What Your Members Are Really Saying: Using AI to Surface Strategic Insights

Associations are under growing pressure to deliver personalized, relevant experiences. Members now expect organizations to anticipate their needs and provide tailored content, programs, and engagement. Associations are well-positioned to do this because they have access to rich data about their members. But much of that data is unstructured: forum discussions, Q&A sessions, chat logs, and survey responses. It’s difficult to analyze, often siloed, and rarely used to its full potential. 

This is where AI comes in. Tools like Betty are helping associations unlock insights from unstructured data, especially engagement and conversation data, to reveal what members care about most—their interests, needs, and intentions. These insights are transforming how associations shape strategy, deliver value, and grow. 

Turning Data into Strategic Insight 

For those of you who aren't familiar with us yet, Betty is an AI-powered knowledge assistant designed specifically for associations. Betty's mission is to help associations increase access to knowledge and create new knowledge (see our posts on the Association Knowledge Cycle) and associations can do this by utilizing scattered or unstructured data and surfacing deep insights that inform real decisions. 

Here's how Betty works: 

• Betty is trained on an organization's content, multiple sources, often published across various platforms. 

• Betty serves as the connector between users and content, allowing users to ask questions about the content in natural language and get back high-quality, well-synthesized responses in mere seconds. 

• The best part: Betty collects data on what users are asking about. Betty is logging conversations, topical interests, most referenced content, and content gaps, so that associations can gather insights to inform meaningful engagement strategies. 

Instead of teams manually combing through reports or conducting expensive member surveys, Betty automatically highlights what matters: what your members are asking about, engaging with, and needing right now. 

Real Insights from Betty in Action 

Here are a few examples of what I am talking about: 

1. Content Strategy Optimization 

Associations produce a lot of content, but is it what members are actually looking for? By analyzing Betty conversation logs, associations can identify discussion trends and member interactions to highlight content gaps. For example, Betty might reveal that members are repeatedly asking about a topic that hasn’t been covered in recent publications or webinars. 

Insight: There’s unmet demand for a specific topic. 

Result: Teams can prioritize new content creation that matches member interest, increasing engagement and content utilization. 

2. Event Programming Decisions 

Planning conferences and webinars involves tough calls on session topics, formats, and speakers. Betty surfaces real-time insights from member discussions and behavior to show what they want to learn about.

Insight: Certain themes like AI policy, leadership development, or industry regulation are trending among members. 

Result: Events are more relevant, better attended, and aligned with member priorities. 

3. Member Segmentation & Personalization 

Not all members are the same. Using Betty insights, associations can cluster behaviors and content engagement patterns to understand distinct interest groups and then use that understanding to drive new marketing and engagement campaigns. 

Insight: A segment of early-career professionals is highly engaged with leadership training content. 

Result: Associations can tailor outreach, recommend content, or design programs specific to that group, boosting satisfaction and retention. 

4. Leadership Alignment & Strategic Planning 

For association leaders, having a clear view of member needs and performance trends is essential, but hard to access when data is fragmented. Betty solves this by delivering concise, AI-generated insight summaries across teams. 

Insight: During quarterly strategy sessions or board meetings, leadership reviews a Betty-generated conversation report highlighting: 

• Shifts in member interest 

• Most referenced content or programs 

• Topic areas with declining engagement 

Result: Teams align more easily on priorities and can make faster, more confident decisions backed by real member data.  

AI isn’t just about automation, it’s about insight. Associations don’t need more data; they need better ways to understand and act on it. Betty helps associations connect the dots between member conversations, behaviors, and outcomes. 

The result is a smarter, faster, more strategic organization. One that delivers more value, builds deeper connections, and stays ahead of member needs.