Hocutt presents for international university network

Daniel L. Hocutt, SPCS web manager and adjunct professor of liberal arts, presented “Composing with Generative AI in TechComm: Insights from Digital Marketing” at the February meeting of the International University Network in Technical Communication (IUNTC), an association of scholars organized through tekom Europe.

The presentation combines insights from Hocutt’s academic research into data analytics and AI with his experiences launching and managing paid social digital advertising campaigns on behalf of SPCS.

Presentation Abstract

Digital advertising platforms for search engine and social media marketing have embraced and integrated machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) ubiquitously into their ad creation workflows. The result for marketing communicators is that composing digital advertisements on these platforms combines the efforts of human communicators and AI. Few opt-out options are available for marketing communicators to compose their own ads without AI intervention. This presentation envisions a similar possible future for technical communicators, who will be asked to compose support docs and technical specifications in platforms that incorporate ML and AI. From summarizing content or documenting APIs to creating and publishing scripts, technical writers are integrating AI into their daily work. As digital platforms seek to incorporate AI into their products, this presentation wonders about the possibility that ML and AI are (or will soon be) built into platforms like component content management systems (CCMS) and team-based documentation tools, then offers insights from marketing communication for composing with