It won’t come as a surprise to read that it’s been a transformative year for artificial intelligence (AI). That’s true for almost every business, and Senior Living is no exception.
There’s growing excitement about AI’s potential to transform every corner of our industry, which explains why we keep hearing the same question from clients, colleagues, peers, and partners: How should I be using AI to further my impact ?
They’re asking us in part because they know that at FURTHER we pride ourselves on skipping generalities and theories in favor of the useful insights and practical solutions that move the needle and make life easier. Toward that end, our co-founders — CEO Wes Fuller and Senior Technology Officer James Johnson — recently hosted a webinar detailing how our colleagues in Senior Living can effectively and immediately operationalize AI. In a jam-packed overview, the two executives shared their knowledge and answered questions about a wide range of topics that included:
- Content Creation
- Lead Qualification
- Lead Engagement
- Security and Compliance
- Organizational Mindset
Below we share five actionable takeaways from the session.
You can watch the full webinar here.
- Think of generative AI like you would an eccentric genius!
ChatGPT and other “generative” AI programs are so easy to use they can feel magical, so there's a tendency to put too much trust into the output. That’s unwise, Fuller explained, because AI uses a probabilistic model to come up with results. As such, you get greater flexibility and creativity AND more inaccuracies.
To deploy AI properly right now, use it to write first drafts of blogs, emails, text messages and social media posts. You might find it works better to use a series of more targeted prompts and then combine the results. But whatever you do, it’s crucial to review the draft in the same way you would review a young colleague’s work. And if this is something you plan to use often, we recommend upgrading to a paid version, given that it’s not too costly and allows for even greater productivity.
- Machine learning was made to solve problems like lead qualification.
Most senior living organizations are struggling with the same challenge: more and more digital leads come in every day … and they all look the same. This creates a vicious cycle of low conversion rates, since every lead is treated like a high-quality lead.
Fortunately, AI is very effective in bubbling up the higher quality leads — we know it works well because we’ve built a model to solve this very problem. You can do the same by inputting the correct data — all the attributes and behaviors of each lead — and creating a methodology that properly weighs and predicts their likelihood of conversion. After much testing and iterating, our models have shown that nearly 80% of move-ins are coming from the top-scoring 23% of leads.
Of course, we encourage anyone in the industry to connect with us, as we’re happy to share our resources. But if you’re tackling this on your own, Johnson explained, you’ll want to walk a fine line between asking enough questions to get relevant insights without overwhelming prospects so much that they abandon the form midway. (That line is where FURTHER operates every day.)
- The future is all about personalization and AI will get you there.
Data used for lead conversion can also be used for lead engagement, most notably in terms of understanding intent. Clearly, buyer journeys are very different when someone is looking for an independent living situation for themselves versus memory care for a parent. The more distinct the buyer journey, the higher the conversion rate, and this personalization is one of our top priorities at FURTHER.
Another aspect — one we already employ to great effect — is using a natural language discussion (a.k.a. virtual assistant) that is trained on proprietary large language models (LLMs) to improve the quality of the buyer journey.
Once again, though, you want to make sure there’s a human who is overseeing the answers beforehand. Further is as expert at AI in Senior Living as anyone can be, and we never forget that humans make the difference.
- Be careful what you share with OpenAI tools.
Senior living organizations provide critical information to families and also have a lot of health information that requires compliance around PHI, PII and HIPAA regulations. Keep in mind that any data you input into ChatGPT is data that OpenAI now owns. Clearly, there are a lot of landmines to avoid here.
Some common sense approaches:
- Think twice before allowing ChatGPT to talk to external stakeholders because of the risk of behavioral issues and inaccuracies.
- Take steps to make sure sensitive data is walled off from OpenAI.
- Make sure your bosses and others in the organization know that you are using OpenAI tools. If something goes wrong, it’s better to have over communicated about your use of this new technology.
If any (or all) of this sounds daunting, we’re happy to advise. We have years of experience in this regard.
- This is AI’s moment and you’d be smart to meet it.
Fuller gave an example from the Netflix series Mad Men, in which one young character got pushed into TV because all the more established executives were focusing on radio and newspapers. We all know how that went for the established execs. Some economists predict that AI will have 300 times the impact of the personal computer on the economy. ChatGPT already has 1.5 billion monthly visitors
If you accept that AI is an important part of the future and become a subject matter expert yourself, you will be setting yourself up for tremendous success both at your current organization and anywhere else you land.
For more insights into how AI can elevate your work in senior living, watch the full webinar here.
