AI is more than ChatGPT: time for mature AI conversations in communication
As a communication professional, you’ve probably noticed it: whenever AI comes up in conversation, one name dominates within seconds: ChatGPT. It’s accessible, and often impressive. But when AI equals ChatGPT in our collective consciousness, we’re not just limiting our toolkit. We’re limiting our thinking about what is responsible, and possible.
This isn’t about dismissing ChatGPT but recognising that the future of communication requires us to think beyond a single interface and engage with AI as a diverse, complex ecosystem that demands strategic direction and ethical consideration.
The ChatGPT reflex runs deep
It’s understandable how we got here. For many, ChatGPT was the first real encounter with generative AI. It’s accessible, free (in its basic version), and OpenAI has done brilliant marketing work. But just as we don’t “Google on Google” (okay, we do say that but what we’re really doing is search), AI should be broader than one tool or one company.
And the reflex goes deeper than you might think. Even organisations offering AI training for communication professionals tend to center their content around ChatGPT. Blog titles like “ChatGPT is your new best friend” and guides highlighting CustomGPTs. I totally get it. It’s what most people know. But if we’re educating others about AI, looking beyond a single platform becomes essential.
When we automatically translate AI applications into “just throw it in ChatGPT,” we miss more than alternatives. We develop a limited mental map of what AI can mean for our work, our organisations, and the people we serve.
What we gain by looking beyond one platform
Different AI models aren’t just technically different, they’re built on different principles and optimised for different purposes. ChatGPT is one implementation of one type of AI model, developed by one company with specific choices and priorities.
Claude, for instance, excels at nuanced text analysis and processing long documents with strong context retention. Google’s Gemini offers seamless integration with collaborative workspaces. Perplexity specialises in research with transparent source attribution.
Knowing multiple tools mean you can choose deliberately. It’s like facing a communication challenge. Would you apply the ADKAR model to an engagement challenge?
Need deep policy analysis? Pick the tool built for that. Need quick social posts? There’s a tool optimized for that too. It’s about having the right tool for each job.
For inclusive communication, this becomes even more powerful. Different AI models have different training data, different strengths in understanding diverse contexts, and different approaches to nuance. By working with multiple models, you get multiple perspectives, helping you spot blind spots and serve diverse audiences more effectively.
When your organisation understands AI as an ecosystem rather than a single tool, you build genuine capability beyond tool proficiency. This means:
- Flexibility when platforms change pricing or features
- Continuity when services experience downtime
- Adaptability as new tools emerge and old ones evolve
- Strategic advantage from choosing tools that best fit each need
Organisations that develop “AI literacy” rather than “ChatGPT skills” stay relevant as the landscape evolves, and it evolves faster than we can spell supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
Different AI platforms offer different privacy guarantees, data handling practices, and ethical commitments. Understanding these differences empowers you to:
- Choose platforms that align with your organisation’s values
- Protect sensitive information by matching tools to data sensitivity levels
- Meet compliance requirements across different jurisdictions
- Build trust by being transparent about your AI choices
For communication professionals handling embargoed information, confidential strategies, or personal data, this knowledge transforms from “nice to have” to essential professional competency.
The most transformative AI applications for communication aren’t always the general ones. They’re often specialised tools that:
- Analyse sentiment and discourse patterns at scale
- Optimise content timing and distribution for maximum reach
- Make communication more accessible across languages and abilities
- Surface insights from data you couldn’t process manually
- Maintain brand consistency while enabling creativity
When you think “we’re covered, we use ChatGPT,” you might miss the specialized tool that could 10x your impact in a specific area. Broad awareness creates opportunity.
Understanding the AI landscape builds your capacity to:
- Evaluate output quality across different tools and contexts
- Recognize limitations and know when human judgment is essential
- Spot potential biases by comparing multiple perspectives
- Make ethical choices about which tools to use and how
- Lead conversations about responsible AI use in your organisation
This matters especially for ethical AI practice. You can’t think critically about what you don’t understand. By engaging with diverse AI tools, you develop the discernment to use them wisely, in service of communication that’s not just efficient, but just.
What alternatives actually exist?
Before we discuss how to break through the ChatGPT-trap, it’s useful to know what else is out there. Here’s an overview of AI tools valuable for communication professionals:
Tools marked with * I have personally tested. Other tools are included based on research and user experiences.
- Claude* (Anthropic): Excellent at analyzing long documents, writing nuanced texts, and complex reasoning tasks. Strong in understanding context and writing in different styles
- Gemini* (Google): Native integration with Google Workspace, good for collaborative document work and multimodal tasks (text + image).
