IPMA Report: AI is Coming for Your Job
The following article was originally published by In-plant Impressions. To read more of their content, subscribe to their newsletter, IPI E-News.
The In-plant Printing and Mailing Association infused tons of energy into Spokane, Washington, during the second week of June. One of the topics that had the more than 125 in-plant managers in attendance buzzing was artificial intelligence (AI) — and for good reason. According to David Rosendahl of MindFire, “AI is going to come for your job,” so it’s important to stay a step ahead and be prepared.
"AI is going to come for your job,” remarked speaker David Rosendahl in his session at IPMA 2025.
“You have a window of opportunity to be a leader in your organization,” Rosendahl said during his keynote session.
The landscape of AI is changing not only every day, but every hour, he said. That makes it incredibly difficult to stay up to date with the latest developments. But anything you can do to implement AI in your in-plant will help you beat out those who aren’t using AI.
For instance, a recent study by the Harvard Business School found that an individual using AI performs 37% better than an individual who doesn’t use AI. Notably, this performance was even better than that of a team.
“One person with AI outperforms an entire team,” he said.
Performance was best when a team used AI: It was 39% better than that of one person that doesn’t leverage AI, according to the study.
In the context of an in-plant, AI has some powerful applications — and can even outperform humans in multiple domains. It can be used to help with taking notes, writing emails, determining talking points for upcoming meetings, and creating training documents. It can also be used to create images, write code, and do research.
He demonstrated several AI tools such as BlinkShot, an image generator that quickly created an image based on his text description, and NotebookLM, which created a podcast featuring two voices discussing a study that he uploaded as a PDF.
To get started with AI, he advised, follow the I.C.E. framework:
- Implement AI daily.
- Change your default thinking to an “AI first” mentality (e.g., ask AI questions before talking to coworkers or searching online for answers).
- Elevate yourself to the role of conductor, using your expertise to guide AI in creating an effective output.
Despite all the benefits AI brings, Rosendahl cautioned that some people are becoming so dependent on it that they are losing their ability to think for themselves. To combat this, be sure to emphasize intellectual independence at all levels of your team.
The IPMA 2025 conference was filled with useful sessions like this. We’ll bring you more session highlights in the days ahead. Here is some of our additional conference coverage:
- IPMA Report: Curing In-plant Labor Woes with Robots
- IPMA Report: RFPs Can Unlock Better Tech, Lower Costs
- IPMA Report: Stickers and Samples Drive In-plant Marketing Success
- IPMA Conference Delivers Valuable Insights
- Ricoh Launches Light Production Printer at IPMA Conference
Kalie VanDewater is associate content and online editor at NAPCO Media.
