Marcin PALYS and Jakub KREZEL
Department of Business Informatics, University of Economics in Katowice, Poland
The explosive growth of generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) is reshaping social‑media workflows, yet its concrete contribution to professional content practice remains underexplored. To address this gap, we conducted semi‑structured online interviews in February 2025 with 14 social‑media specialists from event management, IT, marketing, graphic design, and gaming organisations and subjected the transcripts to thematic analysis. Practitioners reported integrating large language models such as ChatGPT and visual generators like Canva Magic Design and Adobe Firefly to accelerate ideation, copywriting, image production, and scheduling, thereby shortening turnaround times, broadening idea pools, and enabling platform‑specific personalisation, especially for teams with limited design resources. Respondents also highlighted persistent shortcomings, including formulaic tone, shallow emotional resonance, and inconsistent visual detail, alongside adoption barriers linked to subscription costs, data privacy, and the risk of brand‑identity dilution. Effective use, they emphasised, depends on precise prompt engineering and rigorous human editing. By synthesising these cross‑sector insights, the study clarifies where Gen AI currently amplifies efficiency and creativity in social‑media content creation and where human oversight remains indispensable, providing actionable guidance for managers and setting an agenda for future research in fast‑evolving platform environments.