Microsoft is making AI posts a built-in LinkedIn feature. This could lead to a flood of content.
Jakob Nielsen's 90-9-1 rule states that 90 percent of people in online communities are just observers, while ten percent are more or less active. AI could help make the 90 percent passive more active.
Get more LinkedIn content faster
"When it comes to posting on LinkedIn, we’ve heard that you generally know what you want to say, but going from a great idea to a full fledged post can be challenging and time consuming," writes LinkedIn product manager Keren Baruch. The new AI editor aims to remedy that.
To that end, Microsoft is integrating AI text generation directly into the writing interface of LinkedIn posts. Starting with a 30-word outline, the system will create a custom post - which Baruch says is "a solid foundation to review, edit and make your own, all before you click post." Watch the video below to see the editor in action.
Video: Microsoft
The new feature will be available for testing first, before being rolled out to all LinkedIn users. Baruch promises a thoughtful and responsible rollout.
Visibility becomes more valuable with more content
If AI-powered text generation directly on LinkedIn has the desired effect and leads to more content, it should pay off for Microsoft: More activity on the platform means more reach. And that reach becomes more expensive as the value of visibility in a content deluge increases. Unpaid reach is likely to continue to decline, as it has on other social media platforms.
But there is also a risk that LinkedIn's algorithm will not be able to cope with the mass of AI content, which is average at best; users will seek a new home for their business conversations.
However, LinkedIn's market position is currently so strong, and there is no alternative, that this seems unlikely. And since Microsoft offers the AI editor itself, the company should be able to track who is using it and how much, and refine the algorithm accordingly.
Whether the direct integration of AI text generation into LinkedIn will have much of an impact on the content ecosystem at all is fundamentally questionable. The temptation to use AI for posts may be a bit greater. But with the introduction of ChatGPT, AI posts are just a click away anyway. In the near future, generative AI will also be integrated into all popular writing programs like Word and Google Docs, and AI text will become commonplace.
