The Future of AI and Online Communities

AI, since its inception, has become an integral part of online communities. Earlier, online communities had features like internal discussion forums, wikis, etc. However, with consistent AI enhancements, communities have evolved and are helping brands reinvent themselves.

The merger of AI and online communities has put forth a variety of opportunities for businesses. But there are still some organizations that are skeptical about implementing AI in online communities.

During a panel discussion at our recent virtual summit, Community (re)Focus, 2020, seasoned community experts shared their hawk-eye views on the future of AI and communities. Here’s our take on the subject.

*The bar chart above projects the results from the summit poll.

How Does AI Fuel Online Communities?

In a survey we conducted during the summit, around 35% of respondents voted that the implementation of AI in their online community was definite on the roadmap, while 31% of respondents vouched that they were thinking about AI and community implementation for the first time.

Curating and delivering relevant content for community members is one task that tops the to-do-list of every community manager. However, many businesses are still unaware of the ease of community management that machine learning (ML) can render, if implemented right.

With AI for communities, organizations can achieve unmatched scalability and drive better engagement. The highlight of this mix is that ML can serve as a dynamic tool that helps identify and segment information based on industry type and interest.

AI can do a lot for your community. It carries the ability to crawl information from multiple sources on the internet and share the most relevant high-quality user-generated content with community members. Also, machine learning performs a comprehensive analysis of the engagement metrics by assessing the pieces that resonate most with readers.

Scouring the internet for unique and engaging content that garners the attention of community members is, undoubtedly, time-consuming. AI implementation simplifies this process of researching relevant content and presents it to the users.

Also, the AI-community integration minimizes the manual effort of the community practitioners, thus, enabling them to divert their attention towards building meaningful conversations with their target audience.

How Can AI Drive Community Authenticity?

9% of respondents voted that they had already implemented AI in online communities. This response projects that only a few brands have already integrated their community platform with AI and are using machine learning to their advantage while many others are still in the planning stage.

Let’s now understand how organizations are making their communities more authentic with effective AI implementation.

Online communities, when combined with AI, are a powerful medium to nurture a loyal customer base.

Many brands have redefined their engagement metrics with AI. Increased engagement on a community platform leads to the inception of varied ideas and opinions. This is where ML comes into play. With ML, content originating from audience engagement can be effectively categorized. This, in turn, allows brands to identify changing trends and build products around their customers’ needs.

Businesses apply ML to conduct sentiment analysis that enables organizations to filter out inappropriate content. A key element that improves community engagement metrics is the authenticity of the content being displayed. AI sifts information from numerous resources and displays the most unique content pieces in the online community. Hours of manual effort are reduced, thus, making the community moderator’s job and life easy.

Online communities empower users to be vocal about their true brand experiences. Authentic user reviews and community moderation with AI is key to keep community members engaged.

What Does the Future Behold?

In another response recorded from the summit poll about “Your Future With AI and Online Communities”, 14% of respondents vouched that they had dipped their toes in AI but wanted to do more.

Let’s see what’s more in-store for brands that have already integrated AI with their community and what the future beholds.

As we’ve already established, AI implementation in communities enables brands to automate processes and keep community engagement moderated.

The emergence of AI has created a bottom-up funnel in which community participants come together to create unique content and suggest solutions to resolve product issues. By harnessing the power of AI in online communities, brands can explore new opportunities and gain a competitive edge. AI will enable community managers to merge efforts and invent collaborative strategies that not only enhance community engagement but also help build long-term customer relationships.

Want to know more about AI and Online Communities? Know more.