If you’ve dabbled in Chat GPT, Gemini or CoPilot, you may be wondering whether you can use these tools to write your Business Awards submissions.
The temptation is certainly understandable. After all, award applications are notoriously time-consuming. They often have confusing criteria, extremely tight word counts and strict deadlines. The feedback we regularly receive from people is that they genuinely dislike – if not hate! – writing them. It’s no wonder time-poor applicants may be looking for a more efficient workaround.
So, should you leverage AI to write your award submissions? Here’s what to consider.
Not all AI is private
Award submissions will almost always require you to share some commercially sensitive information such as financial data, business strategies, project details and more. While typically this information will be kept confidential when you submit it for judging (check out the terms and conditions for the award to confirm if anything might be publishable), the same can’t be said of AI tools.
Many AI tools don’t keep the information you share with the tool private. In fact, many will use that data to train their model. Suddenly your confidential information could be popping up in the results for other users with no way for you to control it. If personal information is shared there is a risk of breaches. It’s a major risk management headache.
Many awards programs will disqualify AI-generated content
Not all awards programs are open to applicants using AI. In fact, in some cases using AI can actually disqualify your entry. Award Force, a major submission platform used by the majority of awards programs, advises clients on how to integrate AI detection tools and other eligibility screeners which will weed out submissions generated through AI. They also deploy auto-scoring which can automatically disqualify entries that don’t properly address the criteria.
In conversations we’ve had with awards organisers, they’ve seen an uptick in entries created through AI off the back of the availability of AI tools, coupled with a noticeable decline in submission quality. That’s made their judging burden much harder, which may incentivise them to utilise AI detection tools in future.
AI doesn’t know how to write award submissions, yet
When you ask an AI tool to write a blog post, it’s not hard for the tool to learn how to write in the style of a blog post because blog posts are ubiquitous online. It can draw on the millions of online blog posts as a reference point. The same isn’t true of award submissions. Very few awards programs publish applicant’s award submissions online, which means the dataset for AI to draw on is very small.
There is an art and science to writing a successful award submission. We’ve honed our methodology for award submissions over many years. While one day AI may be capable of learning and applying this kind of methodology, it’s not there yet. Unless the dataset for AI to learn from significantly expands, or more work is done to train the model, AI will likely fall short of generating an award submission that will actually be successful.
AI isn’t always accurate
AI can be enormously helpful when compiling or organising information, and yet there is no guarantee the information it generates is accurate. In fact, errors are so common that inaccurate results have been dubbed AI hallucinations and are a known and widespread problem in the AI landscape.
AI hallucinations have already caused problems in the legal and financial fields where data generated through AI tools was taken at face value. If you do the same for an award submission, you may end up inadvertently submitting information that isn’t true. This can seriously damage your reputation or even be considered fraudulent.
Takeaways
AI has amazing potential to transform how we do business and no doubt will add value to the award submission process sometime down the track. But for the time being, AI’s current limitations mean that using AI tools to write award submissions is risky and not likely to result in an award win.
If you’re looking for a more time-efficient process for completing award submissions contact us today. Not only do we take the time burden and stress of award submissions off your shoulders, we also maximise your chances of success. Can AI promise the same?
