Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT make it easier for business owners to produce polished pitches, business plans and other communications, but according to new research from The University of Manchester and Canada's University of Alberta, their widespread use could ultimately make it harder for businesses to effectively communicate with their audiences.
This challenges the idea that AI will simply "level the playing field" by helping business owners who lack strong writing and storytelling skills. Instead, the researchers argue that as more business owners use the same tools to create their external communications, business storytelling becomes increasingly similar.
The study argues that widespread use of generative AI may narrow the space available for businesses to differentiate themselves. If audiences are repeatedly exposed to similar AI-assisted communications, those linguistic patterns could become the expected norm - making genuinely distinctive communication harder to achieve.
The researchers describe a paradox - while AI can make storytelling easier for an individual business owner, its widespread adoption could make effective storytelling more difficult for business owners collectively.
Key points
In the age of AI, business communications start to look more alike.
The researchers generated AI-augmented twins of more than 26,000 real-world crowdfunding campaign descriptions. Across the resulting AI-augmented versions, there was substantially less variation than across the original human-written narratives. Among other differences, the AI-rewritten pitches varied 43% less in how abstract their language was, and variation in length and writing quality fell by around 80%.
As AI makes polished communications easier to produce, audiences likely develop more demanding expectations about the quality of these communications.
Business owners may increasingly need to provide evidence for the claims they make about their businesses, as audiences become less willing to rely on plausible-sounding statements alone.
Cultural competence and storytelling skills could even become more valuable, rather than less, as it becomes more challenging to craft effective business communications in the age of generative AI.
What the experts say
"Generative AI can support entrepreneurs in many aspects of storytelling, but it cannot substitute for the cultural understanding required to navigate an increasingly complex evaluative environment," said lead author Dr Karl Taeuscher from The University of Manchester's Alliance Manchester Business School. "Business owners will still need to understand their audiences, recognise cultural expectations and know how to position their businesses in ways that are both credible and distinctive."
The researchers caution that the study presents a plausible scenario rather than a prediction, as both AI technology and social norms surrounding its use are changing rapidly. The analysis of AI-augmented crowdfunding descriptions is intended to illustrate the research's central argument rather than to test it.
Publication details
The research was published in the journal Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/10422587261472523.
