level as well as an organizational level. 

Culture: Your Technology Adoption Inhibitor or Contributor 

When implementing a tech change in your organization, your company culture will be either a contributor or an inhibitor to the change. If it’s an inhibitor, you’ll have to address the causes, and if it’s a contributor, you’ll be able to leverage the culture for your benefit. 

As OCM professionals, we have strategies and approaches to address technology integration within an organization and can outline what needs to happen to help people transition into the new way of working.  

About the Authors

Julyan Lee

Julyan is the Organizational Change Management Practice Lead at GP Strategies within Platform Adoption. His focus is on executing the OCM disciplines of Prosci, ADKAR, SAP Activate, Infor IDM Methodologies in both waterfall and Agile project environments. He is responsible for building GP standard OCM processes and methodologies, and ensuring uniformity in their application across OCM resources and their projects. He also supports business development teams in their sales pursuits, in formulating OCM solutions and proposal responses, and presenting to clients.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a valuable storytelling tool, but first, we need to understand the basics of how generative AI services work.

The generative AI process:

1. Humans interact with a chat interface and provide prompts such as, “Write a story about a lost dog.”
2. Large language models (LLMs), which operate like trained brains, process the prompt and add it to a training data set for similar future prompts about lost dog stories.
3. The LLMs reference a set of rules and structured data sets to determine what information should be included in the story about the lost dog.
4. The LLMs then feed the results (the lost dog story) back to human users via the chat interface.

Armed with this knowledge, we can now explore AI and storytelling in more detail.

A Standard for Storytelling

Good storytelling, while being highly subjective, can be defined using the same criteria we use to assess the quality of AI-generated content.

Is the story:

• sensible?
• specific?
• interesting?
• safe?
• grounded in fact or evidence?

Can AI Tell Stories with Minimal Human Input?

Provide a prompt as simple as “tell me a story” into a platform like Open AI’s ChatGPT, and you’ll see for yourself. AI voice generator platforms vocalize your content using AI voices and can create models using your very own voice. On the surface, it’s a resounding yes that AI can write, tell, and read stories.

But AI does have limitations that we should consider:

• An inability to explore and exercise curiosity
• An inability to understand context
• A lack of emotional intelligence
• Questionable ethical judgement
• Limited adaptability

The following real-world AI-generated story examples illustrate some of those limitations.

• The first short film scripted entirely by AI in 2016, Sunspring, is baffling and odd when processed by a rational, emotional human. One could have argued at the time that AI would never replace humans for script writing.
• The Safe Zone was written and directed by AI. It’s more refined than Sunspring but still a bit clunky.
• Shorts like The Frost take human-written scripts and leverage image-making AI to bring them to life in new and abstract ways.

While surely interesting, the content quality in these examples isn’t up to snuff.  

• Is the content sensible? Not so much.
• Specific? Nope.
• Interesting? Perhaps.
• Safe? Yes.
• Grounded in fact or evidence? Probably not.

Good stories would check all these quality control boxes, but AI by itself just cannot meet today’s standards. The human brain must still actively participate in the creation of AI-derived stories through:

• Initial prompting
• Further refinement of those prompts
• Digesting and interpreting content generated by the AI platform
• Overall creative input and vision

AI as a Collaborative Tool for Storytelling

The storytelling community wrestles with two big questions when it comes to AI:

• Can humans and AI come together to create and tell better stories?
• Is there a perfect balance between how much of a story is derived from the human brain versus what’s augmented by AI?

The answer may be a matter of perspective. Aaron Kemmer, who co-produced The Safe Zone, said,

I could easily see AI leading to personalized movies…where you can see any variation of any film you’ve ever wanted. Watch Tom Cruise play as Iron Man battling Darth Vader…or an infinite number (of) ideas.

Research by Eric Nichols, Leo Gao, Yurii Vasylkiv, and Randy Gomez suggests that “collaborative story generation” may be the most favorable way to leverage AI in storytelling. They note the advantages of collaboration through expanded creativity and acknowledge the disadvantages of a poorly “tuned” generator model and the variance associated with human emotion. The intricacy of human emotion is something that is not easily deciphered through code.

AI collaboration may be a new tool for a creative storyteller’s work, like an artist with a new type of brush. For others, co-creation may be limited to experimenting with initial prompts to spark ideas. Either way, collaborative story generation can leverage AI and human strengths to develop content quickly, accurately, and consistently while balancing human creativity, curiosity, and emotional intelligence.

Turning a Blind Eye to All AI Storytelling

Storytelling is deeply rooted in the human experience, and the pursuit of storytelling is as old as human speech. As a storyteller, there are intangible feelings and perspectives that influence my position on AI.