- Microsoft Copilot*: Integrated in Microsoft 365 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook), broadly deployable for various communication tasks.
- Perplexity*: Specialised in research with source attribution, ideal for fact-checking and gathering current information.
- Copy.ai: Focused on social media content and advertising
- Grammarly*: AI-driven writing assistance with style suggestions and corrections
- Hemingway Editor*: Makes your texts clearer and more readable by flagging complex sentences
- Jasper: Specifically for marketing copy and brand voice consistency
- Notion AI: Integrated in your knowledge management and documentation
- Quillbot*: Paraphrasing, rewriting and writing improvement – useful for varying texts
- SciSpace*: Search and understand scientific literature, ideal for research-intensive communication
- Canva AI*: For quick social media visuals within templates, with AI-supported design
- Castmagic: Convert podcast content into social media posts and show notes
- DALL-E*: AI image generation from OpenAI for creative visuals
- Descript*: Transcription, editing and podcast production via text – you edit audio as if it’s a document
- Midjourney: High-quality AI image generation with distinctive aesthetic
- Riverside.fm*: Podcast recording with AI-driven transcription and automatic clips
- Synthesia*: For video content with AI avatars and presentations
- Fathom: Meeting recorder with highlights and summaries
- Fireflies.ai: Automatic minutes with action items and search function
- Otter.ai*: Real-time transcription and meeting summaries
- Zoom transcription*: Automatic transcription within Zoom meetings
This list is not complete. The AI landscape changes rapidly and new tools emerge constantly. Consider this a starting point for exploration, not a definitive guide.
The point isn’t that you need to use them all, but that you know they exist and when you might deploy which one. Experiment, compare, and choose consciously.
Breaking through the ChatGPT trap
It’s not about abandoning or boycotting ChatGPT. It’s an excellent tool for many applications. It’s about developing a broader perspective:
Experiment broadly: Try multiple platforms for the same task. Ask the same prompt to ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. Notice the differences in tone-of-voice, structure, and usability. Many tools have free trial versions. Use them to test what fits your working style.
Think in use cases, not tools: Don’t start with “what can ChatGPT do for me?” but with “what communication challenge do I have, and which AI tool best fits that need?” Do you want in-depth analysis of a policy document? Quick social media posts? Visual content? Accessible communication for diverse audiences? Each of these tasks may have a different optimal tool.
Follow the field: There’s tremendous activity in AI. By only following ChatGPT updates, you miss half the developments. Also follow other platforms and use cross-platform news sources.
Talk about AI, not brand names: Try consciously saying “AI” instead of automatically “ChatGPT.” This small linguistic shift helps you and others think more broadly. And when you’re specific: mention the task (“I used an AI tool for text analysis”) rather than just the brand.
Learn the fundamentals: Understand what large language models are, how they work, and what their limitations are. Then you can better assess which tool is appropriate when. You don’t need to become an AI engineer, but basic knowledge helps enormously in making smart choices.
Consider ethical implications: Different AI tools have different approaches to bias, privacy, transparency, and accessibility. For communication professionals, especially those committed to inclusive communication, this isn’t just a technical question but a values question. Which tools align with your commitment to fairness and inclusion?
What this requires from communicados
None of this means every communication professional needs to become a data scientist. But it does mean we should:
- Be technologically literate (understand what a model does and doesn’t do)
- Stay ethically sharp (bias, privacy, transparency, accessibility)
- Lead strategically (AI as part of organisational policy, not as a toy)
- Dare to use new vocabulary (including toward leadership and IT)
- Center inclusion (whose voices are amplified or silenced by our tool choices?)
In other words
ChatGPT is an excellent starting point for the conversation about AI in communication. But it shouldn’t be the endpoint. Those who want to deploy AI seriously must look beyond the tool and have conversations about capabilities, values, and responsibility.
AI doesn’t change our profession because it can write. It changes our profession because it forces us to think more carefully about what communication is and should be, and who it should serve.
In other words: less “writing prompts,” more systems thinking. Less technical fascination, more strategic and ethical leadership. That is conversation worth having.#
Noteworthy
This blog post was created in collaboration with Claude AI. I determined the direction, contributed content, made choices about what to include or exclude, and did the final editing. This is exactly what I mean by conscious AI use: humans lead, AI supports.
It also reflects my commitment to ethical and inclusive communication in an AI-powered world. As communication professionals, our choices about which tools we use and how we use them shape whose voices get heard and whose perspectives get centered. That’s not just a technical question but a question of justice.
