Artificial Intelligence for Training

Wednesday August 7 | 10:00 - 11:00 a.m.
Charles M. Vitale, RPL, ENP, CPE

APCO Adjunct Instructor Charles Vitale, from Rochester, NY, captivated his audience in this session by demonstrating how useful AI can be in an ECC training program, noting especially how artificial intelligence can help a trainer or manager who is suffering from a lack of time to accomplish tasks due to reduced staffing.

First, Vitale described artificial intelligence (AI) as an "ever-learning and adapting system that can emulate human intelligence" and then asked the audience to list the challenges in building and maintaining training programs. Her said that for everyone in our industry who struggles for days trying to write a policy, draft a new training procedure, or even write a daily observation report, there are many free AI solutions available that can cure you of your writer's block and give you some new ideas. He then opened one of many free AI programs and demonstrated how to use AI to write SEGs, a training program outline, and a performance improvement plan. He showed how to use prompts to generate ideas for CE and topics for professional development.

Vitale explained how to adjust prompts when the AI doesn't understand the prompt, or generates a response that doesn't quite fit your needs. He told a story about how he asked AI to write a research paper, and the AI generated a highly professional, technical paper. He then asked it to write the same paper from a college sophomore level, and it generated the same topics with different language.

Vitale emphasized the need to review results and ensure accuracy, but AI can be yet another helpful tool in the toolbox to save us some time and augment our creative juices while juggling the many tasks of communications center management. "Wouldn't it be nice to have that second brain to bounce ideas off of," he asked. AI can provide helpful information, list ideas, suggest training topics or answer any question you have regarding a topic within seconds.

Audience questions included whether it could generate flashy job postings, podcast scripts, and call taking scenarios. The answer to all is YES. Vitale's use of live demonstration removed the "scary" factor surrounding the use of AI in the ECC, and demonstrated how much time can be saved with this useful tool.

Jennifer Kirkland, ENP, CPE, RPL, and Michael P. Banks, CPE, ENP contributed to this article.