AI cannot:

• experience heartbreak.
• feel intense joy or fear.
• draw on lived experiences and express them in an authentically human way.
• fully express the complex feelings behind the delivery of spoken words.

Ask ChatGPT to write you a love letter and see if it’s sensible, specific, interesting, safe, and grounded. Then, ask yourself is it’s emotionally compelling and personally meaningful. Although AI can anticipate emotional responses based on data, effectiveness is measured in the human response.

Effective human response is something AI cannot do, and there’s evidence to support this position. In a study about peoples’ ability to distinguish human-written from AI-generated poetry, Nils Köbis and Luca Mossink found that“…people prefer human-written to algorithm-generated poems, which is unaffected by the information about algorithmic presence…”

Humans prefer human content. We may be limited in our consistency, accuracy, and ability to crunch huge data sets or work 24/7, but human strengths (like creativity, curiosity, and emotional intelligence) are in direct contrast to AI’s limitations.

Determine How Useful AI’s Storytelling Value Is for You

Whether your AI use case is professional or personal, exploring AI’s storytelling strengths and limitations through your own lens is worthwhile.

Complete this simple exercise to gauge your perspective:

1. Set a timer for 30 minutes.
2. Open a blank Word/Google/Pages document.
3. Using only the inspiration from your own mind, write a short story.
4. After 30 minutes, stop writing and read what you wrote.
5. Summarize your writing into a plot.
6. Type the plot as a prompt in your favorite generative AI (text) platform (“write a story about…”).
7. Compare the AI’s output to what you wrote.
   • If you feel that the AI-generated story is better than what you wrote, you may be a good candidate for using AI exclusively for narrative writing.
   • If you’re intrigued by what the AI produced and find yourself wondering how it could be different with a few tweaks, you’re probably a good candidate for co-creation.
   • If you’re not satisfied with the AI-generated story, you may gravitate to a storytelling process that’s less influenced by AI (if at all).

When I completed the exercise myself, the results were impactful.

I used the Rytr AI platform and a single prompt for the AI-generated story. Here’s how the first line of each story started (you can read both stories at the end of this article):

• Human-written: “The harsh slap of Jake’s mechanical pencil on the linoleum floor intruded on the focused silence of English class.”
• AI-generated: “In a small-town high school, Jake, an average student with a passion for writing, finds himself faced with yet another creative writing assignment.”

Where Do We Go From Here?

How you use generative AI in the creative space is up to you, but it is important to understand why you’re using it.

• Is there something you’re trying to achieve?
• What’s the incentive or payoff for using AI to generate stories?
• Is it a recreational or playful activity that’s simply entertaining for you?

Think critically about why you’re using AI and consider the benefits and potential drawbacks for your use case. For example:

• The benefits of AI’s efficiency and speed may trump the need for the emotional depth and impact delivered by the human touch.
• Content may demand deeply personal human reflection based on lived experiences.

Storytelling, whether used in a professional solution or as performance art, requires the human strengths of curiosity and creativity to generate an idea. Barring a Terminator-like dystopian future, generative AI tools will continue to be just that: tools.

Comparing a Human Story to an AI-Written Story

For the curious, my original story and the story generated by Rytr AI are included below.

Original Human-Written Story

The harsh slap of Jake’s mechanical pencil on the linoleum floor intruded on the focused silence of English class. Jolted from their studious trance, pairs of eyes suddenly darted in Jake’s direction. The unexpected noise being a temporary annoyance, they quickly resettled back on their own papers and fervently moving pencils.

Jake had a bit of a reputation for breaking tension in class. Sometimes it was literally breaking wind in the middle of a lecture, causing relentless snickering and prompting a dagger stare from the teacher. On other occasions he’d time fake coughs in with every other pause in the teacher’s natural speech breaks. Jake had a lot of inventive ways to draw attention to himself, but like the boy who cried wolf, his antics rarely caused much of a stir anymore.

On this occasion, however, dropping his pencil on the floor wasn’t a plea for attention. Jake had a revelation. The pencil rolling off his desk was a byproduct of discovery—a casualty of a eureka moment.

From the moment the teacher assigned the creative writing exercise at the beginning of class, Jake struggled to break the page with a compelling first sentence. He didn’t see himself as creative, felt he had no original ideas, and generally hated writing. He was tempted to break out one of his go-to antics and make urgent restroom runs every five minutes (claiming he had uncontrollable and explosive diarrhea), but he had resisted the urge.

After 15 minutes spinning his wheels, the realization struck him like a freight train. He shifted his weight in his chair to reach for his backpack, sending the mechanical pencil on its journey over the edge of the desk.

