Wouldn’t or not it’s unbelievable when you discovered the antidote to writers block. Or when you might brainstorm a whole lot of concepts instantly.
It appears like a reasonably cool superpower proper?
It’s one I’ve usually wished for, and one hundreds of Buffer prospects have hoped for.
It’s additionally a dream shared by Buffer’s Senior Product Supervisor Diego Sanchez.
Which is why, Diego was (and nonetheless is) so excited concerning the energy of synthetic intelligence to not solely ease these burdens but in addition revolutionize your whole strategy to social media.
Again in February, Diego helped launch Buffer’s AI Assistant.
On this weblog publish, we’ll take you behind the scenes at Buffer, strolling by way of the beginning of Buffer’s AI, exploring its improvement course of, its integration with OpenAI, and the important position person suggestions performs in shaping its future.
Why AI?
Diego, a Product Supervisor (PM) at Buffer, had been all in favour of AI for years and has labored within the house for even longer.
Beforehand a PM at Typeform, Diego labored with machine studying engineers on AI functions in 2017.
When he joined Buffer in 2019, he was eager to discover AI functions throughout Buffer’s merchandise, resembling what was previously Reply and Have interaction, however at the moment are engagement options inside Buffer.
After realizing the potential of AI in content material technology, Diego offered his concepts to Maria, Buffer’s Chief Product Workplace, and Joel, Buffer’s Founder, and CEO. They gave him the inexperienced gentle to go forward.
Working carefully with Dinos (a product engineer on Diego’s crew), they began exploring find out how to get to market shortly. Because the market demand for AI options grew, Buffer accelerated its efforts, and Buffer’s AI Assistant began to take type.
Figuring out key ache factors
Diego’s crew labored carefully with customers in our beta group to determine friction factors and alternatives for optimization throughout the product.
They discovered that small companies and creators usually wrestle with arising with publish concepts, discovering their model’s tone and voice, and managing content material for a number of social media channels.
The problem of making a excessive quantity of participating content material was significantly attention-grabbing.
To assist customers overcome this problem, Diego appeared to use AI expertise to content material technology.
Growth course of and Open AI
Buffer’s AI Assistant improvement course of started by fixing key friction factors within the product.
The crew determined to concentrate on text-to-text functions, aiming to assist customers write captions, generate publish concepts, rewrite content material in several tones, and develop on concepts.
Diego and Dinos explored potential options envisioning ideas resembling AI-assisted hashtag strategies, content material thought mills, and extra.
Buffer’s AI Assistant integrates with OpenAI by way of its API, permitting it to probably work with different providers sooner or later. This flexibility allows Buffer to check completely different providers, supply customized experiences, and probably develop in-house AI options.
Diego picked OpenAI as a consequence of its highly effective APIs, varied fashions, and fixed updates.
Its cheaper and sooner fashions are perfect for clearly outlined issues, whereas extra highly effective fashions like DaVinci or ChatGPT4 can deal with open-ended functions.
Now with a working prototype and a strong AI API plugged in, Diego wanted extra person suggestions.
Consumer suggestions performed a vital position in shaping Buffer AI’s performance. It helped the crew make changes and determine new alternatives and use circumstances.
For instance, one early adopter urged an AI-assisted Twitter thread function, which Buffer is now actively exploring.
Different early adopters wished assist with concepts, which led to the event of the ideation widget.
Diego additionally recognized that customers wanted extra choices when it got here to producing copy. So, he and the crew constructed three new AI inputs; Rephrase, Summarize, and Broaden.
Diego’s the primary to share how invaluable person suggestions has been in creating Buffer’s AI Assistant.
“We actually cherish it, attempt our greatest to at all times be very open to concepts and strategies, and act on buyer suggestions.”
Publish-launch success
The AI Assistant launched on February fifteenth, 2023, and was one of the crucial profitable launches in Buffer’s historical past.
Since launching, Buffer’s AI has assisted in creating over 33,300 posts for 8,850 customers. That’s 2.8 million AI-generated phrases created in Buffer.
I requested Diego what side of the launch he’s proudest of. He mentioned he’s most happy with the way it has grow to be an integral a part of the workflow for customers who weren’t assured of their writing talents.
“It’s unbelievable to see not solely Buffer prospects, however even my Buffer teammates, use AI to be extra energetic on social media. A number of colleagues who weren’t assured writers now use AI as an integral a part of their workflow—they’re constructing an viewers due to it.”
The AI has been used for every little thing from brainstorming concepts to refining and sharpening captions for social media posts. Buffer crew members resembling Maria, Amanda, and Mitra have all benefited from the AI Assistant in varied methods.
Whereas Maria makes use of it to give you her private LinkedIn posts, Mitra makes use of it to generate new concepts for the Buffer TikTok account.
What’s subsequent?
I requested Diego what was subsequent for Buffer’s AI Assistant.
Personally, I share a few dozen new concepts for Buffer’s AI every week, so I used to be significantly all in favour of Diego’s response.
Diego shared that he’s very excited for the potential of AI to assist creators and small companies save time on duties which might be much less about creativity and extra about formatting, modifying, and scheduling content material.
Buffer has already saved numerous hours for small companies world wide, and Diego envisions the AI Assistant will quickly be capable to assist with content material creation as effectively.
This may allow companies to spend extra time specializing in their tales and connecting with their audiences.
However, Diego acknowledges that there could be issues about AI-generated content material missing a human contact or turning into spammy.
“Highly effective instruments can at all times be misused, and I feel new AI developments won’t be the exception on condition that that is merely a mirrored image of human nature.”
Relating to upcoming options for Buffer’s AI Assistant, Diego states that the main target might be on enhancing the person expertise to make the expertise extra accessible to non-technical customers.
This consists of refining the interface, offering a extra human language, and optimizing for particular buyer wants.
As at all times, you’ll be able to keep watch over precisely what’s coming subsequent in Buffer’s clear roadmap.
And at last … what’s Diego’s favourite immediate?
Up to now, customers have given Buffer’s AI Assistant over 35,000 completely different prompts (I listed my high 38 right here).
However I wished to know what Diego’s favourite immediate is. Right here’s what he mentioned …
“Life’s humorous is not it?”
Little bit of a bizarre one, isn’t it!
However Diego mentioned he enjoys seeing how the AI responds to open-ended questions and observing its default “temperature” and humorousness.
Out of curiosity, I plugged that into Buffer’s AI and obtained this response.
It’s not one thing I’d publish on LinkedIn, however it’s attention-grabbing, however!
Diego would like to know what you concentrate on Buffer’s AI. When you have suggestions, please do ship us a tweet and tell us.
And if you wish to check out Buffer’s AI Assistant for your self, then get began immediately, it’s free!)
