AI hates jargon just as much as I do

By Pat Southwell

Been living under a rock? No? Then you’ll know a bit about GEO, won’t you.

For those at the back who weren’t listening, GEO is the process of creating content ChatGPT and all its mates can easily understand and use when answering people’s questions.

It’s the next big thing in B2B tech comms. Because B2B buyers regularly use AI when searching for software.

In fact, 66 per cent of them often use AI to research vendors. And 92 per cent say AI has influenced their shortlist.

Which brings me to AI hating jargon. Phew, we got there.

This person hates jargon so much she's shouting into a book in front of a brick wall. Doesn't get much worse than that, does it?

It turns out that AI, just like a human, is really bloody good at understanding simple language.

And it’s not so good at decoding marketing or tech jargon. Who would have thought it, eh?

The robots built in our image tend to think like us. Don’t pick me up on the concept of AI thinking. Now is not the time…

Anyway. AI works by predicting meaning from language.

So, when a company says something like, “We help banks detect payment fraud,” AI understands it.

If the same company said, “We create an AI-powered financial crime orchestration platform delivering end-to-end operational resilience,” the AI starts scratching its head.

Because the second line contains ambiguity. Or in layman’s terms, it’s meaningless c**p.

According to my good friend ChatGPT, “AI can't infer what you mean as easily as people think. Like humans, it performs better when ideas are expressed clearly and concretely.”

It’s not rocket science, is it? For years we've written websites for Google. Now we're writing them for AI as well. And AI can't recommend what it can't understand.

That's why I think simplicity has become a competitive advantage.

Not because it sounds nicer. Not even because your customers prefer it.

But because your next customer might not read your website first. AI will.