MemberWise webcast highlights - Harnessing AI
Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer just a buzzword for the future—it’s part of daily life for your members, shaping their digital experiences. Beyond the generative AI tools that save individual time, how can membership organisations truly leverage AI to benefit their members? And what groundwork is essential for success?
These were key questions tackled by Alex Skinner, CEO of ReadyMembership by Pixl8, and Aika Peto, Marketing Director, in a recent MemberWise webinar, Harnessing AI: Practical Insights and Actionable Steps for Your Membership Organisation.
In this interactive session, Alex and Aika demystified AI, explained the importance of preparing data and tech infrastructure, and demonstrated how open-source AI models can address common membership challenges. Here are some key takeaways:
Utility vs. Personal AI
A significant insight was the distinction between AI for personal use and AI designed to integrate with your technology, offering solutions for membership-specific needs. From handling member enquiries to processing applications and analysing feedback, AI’s potential is vast. But trust is critical; any AI solution must uphold your organisation's values and maintain member trust. As Alex emphasised, personally identifiable information (PII) should never be used with large language models, as trust in data is vital for trusted AI.
Data Maturity & Why Your Knowledge is Key
If your data is high-quality and consolidated, AI can use it more effectively. Aika discussed the importance of data maturity and systems integration, asking attendees where they stood on this scale. Many reported they were partially or fully integrated, highlighting the journey they are on. But data is more than your CRM—it includes your knowledge - (documents, videos, resources, webinars) - it’s your organisation’s intellectual property. When an AI can access your knowledge base, it can provide accurate, insightful and specific responses. However, as Aika stressed, the accuracy of AI’s output depends on the quality of the data it’s fed - put rubbish in, get rubbish out.
Crafting Effective Prompts
Alex shared insights on writing effective prompts. Providing context—your owned knowledge—alongside the prompt increases accuracy. Including “grounding” elements, such as specifying areas of focus and desired format, is equally valuable. Asking a model to take an “unbiased view” can further refine its responses.
The Art of the Possible
AI offers extensive possibilities before you start developing a bespoke solution. Alex demonstrated how open-source models, like Llama, can be used for tasks such as alt-tagging image files. He also showed how adding organisational knowledge to ChatGPT 4.0 (Teams) improves accuracy—a technique called Retrieval Augmented Generation. Such models can extract valuable insights from feedback and long-term trends.
The webinar left attendees inspired about AI’s potential, with 75% seeing opportunities for personalised member engagement and 67% identifying process automation. You can watch the full session on demand here.
Want to see AI in action? Attend MEMX on 14th November, where Julian Davis, COO of World CC, show their AI member solution, Ask Tim and tell the story behind its development. Learn more in this interview with Julian and book your ticket today.