“My Chromebook!” he thought.

Most of the time, Jake and his fellow students used their Chromebooks in lieu of textbooks during most of their classes. In English class, however, it was always a rule that the laptops had to stay in students’ backpacks during writing exercises.

By the time all the temporarily distracted eyeballs returned to their own papers, Jake had his Chromebook out and flipped the screen open. The teacher, conditioned not to reward Jake’s antics with much care, hadn’t noticed the purposeful snub of the classroom rules.

Remembering a comment his dad made at dinner earlier in the week about how AI was impacting his job, Jake Googled “free AI essay writer.” His Dad worked in Marketing for a small company, and Jake remembered him saying, “That AI is going to take my job. No one’s going to need me to create anything anymore.” Like lots of teens, Jake knew that parents complaining about tech was an invitation to explore it more deeply. If parents didn’t like it, there was probably something a 14-year-old kid could get out of it.

Sure enough, Jake discovered a treasure trove of generative AI platforms promising to write his essay for him within seconds. Many claimed to do it for free just by signing up for a trial version of the software. Within seconds, Jake was on his way to not only finishing his creative writing assignment but being the first to slap the desk and loudly proclaim, “Done!”

The teacher’s disapproval of Jake’s loud outburst and the sudden recognition that his Chromebook was on his desk had impending consequences to be sure, but no dark cloud of discipline could dampen Jake’s shining pride, free spirit, and sense of accomplishment in that moment.

“Why doesn’t everyone do this!?!” he wondered.

AI-Generated Story (No Refined Prompt)

Initial prompt used to generate this story: “A student named Jake realizes that he no longer needs to use paper and pencil to write essays in his high school English class. Rather, he can use generative AI as a storytelling tool for a creative writing assignment.”

In a small-town high school, Jake, an average student with a passion for writing, finds himself faced with yet another creative writing assignment. As he sits at his desk, staring at the blank sheet of paper in front of him, he can’t help but feel discouraged. Writing essays has always seemed like a tedious task to him.

One day, while browsing the internet for writing tips and inspiration, Jake stumbles upon a new AI tool that claims to be capable of generating unique and creative stories. Intrigued by the idea, he decides to give it a try for his next assignment.

With a mix of curiosity and skepticism, Jake types in his essay prompt and watches as the AI begins to generate paragraphs filled with imaginative ideas. The words flow effortlessly onto the screen, painting vivid pictures in Jake’s mind. He is amazed at how the AI can understand the essence of storytelling and effortlessly craft compelling narratives.

Feeling inspired by the AI’s suggestions, Jake starts incorporating its ideas into his own writing. He adds his personal touch to the story, refining it to fit his unique voice. As he continues typing away on his keyboard, he realizes that this newfound tool has opened a world of possibilities for him.

The day of submission arrives, and Jake hands in his essay confidently. His English teacher is puzzled as she reads through it – it’s unlike anything she has ever seen from him before. The story is captivating, filled with unexpected twists and turns that keep her engaged until the very end.

Impressed by Jake’s work, she praises his creativity and unique perspective. However, when she asks him about his process or any struggles he faced while writing it, Jake hesitates momentarily but then decides to come clean about using an AI tool.

Expecting disappointment or reprimand from his teacher, Jake is surprised when she commends him for thinking outside the box and using technology as a storytelling aid. She encourages him to continue honing his writing skills and explore different writing techniques.

From that day onward, Jake no longer sees writing assignments as a chore. He sees them as opportunities to experiment, collaborate with AI, and unleash his creativity. He learns to strike a balance between utilizing the AI tool for inspiration and maintaining his unique voice in his writing.

As Jake continues to grow as a writer, he discovers that the AI tool is just one piece of the puzzle. It may provide ideas and suggestions, but it’s his own imagination and storytelling abilities that truly bring the essays to life. And so, armed with this newfound confidence, Jake embarks on a journey of self-expression through words, exploring the limitless possibilities of storytelling in the digital age.

About the Authors

Eric Myers

For the last two decades, Eric cut his professional teeth in government, small business, startups, and top Fortune companies. At the same time, he moonlighted as a creative writer, spoken word poet, and facilitator. Eric enjoyed great successes, endured tragic struggles, and harvested valuable life lessons that came in handy when he realized there was a unique opportunity to blend elements of his performance art with business. Eric began working with and coaching public speakers, helping them unearth compelling stories so they could win more business. As Eric describes it, "When it comes to helping you craft your story, my goal is to make you as great, compelling, and memorable as you can be when the audience is looking at you."