The zeitgeist in technology today is all about artificial intelligence, so in an effort to drive more users and usage, LinkedIn on Thursday took the wraps off a raft of latest services powered by AI.
The corporate is betting big on AI and other people’s appetite to see it threaded through experiences on the platform, and is bringing tools that may do every little thing from helping people search for after which apply for jobs (yes, there’s a tool to put in writing the entire application and canopy letter for you), to surfacing relevant learning material (about AI, naturally) and searching all of LinkedIn to search out what you would like more quickly.
We’ll run through a number of the greater features that LinkedIn is rolling out below, but first let’s take a moment to notice a few key things about LinkedIn’s deal with AI without delay:
First, as we have now identified before, this is just not LinkedIn’s first rodeo with AI. The corporate has been threading the tech into its products from its earliest days, and you can argue that there may be very little that AI is not touching at the corporate.
“We’ve been constructing with AI since 2007,” its head of product, Tomer Cohen, said in an interview with TechCrunch this week. Indeed, the corporate’s connection suggestions, which have often felt very uncanny in what they surface, is one example of where that has played out. “We use it heavily for connecting people… for defense and the way we keep trust within the ecosystem. It’s one in every of our strongest tools.”
The massive change that LinkedIn doesn’t wish to miss is the one which has swept the remainder of the tech world: The wave of AI-powered tools geared toward helping strange people do human-centric tasks.
LinkedIn has already been energetic in that sense. It launched a set of OpenAI-powered tools in October 2023, adding reading and writing tools one month later, in addition to tools to assist with writing profiles, recruitment ads and company pages.
Second, LinkedIn has relatively lower expectations to fulfill than a few of its peers. Big social players like Meta or X have found themselves facing different degrees of existential crises over the explosion of interest in generative AI. How will they reply to it? How will they lead it? Should they? Perhaps more directly, how do they be certain that the new-new-thing doesn’t cut their businesses out of the subsequent stage of growth?
LinkedIn, after all, is part of Microsoft, which has a 49% stake in OpenAI, alongside its own substantial AI efforts. Effectively, this takes the pressure of innovating or investing in innovators off LinkedIn itself, leaving it to consider how it may construct or integrate tools for its own uses.
Below is a run-down of a number of the latest features:
Job searches and job applications: We’re getting a brand new method to seek for jobs using conversational prompts. It still relies on the information and the job actually existing, after all. For instance, finding jobs in journalism in London that pay a salary of no less than £100,000 may not turn up much, irrespective of how some ways you phrase it.
Once you’ve gotten found jobs and wish to use, you possibly can now generate a canopy letter or a letter of introduction, and the AI will even provide you with an additional review of your résumé and other work you’re doing.
Learning personalisation. LinkedIn continues to be bullish on its video-based learning platform, and it appears to have found a robust current amongst users who have to skill up in AI. Cohen said that traffic for AI-related courses — which include modules on technical skills in addition to non-technical ones reminiscent of basic introductions to generative AI — has increased by 160% over last 12 months.
You’ll be able to make certain that LinkedIn is pushing its search algorithms to tap into the interest, but it surely’s also boosting its content with AI in one other way.
For Premium subscribers, it’s piloting what it describes as “expert advice, powered by AI.” Tapping into expertise from well-known instructors reminiscent of Alicia Reece, Anil Gupta, Dr. Gemma Leigh Roberts and Lisa Gates, LinkedIn says its AI-powered coaches will deliver responses personalized to users, as a “start line.”
These will, in turn, also appear as personalized coaches that a user can tap while watching a LinkedIn Learning course.
The third big area LinkedIn is leaning heavily on AI is search. For those who already use LinkedIn in any way, you’ll know that this may be very long overdue, as search has been probably the most neglected parts of the experience on the platform, especially because the platform has grown.
LinkedIn says it would provide more detail on the brand new search experience in the approaching weeks, but expect to see loads more conversational search as an easier alternative or alternative for its current search experience, which uses keywords, network distance, geography and other parameters but never seems like it’s supplying you with the entire answer.
Alongside all this, LinkedIn is expanding availability of Recruiter 2024, adding more tools for marketers, and introducing enhanced, premium company pages for small businesses.
