Another week. Another new workplace term.

Here’s one delivered to us courtesy of Chat GPT and AI: “Chatfishing”. Now – here’s the story behind it.

Since AI became the greatest thing since, well, sliced bread, we hear nothing but buzz from peers, colleagues, and headlines. People are keen to shed their most drudgerous duties and assign them to a robot.

That was the spirit one reporter at the New York Times got into when she decided to try a little experiment. For one week, she used ChatGPT to write and respond to ALL of her emails — an activity she drolly refers to as “chatfishing.” The result? Underwhelming, even alienating.

According to Emma Goldberg, her AI-produced responses received a variety of reactions from co-workers, including “I thought you were annoyed at me” and “You sounded very professional but I thought the conversation was awkward.”

Bots can be clever, but maybe not so clever as human personalities, which are nuanced and particular. The way we communicate in and all across the workplace makes a profound impact on our relationships with co-workers and peers.

While #AI has its place — it’s great for drafting cover letters or writing resume objectives for instance — usually, the output requires manual customization to really fly. If you’re leaning into AI to do your tedious writing for you, don’t lean too hard, or you’ll lose the flavor of YOU.

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