An ecosystem of innovation and extensibility: AI meets composability

In my last post, I touched upon “the realm of NOW.” As in, what’s possible today with the AI tools available. Let’s expand on these ideas further.

Continuing our series of posts about AI and ML — and the potential impact they will have on content creators and coders alike — I interviewed Mairead O’Donovan, Chief Product Officer at Contentful.

Mairead often speaks with multiple technology partners and vendors in the AI space, and was ready to share where she sees the most exciting innovations.

New innovations daily

Now that advancements in cloud computing have made AI-based software a practical reality, we’re already starting to see a new wave of innovation. According to Mairead, “we are seeing new technologies sprout up everywhere and in every use case. It’s an exciting time to be part of the AI journey!”

The innovations, Mairead said, are actually starting to offer real solutions to the types of problems that she sees digital teams facing — from automation and content generation to scaling for global reach and multiple-languages.

“We’re seeing a wave of AI tools that are delivering on the promise of time savings and speed,” Mairead said. “Content teams in particular have a whole new set of tools to use right now that will actually make them more effective.”

These innovations are coming at a blistering pace — according to the New York Times, investment in AI-based companies and technologies is growing at a rapid clip, with a brand new wave of startups and established companies leaning in with AI-powered tech. 

As a content creator, keeping up can be a real challenge. The nuance between how a tool works, which model it uses, and how much you can trust the information is tough to see, she said. “While we’re in an exciting time of innovation and creativity, we also need to be careful to select the right tools and ensure that content remains true to brand identity.”

So how do you figure out which tech to explore and which to ignore? Contentful is here to help.

Problems that AI (and Contentful) can solve

Steve Jobs once described computing as a “bicycle for the mind,” and in this respect, AI and ML are no different. AI is a tool made for humans by humans. What that means in practical terms is that using AI in the right ways can be a way to unleash your creativity and gain momentum in your work. 

“The right AI tools for the right need can make a content team more productive and actually more creative,” Mairead said. “It seems counterintuitive, but using AI as a starting point for your content operations can actually create more room for human creativity. It lets us spend less time getting started and reduces manual work, enhancing creative time.”

Looking for examples? AI tools available today, and available in Contentful, can directly help drive your creativity. Whether you want a head start on ideas for your content, want to reduce manual tasks, or translate on the fly, AI can help today. Let’s explore some of them below.

1. Gain fluency in (almost) any language

AI may not be to the level where it can correctly interpret the tone and nuance of human speech, but it can serve as a great way to translate content rapidly.

“AI can help enrich content by translating across languages,” Mairead said. “AI-translated content will still need human review to improve tone or accuracy, but it prevents localization from slowing down the content-generation process.” 

Put differently, while humans will still need to make sure AI-generated translations are high-quality, on brand, and match the right tone, content teams can still use these translations to model localized content and preview it without waiting on a human.

A wide range of AI-powered translation and localization apps are available in the Contentful Marketplace today. These range from solutions to help you quickly generate purely machine-generated translations to platforms that allow for full AI and human translation.

• These include purely AI-based tools like the (hilariously) named Linguiny, which uses the DeepL engine to translate across dozens of languages inside of a Contentful entry.

• Likewise, the Contentful AI Content Generator uses OpenAI to translate to more than 95 languages in the right voice and tone.

• Other integrations, like Smartcat and EasyTranslate, use AI to generate translations that can later be reviewed by humans.

These human translations — trained to ensure that localized content feels human — help prevent awkward AI translations that could put your message at risk.

“We’re seeing a real revolution in integrations that combine the best of both worlds between fast AI translation and accurate, nuanced human review,” Mairead said.

Let’s take an example — an AI translation model may provide a translation like, “I would like to have a dog as a pet.” While grammatically correct, the wording is awkward because the platform does not understand the nuance of voice and tone.

A human reviewer may edit this translation to something more friendly to English speakers, such as “I’d like to have a pet dog.” The AI translation will save time by creating a good draft, but edits will still be needed to match the tone.

2. Free up your creativity

Creativity can be a hard process to kickstart. Even with the most exciting topic, the ideas can trickle out, leaving you stuck and staring at a blank page. AI won’t replace your ability to come up with creative and engaging ideas, but can help initiate the process by turning your ideas into working content.

Contentful is a composable content platform that’s built to scale in size and grow in capabilities. And that includes generative AI. We’ve recently introduced Contentful AI Content Generator to help you get momentum by using AI to generate ideas, translate, and save time with repetitive tasks like SEO management.

“AI for content generation is a no brainer,” Mairead said. “Content teams want to get past the blank page and have ideas to work off of.” 

And with the right tools, you can actually be confident that the content generated by AI is trustworthy and accurate. One partner in the Contentful ecosystem strives for a perfect balance between creativity and accuracy. Writer, one of the leading AI content generation providers, trains its own AI model on your brand and content.

The result is AI that can get your blank page filled with ideas that allow your creativity to run free, and content without the “hallucinations” that can make other AI tools untrustworthy.

3. Reduce repetitive and manual tasks

Nothing slows down the content creation process more than repetitive and manual tasks like SEO management and alt text generation. While incredibly important, these tasks take you out of the flow of creativity. The latest generation of AI tools can help automate away these repetitive tasks.

“AI can be a big help in reducing how much manual work a content creator has to do,” says Mairead. “AI can scan your content and understand ideas like SEO-friendly keywords and descriptions faster than a human can, and put the focus back on the content.”

Apps in the Contentful Marketplace can already help you save time on these repetitive tasks. Alttext.ai’s Contentful app uses AI to scan images and generate alt text descriptions automatically. Alt text has proven benefits for accessibility and SEO ranking, but requires you to shift gears to explain an image. Instead, Alttext’s Contentful app does the job automatically and accurately, preventing you from changing context.

Likewise, Contentful AI Content Generator can use your brand description and content to automatically generate SEO-ready keywords and descriptions. 

Wrapping up

AI is just getting started, and the opportunities to unleash your creativity with an AI head start will continue to evolve. “We will continue to see content and digital teams evolving quickly in this new paradigm,” Mairead said. “Content teams will be able to scale and create in ways we’ve never imagined.”

Stay tuned for more perspectives and updates from Contentful about how we will help you prepare for — and respond to — this fascinating field. In the meantime, visit the App Marketplace and explore some of the AI-powered integrations already available for the world’s leading composable content platform.

For an in-depth walkthrough on optimizing SEO with Contentful, please refer to this guide.

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