Has your association adopted artificial intelligence (AI) yet? According to Community Brands research, only 17% of professional associations plan on adopting AI in the future.
While less than 20% of associations are investing in AI, the innovative technology is everywhere, streamlining processes and making lives easier.
But how can your association leverage the power of AI to begin transforming your organization? We’re here with five helpful AI strategies to prepare your organization to adopt AI.
How to leverage artificial intelligence at your association
It’s time for your association to begin utilizing AI. Follow these tips to get started:
1. Define your strategic initiative.
If your association’s mission and goals don’t align with how you plan to leverage AI, you’re setting your organization up for failure. Ensure your association’s use of AI is successful by defining your strategic initiative.
Consider asking the following questions to create your strategic initiative:
- What do we hope to accomplish with AI?
- How will we measure the success of AI in reaching our goal?
- When do we expect to achieve our goal?
- Is our goal attainable given our current technology and resources?
2. Start with one goal.
Building off your strategic initiative, you might consider selecting a single area of focus as you plan to use AI. Initially starting with one AI-related goal will make it more attainable. Do you want to boost member retention? Are you looking to increase event registration? Maybe you’d like to identify new continuing education prospects?
AI can help you in any of these scenarios. However, when you begin by focusing on one AI–related goal, your use of the technology will be more effective.
3. Identify existing tools.
What tools does your association already leverage? Do you have association management software (AMS) or a customer relationship management (CRM) platform?
Check your existing technology to see if you have access to AI. You can contact your software vendor for tips on how to use the AI tools within your platform.
4. Practice data hygiene.
Before you begin leveraging AI, you’ll want to examine the state of your member data. Without quality data, your AI tools will be less helpful, and you won’t generate accurate member predictions.
Look over your data to refine categories and delete duplicate records to prepare your member database for AI. Practicing good data hygiene will ensure your use of artificial intelligence is more effective.
5. Grow with AI.
As you begin using AI, you will learn how the technology can successfully impact more areas of your organization. Start small with how you implement AI tools, and your staff will quickly grow more comfortable leveraging the technology, improving how they use it.
If you’re currently shopping for an AMS today, be sure to ask your vendor about AI. Are AI tools included in the platform? If you purchase technology without AI, you risk being left behind by industry competitors.
