The zeitgeist in technology today is all about artificial intelligence, so in an effort to increase users and usage, LinkedIn is feeding off the buzz. On Thursday, a slew of new AI-powered services took the wraps off.
The company is betting big on AI and people’s appetite to see it engaged through experiences on the platform, and is rolling out even more tools that use AI, specifically genetic AI, to get things done on the site. New features include using more natural prompts to search for jobs or suitable candidates, and then providing AI tools to help people with their job applications (yes, there’s a tool to write the entire application and of the cover letter for you). AI to display relevant educational material (to learn more about AI, of course). and genetic artificial intelligence to search across LinkedIn to find what you need faster.
There are a few important things to note about LinkedIn’s current focus on artificial intelligence.
First, as we’ve pointed out before, this isn’t LinkedIn’s first AI rodeo. The company has been using technology in its products since its early days, and you could argue that the artificial intelligence is minimal not touching on the company.
“We’ve been building with AI since 2007,” chief product officer Tomer Cohen said in an interview with TechCrunch this week. Indeed, the company’s login proposals, which often felt very unusual in what they featured, are an example of where this happened. “We use it a lot for connecting people… for defense [security] and how we maintain trust in the ecosystem. It’s one of our most powerful tools.”
The big change that LinkedIn doesn’t want to miss is one that has swept the rest of the tech world: The wave of AI-powered tools that aim to help ordinary people do human-centric tasks.
LinkedIn is already active in this area. It launched a suite of OpenAI-powered tools in October 2023, adding reading and writing tools a month later, as well as tools to help write profiles, job ads, and company pages.
Second, LinkedIn has different expectations to meet than some of its peers when it comes to the current wave of AI tools. Big social players like Meta or X have faced varying degrees of existential crises due to the explosion of interest in genetic artificial intelligence. How will they respond to this? How will they drive it? It should; Perhaps more directly, how do they ensure that new-new doesn’t cut their businesses off from the next stage of growth?
LinkedIn is part of Microsoft, which has a 49% stake in OpenAI and a significant number of its own AI efforts. Essentially, this takes the pressure off LinkedIn itself to innovate or invest in innovators, leaving it to focus on how it can build or integrate tools for its own purposes.
That’s not to say that LinkedIn doesn’t have its own metrics to succeed, and that it won’t seek to use AI to stay current in the market. And it will still leave many questions about what LinkedIn chooses to explore for this purpose. The company is certainly under the watchful eye of regulators: just last week, European regulators were criticized for how it targeted ads based on data from those users’ participation in different LinkedIn groups.
Thirdthere’s something a little ironic about LinkedIn adding so much AI capability in areas where it’s used, helping users take their hands off the wheel when it comes to creating content on the site.
After years of people joking about how LinkedIn feels somewhere between creepy and crazy – people are being stalked there for business or work. people are shamelessly self-promoting and pandering — suddenly found as an island of tranquility for workers from the algorithmic stunts of spamming Facebook and Instagram and the exoneration of what was once Twitter.
LinkedIn is championing the idea of presenting your ‘authentic’ self on the platform: not least by boosting the new verified profile feature (40 million users are now verified, only a small fraction, so there’s a long way to go). but through the many, many “thought leadership” pieces you get on the site itself about the benefits of being authentic.
However, as we introduce more ways to use AI to write resumes, update your profile, write letters and other posts, you have to ask what authentic really means or how much it’s really valued.
Here’s a rundown of some of the new features:
Job searches and job applications. We’re getting a new way to search for jobs using chat prompts. It’s still based on data and real work, of course. For example, finding journalism jobs in London that pay a salary of at least £100,000 may not turn out to be much, no matter how many ways you phrase it.
Once you’ve found jobs and want to apply, you can now create a cover letter or introduction letter, and the AI will also give you a further overview of your resume and other work you’re doing.
Personalize learning. LinkedIn continues to be bullish on the video-based learning platform and seems to have found strong traction among users who need to acquire AI skills. Cohen said traffic for AI-related courses — which include modules on technical skills as well as non-technical ones, such as basic introductions to genetic artificial intelligence — is up 160 percent over last year.
You can be sure that LinkedIn is pushing its search algorithms to capitalize on interest, but it’s also augmenting its content with AI in another way.
For Premium subscribers, is piloting what it describes as “expert advice, powered by AI”. Leveraging the experience of well-known trainers such as Alicia Reese, Anil Gupta, Dr Gemma Leigh Roberts and Lisa GatesLinkedIn says its AI coaches will provide personalized responses to users as a “starting point.”
These, in turn, will also appear as personalized coaches that a user can tap on while taking a LinkedIn Learning course.
The third big area that LinkedIn relies heavily on AI is search. If you already use LinkedIn in any way, you’ll know that this is long overdue, as search has been one of the most neglected parts of the experience on the platform, especially as the platform has grown.
LinkedIn says it will provide more details about the new search experience in the coming weeks, but expect to see much more conversational search as a simpler alternative or replacement to the current search experience, which uses keywords, network distance, geography and more parameters. you never feel like it’s giving you the full answer.
Alongside all of this, LinkedIn is expanding the availability of Recruiter 2024, adding more tools for marketers and introducing improved, premium company pages for small businesses.
