Linkedin's AI writer is a damp squib
LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky has revealed that the business networking platform's AI writer has underwhelmed.
"It's not as popular as I thought it would be, quite frankly," Roslansky said in comments reported by Bloomberg this weekend.
The tool, which helps users draft or polish their LinkedIn updates, has been adopted by only a small fraction of members, despite the feature being promoted across the platform.
One suggested reason for the slow take-up is the high bar for quality, because a LinkedIn profile is essentially a real-time career calling-card, and the perceived risk of professional scrutiny.
In other words, there's extra pressure on users to perfect their voice organically rather than be seen to be spamming AI content.
Roslansky, in his comments to Bloomberg, highlighted this worry of making a misstep on LinkedIn.
The LinkedIn boss, however, revealed that the career and recruitment platform is seeing an upsurge in AI elsewhere, with LinkedIn-hosted job listings seeking AI skills up nearly sixfold this past year, and user accounts adding AI-related 'skills' to their profile up around 20 times in the same period.
It is a curious mismatch, however, compared to the LinkedIn writer's uptake.
Of course, it's also possible that LinkedIn users are just composing AI-made posts off-site via ChatGPT and posting 'humanised' edits of the content to their profiles.
