You’ve probably heard a lot about Artificial Intelligence (AI) recently, and with good reason. Natural language processing (NLP) is a subfield of AI that focuses on enabling computers to understand, interpret and create human language which has developed exponentially over the past few years. NLP can be broadly split into Natural Language Generation, which has gained much attention and its quieter - but for business much more powerful - sibling, Natural Language Understanding (NLU).
NLU has many fruitful applications in various industries, not least the field of public affairs.
Public affairs is a crucial aspect of a company's operations, as effective public affairs management builds trust and credibility, shapes public opinion, and positively influences policy decisions, and NLU can be incredibly useful in the public affairs industry in several ways.
Automatic alerting of shifts in public opinion.
In one of the more straight-forward applications, NLU can be used to automate the process of monitoring and tracking public opinion on pretty much any issue, such as climate change, energy or the cost of living. This can help public affairs professionals stay up-to-date on the latest developments and enable them to quickly respond to changes in public sentiment.
The ability to track an individual politician’s views is untapped.
However, one of the newer uses of NLU is in the monitoring of politicians and political figures through the analysis of politicians' public statements and speeches. By processing large volumes of text data from the likes of Hansard and the US Congressional Record daily, NLU algorithms can help public affairs practitioners better understand the positions and priorities of politicians, their stance on particular issues, and most importantly when this changes. This can be incredibly useful for public affairs practitioners working on campaigns or advocacy efforts, as it can help them tailor their messaging and focus their efforts accordingly. And unlike existing approaches, which typically use teams of researchers, it’s a fire and forget exercise which you can leave switched on and at significantly lower cost.
NLU is almost limitless in application.
In addition, NLU can help analyse and interpret large amounts of other unstructured data, such as social media posts, news articles, and public opinion surveys. This can provide valuable insights into public sentiment and help public affairs professionals understand how their organisation is perceived by the public. All much faster than ever before - typically in days rather than weeks or months. For example, a practitioner might use sentiment analysis to understand how people are reacting to a new policy proposal, or to identify and track changes in public sentiment over time.
Comms strategies are more resonant and quicker to create.
NLU can also assist in the creation of persuasive and effective messaging for public affairs campaigns. By analysing huge volumes of conversations, NLU algorithms can quickly identify the language and messaging that is most likely to resonate with a particular audience. This can help public affairs professionals craft effective messages that are tailored to the needs and concerns of their audience.
Build trust and credibility through deeper understanding of public and political opinion.
Overall, the use of NLU in the field of public affairs can help organisations manage their relationships with the public, government, individual politicians and other stakeholders more effectively. By providing valuable insights into sentiment and enabling the creation of effective messaging and engagement strategies, NLU can help organisations build trust and credibility and positively influence policy decisions, quicker than ever before.
Rich Wilson is the founder of Deviance, pioneers of Active Intelligence, technology that enables always-on identification and analysis of changes in opinion for clients in governments, public affairs, investment, music, sport and TV worldwide.