What makes a good texting script? It’s a question that Roddy Lindsay, co-founder of Hustle, got so many times that he invested in finding a way to help his clients break through their own writer’s block.
The end result: the texting vendor today launched a tool it’s calling Script Assistant, which “utilizes OpenAI’s ChatGPT API to provide suggestions to [clients] about what their text messaging scripts and Personalized Clip recording scripts should be,” according to a client email.
In an interview with C&E, Lindsay said that the newly available service, which is a free add-on, can even help with things like tone or engaging a Gen Z or audience of seniors. The scripts it generates can be funny, poetic or informal, depending on the client’s needs.
“If you come from an email background, or if it’s your first time doing texting, it can be hard to think about what a good texting script is,” Lindsay said. “We’ve done a lot of work to make sure that the results comply with best practices. We’ve now sent more than a billion texts so we’ve learned from that what makes a good texting script.”
Hustle is one of the first in the campaign industry to make an AI-tool powered by ChatGPT widely available. While OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is getting a lot of buzz as a pioneer in the space, Lindsay said Hustle’s Script Assistant isn’t tied to a specific backend provider.
“We’ll make sure that the results are good, and our clients get the best experience possible,” he said. “If something comes out that gets better results, we’ll use that and our clients will just get better results.”
But don’t think this tool is designed to replace a campaign’s organizers or even their digital director, Lindsay added. In fact, it’s illegal in some states, including California, for campaigns to use a chat bot to encourage people to vote a certain way, so using the tool without consistent human intervention isn’t possible.
“One thing we’re definitely very hesitant about and opposed to is chat bots reaching out pretending to be people to get people to vote and things like that,” he said. “AI should serve the humans not replace them.”
He added: “It’s great for overcoming writer’s block. You can’t expect the person running your digital program to be a poet, but it’s cool to send a poem to your audience. This is just another way that our clients can generate ideas of their own without having to be on a training call with our client success team.”
In addition to text copy, the AI assistant can also generate video scripts for clients to record and send. “It’s really flexible,” said Lindsay.
