Most associations have decades of content sitting in their archives. Journals, conference proceedings, research publications, technical standards, webinars, magazine articles. This content represents the accumulated wisdom of an entire profession, painstakingly gathered and organized over years.
And most of the time, it just sits there.
Members might search for something occasionally. A researcher might dig through back issues. But largely, this content functions as a static archive—valuable in theory, underutilized in practice.
A recent podcast conversation with Jay Gilbert at the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) got me thinking about what happens when an association decides to change that. IFT recently launched CoDeveloper, an AI-enabled platform that draws on 85 years of the organization's research and publications to help food scientists accelerate product development. Instead of members searching through archives hoping to find something relevant, the platform surfaces trusted information in context, answers specific questions, and helps solve problems in real time.
The transformation from static archive to dynamic tool is significant. And the path IFT took to get there offers lessons for any association sitting on similar assets.
Start with the Problem, Not the Technology
IFT's journey toward CoDeveloper didn't begin with generative AI. It began in 2020 with a fundamental question: why do members come to us, and what problems are they trying to solve?
Staff used a jobs-to-be-done framework to understand member needs at a deep level. They learned that food scientists often struggle to access trusted information quickly. Institutional knowledge that used to live in the heads of tenured colleagues is disappearing as the workforce turns over. Early-career professionals especially need reliable sources they can turn to when developing new products.
When generative AI became viable a few years later, IFT wasn't scrambling to figure out what to build. They already knew the problem. The technology offered a promising way to address it.
This sequence matters. Associations that start with "we should do something with AI" often struggle to find direction. Associations that start with "our members struggle with X, and here's what we know about that struggle" have a foundation to build on.
Your Content Is More Valuable Than You Think
Generic AI tools pull from the broad internet. That means they deliver broad, generic answers. For a professional trying to solve a specific problem in their field, generic isn't particularly helpful.
What makes AI genuinely useful for professionals is domain-specific, expert-vetted content. The kind of content associations have been accumulating for years.
IFT's 85 years of publications gave CoDeveloper a foundation that would take a startup years and significant resources to approximate. And even then, an outside company would be licensing or scraping content rather than owning it. The depth, specificity, and credibility of that content creates a competitive advantage that's hard to replicate.
Take an inventory of what your association has. Conference session recordings. Technical papers. Best practice guides. Certification study materials. Industry research. Standards documents. All of this is potential fuel for AI tools that could serve your members in ways generic tools never could.
The Devil Is in the Details
Here's something that's easy to underestimate: you can't just connect a chatbot to a content library and call it done.
Jay emphasized that IFT staff stayed deeply involved throughout development, joining daily standups with the technical team. Why? Because the quality of an AI tool depends on understanding how your specific members expect information to be delivered.
IFT's users are scientists. They expect precision. They want citations. They need to trust that the information is accurate and grounded in real research. The system prompts, the response formatting, the way sources are referenced—all of this required domain expertise to get right.
An outside developer can build the technical infrastructure, but they can't supply the deep understanding of your profession that makes the tool feel trustworthy. That's where association staff become essential. The more involved you stay, the more likely the end product will meet member expectations.
Build With Your Members, Not Just For Them
IFT's tagline for CoDeveloper is "built by food scientists for food scientists." That's not just marketing language. Members were involved throughout the process—shaping features, providing feedback, testing the platform.
This co-creation approach does two things. First, it ensures the product actually meets real needs rather than assumptions about what members want. Second, it builds trust. When members know their peers helped shape a tool, they're more likely to believe it will work for them.
Associations have a natural advantage here. You already have relationships with the people who would use an AI product. You have committees, volunteer groups, conference attendees, and engaged members who would likely be willing to participate in product development. Use those relationships. Bring members into the process early and keep them involved throughout.
Think Ecosystem, Not Standalone Product
One of the smartest things IFT did was design CoDeveloper's underlying technology to support future products. The AI chatbot they built, named Sous, was architected so other chatbots and tools could be launched more easily down the road.
They're also thinking about how the product connects to IFT's broader ecosystem. The most common question during demos is whether users can find ingredient suppliers through the platform. That's a natural extension because IFT already hosts a major ingredient expo. Connecting those supplier relationships to an AI tool adds value that wouldn't make sense coming from a standalone startup.
What does your association's ecosystem include? Events, certifications, educational programs, partnerships, publications—all of these could potentially connect to an AI product in ways that make the whole greater than the sum of its parts.
The Bigger Opportunity: Becoming Indispensable
There's a version of this where associations build AI tools that members find helpful. A nice resource. Something they check occasionally when they have a question.
And then there's a more ambitious version: building something that becomes embedded in how members actually work. A tool they open every day. A platform they can't imagine doing their job without.
That's the real opportunity here. Not just providing a good resource, but becoming an indispensable part of your members' professional lives.
Think about what that would mean for your association. Members who engage with your content daily rather than occasionally. Professionals who see your organization as essential infrastructure for their work, not just a membership they maintain. Retention that stems from genuine utility rather than habit or obligation.
IFT is building toward this with CoDeveloper. Food scientists using the platform aren't just searching an archive—they're integrating IFT's knowledge into their R&D process. The association becomes part of how they develop products.
That's a fundamentally different relationship than most associations have with their members. And it's possible because the technology now exists to deliver value in ways that weren't feasible before.
The Foundation Is Already There
The content your association has accumulated over the years isn't just an archive. It's a foundation. Turning it into something dynamic and useful requires research into member needs, close involvement in development, partnership with members throughout the process, and thinking about how a product fits into your broader ecosystem.
The associations that move on this will offer their members something no generic AI tool can match: trusted, domain-specific intelligence delivered in context. And they'll build relationships with members that go far deeper than a traditional membership model allows.
.svg)
