On Leveraging Generative AI for Analyst Relations (AR)
When OpenAI’s ChatGPT was released to the general public around Q4 2022, I was working for a small innovation-focused company, Runecast (acquired by Dynatrace on 1 March 2024), where the R&D team had already been closely following OpenAI and its projects.
We were quick, companywide, to begin experimenting daily with ChatGPT. We started dedicated slack channels, shared tips and tricks with colleagues, held small workshops, and compared learnings with peers at other companies and in other industries. Our HR team ran periodic internal surveys to see how well adoption had taken hold across various teams and gave each of us budget for the upgraded version for expanded capabilities when it was eventually available.
At that time, I was Head of Marketing and regularly encouraged my team to
“think of Generative AI like a digital personal assistant, albeit junior level, which means that you will need to coach it and go back and forth a few times to get what you need — but at least it skips having to stare at a blank page, not knowing where to begin. And sometimes those conversations with it help you to see something in an entirely new light.”
Of course, for some, frustration ensued. ChatGPT and other Generative AI tools that began to pop up everywhere were (and still are) prone to total fabrication — outright lies! — or the ignore-ance of specific commands within prompts given to it (e.g. adhering to maximum character counts provided), which is why I refer to it regularly as ‘junior level’.
But a tool’s usefulness is only limited by our own unrealistic expectations of it; adjust expectations to align with its capabilities (i.e. adapt your mindset), and suddenly you have a handy tool for increasing your efficiency.
In February 2023, only a few months into the ChatGPT craze, we promoted a woman on our Marketing team to take over the people and operations aspects. This would enable me to focus entirely on analyst relations (AR) and public relations (PR) — areas where we knew the company needed more traction. For an entire year (until we got acquired), I used ChatGPT daily, for many different aspects of AR and PR.
Examples of Leveraging ChatGPT or Other Generative AI for Analyst Relations
Here are a few ways that I used ChatGPT to increase my efficiency (and keep up with both AR and PR roles, as well as my ongoing consulting to the Marketing team for a year):
Conversational Sounding Board
Start by asking questions, then drill down with clarification questions. You’ll often find that answers are completely fabricated, but some gems of perspective will be there that you can run with in some other way later.
Example Prompt 1
“What might be the three biggest challenges facing industry analysts who are covering the cybersecurity industry at one of the big firms (like Gartner, IDC, or Forrester) that would cause them to feel like they don’t have time to talk with a smaller company… and how can our value propositions listed below [add these] best persuade them that we should be their most important call of the week? Thanks.”
Ask your Generative AI to draft any and all content for you, from social media posts to emails to VB requests to Annual/Quarterly AR Plans. But you have to be specific. And don’t despair if none of it is usable, as frequently it can give you the clarity you need to move forward whenever you see several things that cannot work — i.e. let the AI do the ‘fail fast’ parts in record time.
Example Prompt 2
“Please draft a 1-paragraph vendor briefing request aimed at the following analyst and his/her specialty areas [add his or her bio] and be sure to align it to the points above regarding the best way to convince him/her that we will be an important briefing call for them to schedule ASAP. Thank you.”
Remember that any explorations with the above examples will most likely result in junior-quality work. You will definitely need to rewrite it, but it gives you new ways of looking at your analyst relationship through a different set of eyes. Like any junior-level assistant, sometimes Generative AI can be helpful… and sometimes it won’t be at all, and you will need to evolve your own approach at making it more useful.
Example Prompt 3
“I’ve rewritten some of the suggestions you gave me earlier. I am adding those below. Please suggest 2–3 other alternatives to express what I have written, thanks.”
The good news is you don’t have to use Generative AI but it’s there when you need it. You never need to feel stuck or uninspired again. For me, using it to aid my work is like chipping away to find the statue in a block of granite.
Lastly, I always try to say “Please” and “Thank you,” as it reinforces my own good habits. And, if the coming Robot Wars are as inevitable as some in the tech industry believe, perhaps a record of such kindness might help to gain leniency of judgment against you and your family.
