Content managers, designers and marketing teams are constantly ideating, creating, building and publishing content to deliver digital experiences at national and global scales. Composing the right content with the right elements takes a fair bit of art and science to get the right look and feel and deliver the right emotional impact.  

Content modeling is integral to your success with composable content. But it can be a conceptual leap. To help our users flatten out the learning curve and begin their modeling activity with confidence, Contentful is introducing the AI Content Type Generator. 

Based on OpenAI, Contentful users can get personalized recommendations with optimized content types based on keywords they provide (or select from predefined ones). This new feature is generally available and doesn’t require the user to know anything about designing a content type. 

In this post, we’ll outline how it works, and why it fits into the broader conversation about AI that empowers you to work smarter, not harder.

Intelligent creativity with Contentful’s AI Content Type Generator

One of the important steps in modern content management is to ‘model’ the content so that the content can be created and stored in a structured manner and reused across experiences. 

A common situation is that non-technical users like marketers and content editors view modeling as a function that’s ‘technical’ in nature and should therefore be carried out by professional developers.

But developers can’t operate in isolation. They need requirements from their non-technical colleagues to build out the model. This can lead to a process bottleneck where the developers wonder how to get started with modeling. 

So how does it work? Let’s demonstrate using the example of a restaurant that wants to quickly get its new menu items up on the web.

The user signs into Contentful, navigates to the Content Model and selects “Generate content type with AI”.

Next, the user types the prompt “Restaurant menu item” and clicks “Generate”.

In a matter of moments, the AI Content Type Generator proposes a new content model to be put into production, and the new dish can be added.

While generative AI has the potential to be incredibly useful for crafting digital experiences, Contentful also understands that not every organization may be ready to embrace it yet. Hence, the use of the AI Content Type Generator requires an administrator within your organization to unlock the capability (on a self-serve basis) for their users. 

To summarize: the AI Content Type Generator allows users to create up to 20 content types for a relevant content model within seconds using the power of generative AI. They don’t need to know the technicalities behind content modeling or content types. And all this is done within the context of a governance framework to ensure that generative AI is used responsibly. 

“Work smarter, not harder”

Since the beginning of work, people have been trying to figure out ways to be more productive — and at a higher standard — to make better use of their time. This ambition is codified in one of the most (in)famous sayings in business: “Work smarter, not harder.”

The term is attributed to Allen F. Morgenstern, an industrial engineer who created a work simplification program in the 1930s with a simple goal: increase production with less effort. More than 90 years since, much research has been done to fully understand scientifically how to maximize productivity, and many attempts have been made to guide all workers to find their optimal solutions to this paradox. 

Yet, after all this time and focus on solving this problem, the argument could be made that we’ve not made any progress. With all the modern coaching, psychological knowledge and technology on hand to help streamline our lives, modern workers find themselves struggling to just keep up with the pace of business and the speed to compete successfully in the market. 

In fact, in some cases, the mantra for the modern worker has changed to: “Do more with less.” This has made a significant impact with highly increased productivity, but it’s done by almost sheer will and brute force. Yet there is a realization, just like there was back in the ‘30s, that there are diminishing productivity returns, not to mention the decrease in quality of work, and certainly quality of life, for the individual.

In the fall of 2019, a global study by Automation Anywhere found that knowledge workers waste over 40% of their time on manual digital tasks and processes. Another finding: not only did workers detest these manual tasks, but over 75% believed that this was a waste of their skills. This was a waste of time and money for the company because they’d hired the worker to do much higher-level tasks.  

Working smarter: human-driven, AI-assisted   

Today, modern organizations are turning to AI to finally achieve those objectives that have been tantalizingly out of reach — whether to work smarter or do more with less. And it’s highly probable they want to address a third: to increase job satisfaction and retention among their employees. 

Indeed, a survey conducted by Gartner shows that as many as 79% of global corporate strategists see AI, analytics, and automation as essential components for success over the next 24 months.

Responding to this need, Contentful hosts a growing library of apps and integrations to harness and maximize the use of AI in your organization, all available on the Contentful Marketplace. Some highlights include:

• Localization: Content teams can use machine translation integrations like Linguiny to model localized content and preview it at a much lower cost than human translation. Learn more. 

• Generate content: Editorial teams can use the Writer app to quickly spin up trustworthy and accurate content while adhering to brand guidelines. Learn more. 

• Search Engine Optimization: Using the AltText AI app, AI can automatically recommend and assign alternative text for images to ensure your content performs optimally. Learn more.

And now, with fresh features like the AI Content Type Generator, Contentful users can quickly achieve the foundational task of building better content experiences, freeing up their creativity, and providing momentum for the higher-level tasks they need to do.  

AI has already profoundly affected how we think about composing and consuming content. We are just at the beginning of the “Work AI Smarter, Not Harder” era. Exciting times lie ahead, so stay tuned for more innovations in this field from Contentful. 

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