communication, ethics

How to Write with AI Using ChatGPT

Step-By-Step AI-Powered Thought Leadership

Harvey A. Ramer

• 6 min read (1417 words)

In the dynamic world of business, staying ahead of emerging trends and delivering high-quality thought leadership content is crucial. This blog post will guide you through a streamlined process of using generative AI to discover trends and generate insightful content with minimal time investment.

Discovering Emerging Trends

Setting Up Alerts

Every professional spends time keeping up with the latest news, but in the fast-paced business worlds, it is easy to fall behind. To keep up, we need critical information to come to us as it becomes available rather than searching the web and professional journals when we find the time, if we ever do.

Step-by-Step

1. Google Alerts

   • Go to Google Alerts
   • Create alerts for keywords like “business consulting,” “management strategies,” or any ideas important to your industry and area of expertise.
   • Choose the frequency of alerts to suit your schedule.

2. Industry Newsletters

   • Subscribe to newsletters from reputable websites in your industry.

Using AI for Trend Summaries

Leverage ChatGPT and Perplexity.ai to provide concise summaries of recent articles and reports.

Step-by-Step Summarization

1. Weekly Article Summaries
   • Collect recent article URLs from your alerts and subscriptions.
   • Start a conversation with ChatGPT to hold your article summaries.
   • Prompt for each article: “Summarize the key points from this article with enough detail to provide research for an initial high-quality article draft: [article URL].”
   • Prompt to find trends you may have overlooked: “What are the recent advancements in [your topic of interest]? Provide citations from authoritative sources.”
2. Draft Article Ideas: In the same ChatGPT conversation where you created the summaries, prompt ChatGPT: “You are an expert content creator for the web. Using the research summaries we just created, write a high-quality article I can use to guide the next steps in my writing process. Cite the articles I’ve summarized where appropriate.”
3. Weekly AI Roundup
   • Use Perplexity.ai search to summarize industry trends you have identified in your Google Alerts.
   • Suppose you learned about an innovation. Prompt: “Summarize the latest information on [solar powered transport refrigeration in the United States]."
   • Ask any follow-up questions you may have and note the URLs of authoritative citations you discover.

Collect your article summaries from ChatGPT and Perplexity.ai in a document using your favorite writing software.

Generating High-Quality Content

Prime the AI with Context

You now have a document with article summaries, a generated article draft, which may be helpful to guide your writing, and the URLs of authoritative sources. These raw materials will guide the AI as we create more content.

Step-by-Step Outline Generation

1. Start a new conversation and generate an outline.
   • Prompt: “You are an [industry] professional and web content creator who understands the reading habits of those in your industry and the content structures Google prefers. I want you to outline an article for me, but first, allow me to enter all the source material I have collected."
   • The AI will accept your instructions and ask for input. Paste all the content you collected from ChatGPT and Perplexity and submit your chat.
   • The AI will generate a detailed outline. Copy the outline, and paste it into a new document in your writing editor.

Drafting Content

Generate detailed content for each section using ChatGPT.

Step-by-Step Drafting Content

1. Create a document that will hold your article’s first draft.
2. Continue using the conversation thread that generated your outline.
3. Drafting Sections:
   • For each section of the outline you generated, take the following steps:
   • Introduction Prompt: “Using my research, write an [outline section heading] on [research topic] focusing on recent innovations. Where it will have the most impact, include prompts entitled, “Subject matter expert viewpoint here.” I will use those to expand on what you generate.”
   • The AI will generate detailed content for the outline section you specified. Copy it into your first draft document, and repeat the steps above for the next point in your outline. Continue until each outline section is drafted.

Refining Content

Review and refine your drafts to ensure clarity and incorporate your unique insights.

Step-by-Step Editing

1. Content Review

   • Read and edit the section for clarity as a first pass, paying close attention to its comprehensibility and accuracy.
   • If you feel it is too unclear, you can regenerate a section with a prompt: “The section [outline heading] was unclear, rewrite [outline section heading] on [research topic] focusing on recent innovations. Where it will have most impact, include prompts entitled, “Subject matter expert viewpoint here.” I will use those to expand on what you generate."

2. Edit for Readability

   • Even advanced concepts must be explained clearly to readers on the web.
   • Copy and paste a section at a time into Grammarly, the editing tool. If you do not have a free account, create one.
   • Follow the prompts and copy your changes back into your document.
   • Follow the same process with the Hemingway App. No account is required. This tool highlights any unreadable passages. Look for simpler ways to say the same thing.
   • Paste the result back into your document.

A simple process like this will result in a highly readable document focused on current events within your industry.

Minimize Time Investment

Everyone needs to find their sweet spot with AI in their writing process. In my opinion, it excels especially in summarizing sources and creating outlines, so I never start without that step unless I’m writing something of a personal nature.

Creating Templates

Develop reusable templates to streamline your content creation process.

Step-by-Step Template Creation

1. Template Creation
   • Open the same ChatGPT conversation that generated your article.
   • Prompt: “Based on what you learned from this process, create a reusable template for writing articles on the latest trends in my industry.”

Batch Content Creation

Generate multiple pieces of content in one sitting to save time.

Step-by-Step Batching

1. Batching Content
   • Batch Prompt: “Outline three articles on emerging trends in [topic of interest].”

Delegating Research

Outsource initial research tasks to save even more time.

Step-by-Step Delegation

1. Delegating Summaries
   • Provide ChatGPT with the articles you have collected. Remember that the AI will do best if the articles are topically related.
   • Summary Prompt: “Summarize the key points from these articles on [topic of interest].”

Optimized Workflow

Implement a structured workflow to maintain a steady stream of high-quality content.

Weekly Task

• Set Alerts and Summarize Trends

Monthly Task

• Create Outlines and Draft Content

Bi-Monthly Task

• Refine and Publish

AI Ethics: Content Attribution

In business, one thing above all is prized: clarity. When I receive an email or read a memo, I have no concern about how it was created. Rather, I want to know that what it says is both clear and aligned with the priorities of my team and my business. Aside from that, there are a few considerations.

In personal communication, the use of AI poses more concerns. When someone reads a personal letter, they expect the personality, and perhaps even something of the spirit of the author to be communicated. Finding out that what I spent time and emotional energy reading was generated by an AI may leave me feeling cheated.

Much of the debate about generative AI ignores this distinction, and the discussion is robbed of important context.

Ghostwriting

For decades it has been a common practice for business leaders to employ ghostwriters who produce books on their behalf for a fee, usually without receiving credit. One can debate the ethics of this practice (and we should), but it stands as a long-term precedent for using AI as an unmentioned coauthor.

When and how to credit the AI tools we use in writing is still an open debate and one for which I have no conclusion.

Conclusion

Following this streamlined process, you can leverage ChatGPT to stay ahead of trends and generate high-quality thought leadership content with minimal time investment. This ebook provides a practical, real-world approach to integrating AI into your content strategy, ensuring you remain a leader in the business consulting space.

FlareMark offers a free consultation to business leaders like you who are looking for effective ways to generate leads through their websites.