How Sprout optimizes social media workflows with AI

In today’s AI-powered, trendspotting obsessed social media landscape, being efficient and creative are more important than ever. At Sprout Social, we’re committed to leveraging the best technology available to streamline our processes and deliver better results for our team—and our customers. Luckily, this includes our very own product, and what does that make us? Customer Zero.

By incorporating Sprout’s AI tools across our social media management workflows, we’ve been able to save time, secure resources and maintain the high-quality content our audience expects.

Here’s how we’re using AI in Sprout to optimize our workflows and improve results across the board.

Using AI Assist for alt text: Boosting accessibility with ease

For social teams, ensuring that content is accessible to everyone—including users who rely on screen readers—is a well known critical and routine part of publishing. But by using AI Assist in Compose, we’ve not only picked up the pace, we’ve completely streamlined the process of adding alt text to images.

Previously, writing alt text for every image added extra time to our workflows. Now, we simply drag and drop an image into Compose, and AI Assist generates alt text automatically. Of course, we still review the suggested text to ensure it accurately reflects the content (and advise you to do the same, your eyes matter), but the time saved is significant.

“We’ve found that AI-generated alt text is usually spot on, and if we ever need a different angle, the regenerate button gives us another option in seconds,” said Olivia Jepson, Senior Social Media Strategist at Sprout. “This has not only made our content more accessible but has also freed up time for more creative work.”

Making sense of social trends faster with AI insights

The sheer volume of data available to social media teams is both revolutionary and overwhelming. Sorting through that data to find actionable insights takes intention, and an incredible amount of time. At Sprout, we use AI Assist’s summarization capabilities to cut through the noise and find key trends with greater accuracy and speed.

“For weekly and monthly reporting, AI Assist in Sprout summarizes the data, helping us spot trends and identify areas needing attention faster than manual analysis ever could,” said Jepson. “It’s become a game changer for identifying spikes in sentiment, volume and engagement.”

Rather than combing through endless reports or messages, AI Assist in Listening helps us zero in on what’s important with just a few clicks. This allows our team to make more informed decisions, faster.

AI Assist in Compose: Breaking through creative blocks

Even the most creative social teams encounter writer’s block. When inspiration runs dry, Sprout’s AI Assist in Compose steps in to help generate ideas, captions, hashtags and more.

Whenever we feel stuck in a rut, we turn to AI Assist. All we need to do is input a few ideas or drop a link, and it suggests multiple captions with different tones. This means that if we’re onboarding a new employee or need someone who doesn’t publish regularly to pitch in with posting, we have a guard rail for keeping our brand voice consistent.

AI Assist helps us keep our workflows moving without sacrificing creativity, and we still get to keep it human. With the ability to generate copy in seconds, our team can focus on refining the message instead of struggling to start it.

Enhancing social customer care by responding with intention

Last but not least, good old community management, inbox monitoring, customer care. Managing customer inquiries on social media can often feel like a never-ending task. To make it more manageable, Sprout’s AI Assist in Social Customer Care helps us prioritize and respond more efficiently.

“Our social inbox is always buzzing with customer messages, and keeping up can be tough. But with AI-powered tools like Message Sentiment and Message Intent, we can quickly identify the tone and purpose of a message and respond appropriately,” said Greg Rokisky, Senior Social Media Strategist (Engagement). “This allows us to jump into high-priority conversations immediately, whether it’s a support issue or a chance to build brand love.”

Additionally, Enhance by AI Assist helps us tailor our responses, ensuring that each reply is on-point, whether we need to adjust the tone to be more friendly or professional.

AI Assist has transformed our approach to customer care—allowing us to respond faster and with clearer intent.

Greg Rokisky
Sr. Social Media Strategist (Engagement)

Even the A-team can benefit from AI

For our social team, AI isn’t just a buzzword—it’s an integral part of how we operate, helping us streamline workflows, unlock creativity and improve the customer experience. By incorporating our own product capabilities like AI Assist across various functions, we’ve been able to enhance everything that matters to us when it comes to social strategy.

Want to see these tools in action? Check out the videos embedded throughout this post and let us know how you’re using Sprout’s AI in your workflows on any social platform @SproutSocial. If you’re ready to test drive AI Assist for yourself, request a personalized demo today.