How AI Can Help Counter Public Speaking Anxiety
Artificial intelligence (AI) is having a huge impact on every aspect of our society, especially when combined with sister technologies like machine learning and natural language processing. We’re talking about a technology that’s in the process of revolutionizing everything from healthcare to entertainment to city management to manufacturing.
And it turns out that AI also has a lot to offer public speakers, both in terms of making them better at what they do and in terms of helping them to overcome public speaking anxiety. Given that the fear of public speaking is the most widespread phobia in the world, we think that’s a pretty big deal.
In today’s article, we’re going to be taking a closer look at just ten of the ways that AI can help public speakers, including countering public speaking anxiety. Let’s get started.
1. AI can help you track progress and improvements
We all like to track whether we’re improving at the skills we’re trying to perfect, which is why language-learning apps like Duolingo focus on highlighting the progress we make and celebrating every milestone. We can try to track this manually, but AI-based public speaking apps tend to do a much better job of analyzing our talks and determining whether we’re improving or just staying steady. And if we are improving, we feel more confident and less anxious as a result of it.
2. AI can provide real-time feedback
One of the greatest assets of artificial intelligence is that it’s able to process huge amounts of data in real-time. That means that if you’re using an AI tool to analyze your public speaking, you’ll be able to receive insights on how you’re doing at the same time as you’re speaking. There’s no need to deliver a presentation and then wait a few days for a mentor to come back to you with feedback. You can even tweak your presentation style on the fly to see what effect it has.
3. AI can pick out filler words
Filler words – like “um” and “ah” – are the mortal enemy of public speakers all over the world, regardless of the language they speak. In fact, most of the world’s best public speakers have undergone extensive training to un-learn the use of them. Unfortunately, when we’re first starting out, we usually can’t afford personal coaching, and that’s where AI comes in. There are apps out there like Descript which are designed to highlight the filler words that you use so that you can work to remove them from your presentations.
4. AI can provide smarter feedback
AI can provide smarter feedback than any human being because it can process huge amounts of data and tap into more data than human beings could ever hope to use. It can also analyze our previous talks to ensure that we’re not repeating the same mistakes and that we’re improving from one presentation to another.
5. AI can help with research
AI is a super useful research tool, allowing us to easily process huge numbers of studies and research papers and to draw overall conclusions. AI also powers search engines, which are where we typically turn when we’re looking for information. Back in the day, we would have had to have gone to a library and manually looked through numerous books until we found what we were looking for. Today, AI can do a lot of that work for us.
6. You can practice without performing to a crowd
One of the great things about today’s breed of AI-powered public speaking tools is that they allow you to practice public speaking without having to worry about the people who are listening to you. Instead, you can upload a video and get feedback from AI software without any human being ever seeing it. That can take a lot of the pressure off, especially when you’re first starting out, and ensure that nobody sees any of your presentations until after you’ve received feedback from AI and used it to improve your presentation and delivery.
7. AI can provide therapeutic anxiety support
Researchers all over the world are tapping into artificial intelligence to power advanced tools that are designed to provide therapeutic support to anxiety sufferers. We’re talking about AI tools sitting alongside cognitive behavioral therapy and counseling that have proved themselves in clinical trials. If it’s good enough to help people to overcome medical anxiety diagnoses, it’s good enough to help public speakers who are anxious about an upcoming presentation.
8. AI powers useful tools
AI powers all sorts of tools, from breathing and relaxation exercises that are designed to help us to better cope with anxiety to translation tools like Google Translate for better communication. By tapping into the tools that AI powers, we can do a better job of creating and delivering presentations that any listener can relate to – and we can reduce any anxiety that we have from standing on stage in the first place.
9. AI gives you another tool in your toolbox
Ultimately, artificial intelligence powers additional tools that we have access to, and every tool that we have can help us to be better at what we do. By harnessing the awesome power of artificial intelligence, public speakers can access more tools and of a higher standard than ever before. They say that a good workman never blames his tools, but a good workman also makes sure that they’re using the best tools possible. If you’re taking advantage of AI, you can be a little less anxious through the knowledge that at least your tools won’t let you down.
Conclusion
Now that you know our thoughts on how AI can help you to overcome public speaking anxiety, we want to hear from you. Do you suffer from public speaking anxiety? And if so, do you think that the technologies that we’ve talked about today could help you to overcome it? Have we missed any points that you think we need to be aware of?
As always, we’d love to keep the discussion going, so be sure to share your thoughts in the comments. You can also follow us on your social networking sites of choice for more. We’ll see you soon for another article!
