Enterprise AI Analysis of Text and Audio Simplification: Human vs. ChatGPT
Source Paper: Text and Audio Simplification: Human vs. ChatGPT
Authors: Gondy Leroy, Ph.D.¹, David Kauchak, Ph.D.², Philip Harber, M.D.¹, Ankit Pal¹, Akash Shukla¹
Affiliations: ¹University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ; ²Pomona College, Claremont, CA
Executive Summary: AI for Enhanced Enterprise Communication
In their pivotal study, Leroy et al. conduct a rigorous comparison between human-expert and ChatGPT-driven text simplification, primarily within a healthcare context. Their research systematically evaluates simplified content against fourteen distinct metrics measuring linguistic complexity, domain-specific jargon, and structural coherence. The core finding is a critical trade-off for enterprises: ChatGPT excels at producing stylistically fluent and readable text that domain experts often prefer. However, this comes at the cost of potential information loss, as the AI may over-generalize or omit crucial detailsa risk human experts, when properly instructed, can avoid. This analysis from OwnYourAI.com breaks down these findings, translates them into actionable enterprise strategies, and outlines how custom AI solutions can harness the power of LLMs for simplification while implementing crucial guardrails to ensure accuracy and content fidelity. For any organization looking to improve customer communication, internal documentation, or regulatory compliance, this research provides a foundational roadmap for deploying AI effectively and responsibly.
Book a Strategy Session on Custom AI SimplificationDecoding the Core Research: The Science of Simplification
The study by Leroy et al. moves beyond simple readability scores (like Flesch-Kincaid) to provide a multi-faceted view of what makes text truly easy to understand. Their methodology offers a blueprint for how enterprises can measure the effectiveness of their own communication strategies. We've broken down their key metric categories below.
Key Findings Visualized: Human Expertise vs. AI Efficiency
The research presents compelling data on how different simplification approaches affect text. We have reconstructed and visualized the most critical findings to highlight the nuances between human and AI performance.
Domain Expert Evaluation: Style vs. Substance
A medical expert, blinded to the source of simplification, rated texts on five key criteria. The results show a clear pattern: ChatGPT's output was favored for readability and style, but the human-simplified text was superior in retaining all original content. This highlights the "last mile" problem for AI: ensuring mission-critical information isn't lost during simplification.
Linguistic Feature Comparison: Nouns vs. Verbs
One of the study's metrics tracks the percentage of nouns and verbs. Easier texts tend to use more verbs (actions) and fewer nouns (complex concepts). This chart compares a difficult source (BMJ articles), a human-simplified version (BMJ Lay Summaries), and a ChatGPT-simplified version. Both simplification methods correctly reduce noun density and increase verb usage, demonstrating that AI can learn and apply principles of clear writing.
Similarity to a "Gold Standard": Which Text is Most Human-Like?
The researchers compared various text sources to a "gold standard" set of texts that were simplified by a health educator and validated in a user study. The cosine similarity score indicates how closely each corpus aligns with this proven-effective simplified text. Higher scores mean greater similarity. The table reveals that human-curated simple texts (like BMJ Lay Summaries) are most similar to the gold standard, while generic ChatGPT simplifications, though effective, are less aligned.
Enterprise Applications & Strategic Implications
The findings from Leroy et al.'s research have profound implications beyond healthcare. Any industry grappling with complex information can leverage these insights to create tangible business value.
- Financial Services: Simplify complex prospectuses, terms of service, and investment advice to improve customer trust and meet regulatory requirements for clarity.
- Technology & SaaS: Transform dense technical documentation and support articles into user-friendly guides, reducing customer support tickets and increasing product adoption.
- Legal & Compliance: Create plain-language versions of contracts and policies for employees and customers, minimizing legal risks and ensuring comprehension.
- Internal Communications: Make corporate policies, training materials, and strategic memos accessible to a diverse workforce, improving alignment and engagement.
The Critical Trade-Off: Scalability vs. Fidelity
The central challenge highlighted by the study is balancing the scalable efficiency of AI with the content fidelity guaranteed by human experts. Off-the-shelf LLMs like ChatGPT are powerful but operate as "black boxes" that can't be instructed to "simplify this text, but guarantee zero loss of factual information." This is where custom AI solutions become essential.
Building a Custom Simplification Engine: The OwnYourAI.com Roadmap
A generic approach to AI simplification introduces unacceptable risks for enterprises. Our methodology builds upon the academic rigor of the source paper to create a controlled, reliable, and auditable AI simplification engine tailored to your business needs.
Interactive ROI Calculator: Quantify the Value of Clarity
Clear communication is not just a "nice-to-have"; it drives real business outcomes. Use our interactive calculator, inspired by the principles of simplification efficiency, to estimate the potential ROI of implementing a custom AI simplification solution in your organization.
Conclusion: Moving from Generic AI to Enterprise-Grade Solutions
The research by Leroy et al. provides a clear verdict: while generative AI like ChatGPT is a remarkable tool for improving the style and readability of complex text, it is not a turnkey solution for enterprise applications where accuracy and information retention are non-negotiable. The path forward is not to choose between human experts and AI, but to augment human oversight with custom-built AI systems that have verifiable guardrails.
By defining specific metrics, fine-tuning models on domain-specific data, and implementing robust content-retention protocols, OwnYourAI.com can help you build a simplification engine that delivers the best of both worlds: the scalability of AI and the reliability of an expert. This transforms simplification from a creative writing task into a predictable, measurable business process.
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