AI in PR: Embracing Opportunities and Addressing Concerns

For the past eight years, PR Week and Cision have teamed up to produce a report based on a comprehensive survey of the PR & comms industry. It's a sort of state of the industry, if you will, and it tells a bit about the story behind the people telling the story. And what are people talking about in 20 25? Well, a lot of things. But as you might imagine, the big one is AI. It's infecting, or affecting, depending on your point of view, how we do the work that we do.

And there's a lot of positives, but there's also some concerns.

Abbie, what's on your mind? Yeah, AI. I've heard a lot of my colleagues say that their newest employee is AI. And I'm like, well, we all have one of those on our staff now. I was actually in a meeting with a otherday.Wewerebrainstorming. Wewantedtoname We wanted to amea a new program and we were just getting stuck. We couldn't come past certain words. I'm like, well, give me just a second. asuddenthewheelswerespinning.Wehadgreatotherideasandall sudden the wheels were spinning.

We had great ideas and all with a couple correct prompts to get some new ideas. And I think for a lot of us that are using it, we're using it from a brainstorming perspective. We're using it for research extent, extent, we're using it to create content. But an overwhelming amount of conversations around AI are also, "but it scares me a little bit, and I'm afraid that it might take my job."

And so goingtouseAIandhowit'sgoingtobeincorporatedintoreallyeverythingwe'redoing.Butweshouldn'tshyawayforsomeoftheconcernsandworriesmaybeaboutwhatit'sdoingorwhatitmaydo,certainlytothoseofusinthecommunicationsindustry,buthowit'sbeingusedacrossbusinessesingeneral,itcertainly. It certainly seems if someoftheinitialexuberancehascooled,whileatthesametime the largelanguage modelskeepgettingbetterand better. Manyof the toolsarejust of the tools are just light years ahead

ago.Andasfolksbegintoupskill,ifyouwillreallylearn howto incorporate someof will, really learn how to incorporate some definitely areaswhere it's beeneasiertoembrace,liketheBrainstorming thatyoutalkedaboutasecond ago.Ihavethis the brainstorming that intoChatGPTorClaudeorGeminiorwhatever your toolof choice is.Butthere's some interestingemergingapplicationsthatsome your tool of choice is. But there are some notallbyalongshot.Butthere'sanote inhereaboutwhetherornotafirm has developed to explore.

Not all, by a long shot. But there's a note of thefirmsaidyes.Theyhad.Of course,thatmeans63%saidno. But we'reseeing atrend towards lesssortofofftheshelf,youknow,ready the firm said yes, they had.

Of course, that means 63% said no. But we're seeing a trend towards less off-the-shelf, you know, ready-to wear type applications and more bespoke, like, let's create something, let's pull in a developer or get some folks to build us a tool somethingmeaningfulon one of them is something very similar to how I have used a lot of AI, and that is Retrieval Augmented Generation or RAG.

In other words, instead of just searching comeupwith somethingmeaningfulonitsown,yougiveitasetofdocum, You know, HMA Public Relations partofthePublicRelationsGlobalNetwork, whichisa networkofindependentlyownedagencies aroundtheworld.Andour networkpartner our network partner in Washington D.C., Xenophon, has created their own proprietary tool called Précis AI. And it talkingabout,

thatthereareplentyofqualityprogramsthatareaccessibleandfreeforbeginners.Andobviouslyyoupay ifyouwantalittlebitmore indepthandmore resources.But theywerefindingthat a little bit more in depth and more resources. But specificneedsofcommunicationsprofessionalsin create one that honed in on anyonecanuse them, they'rethereforanylevelofexpertise.Buttheyreallywantedto createonethatwasveryspecificto the them, they're there for any level of expertise.

But they toanyofthetoolsthatcommunicationsprofessionalsusetodo our jobs,isthatitisatool.Andtobeaneffectivetool,we needto understandit,weneed torecognizeitsvalueto whatwearedoing professionals use to is not aneither orhire, is a tool. And to be communicationsprofessional.It ishireacommunicationsprofessionalthatis using AI,right?Sowehavetokindofembrace thisideathatit's hereandit'saincredibly

powerfultoolforus.Youknow, the,theI,Ihaven'thadthequestion in awhile,butintheearlydaysofAI,well, 18monthsago,butin right? So daysofAI,youknow,therewere acoupleconversationswith some,you know,newbusinessprospectsthat, you You know, I thequestion,can Ijustdothis withAI?DoIhavetohireyou?Andyou know,obviouslythe,youknow,I'mgoing the earlier days of AI, you know, there were a couple conversations with some new business prospects that honestly were asking the question, "can I just

whatisbeingasked,right?And to hire you?" And you know, obviously I'm going to always youdon'twantyour to hire me. And I can say that confidently because no matter how good these promptthat saidwriteamarketingstrategywithsixtacticsandyouknow,fordeliverables,that's,we'llallendupwiththe exactsame,you know,cookiecutter scenario. So there's,there's benefitinwhatthis iswhenthehumanelement is thereandthat thoseofus that embraceit,understandit, learnto like everyone else's marketing strategy who plugged

intaplacetoprovideanalysis,giveusanotheroutlookontosomething.That'swhatyou'rebeingpaidtodo,right?That'swhatyourclientsareaskingyouto the exact same cookie cutter scenario. So there's benefit in what this is when the human element is workmoreefficiently,haveaccessto,youknow,amuchlargerdataset,butnothingwillreplace,youknow,thehuman

componentofwhatthis,thisisandwhatI'mfindinginteresting.Wedoalotofworkwithschools,educationenvironmentsandtheconversationswithcurriculumdevelopersarearoundintroducingAIintotheclassroomandteaching

do. That's what, if you're an in-house team, what your organization is asking you to do. And this togotothelibraryandgotothecardcatalogand find more efficiently, have access to a much larger data set, but nothing will replace the human component of this is.

And what I'm finding interesting, we do a lot of work with schools, education environments, and the conversations with curriculum developers are around introducing AI into the classroom and teaching students how to use it -- I'm going to date myself a little bit -- the same way that we learned how to use the Dewey Decimal System. We had to go to theshelvestofind?TheshelfnowisawellwrittenpromptintooneoftheseAIprogramstohelpusfindthat information.

,r ""-

And of course, it's putting Oxford, who makes the 3x5 cards, out of business because that was essential. We had to hand copy quotes out of the books and journals that we found and then spread them out all over the dining room table to try to write a high school research paper. I loved that. I so loved that.

One of the things that strikes me about this whole thing is we're going to see some interesting problems emerge that we may not have thought about ahead of time when it was so exciting, when it was so new. But the fact that you can produce so many words with just a few keystrokes and a, you know, short prompt, or the fact that you can use a proprietary tool to generate a strategy like you mentioned, is likely to get us to a point where there's just too many things being output.

It's so easy to make long documents and long reports and things of that nature that there's an additional skill which is drilling down to find what really matters. I mean, you can get carried away in a ChatGPT thread and however many thousands of words later, you forget which part of what you were doing is going to be the most important. We tend to think of generative AI as giving us more. But of course it's also important to tinkabouthavingitgive usless. less.

Find the reducethecomplexdocumentto athreepoint a three-point summary, et cetera. So it goes thingslongerandmakingthingsshorter.Andwiththesummaries, youknow, And with the summaries, you know, it's fascinating, I don't know, have you played around at alatGoogle.It'snottheirGeminiAI,butitis somewhatadjacenttoit.It's aseparateproject,butbasically it is somewhat adjacent to it. It's a separate project, but basically this was designed with students or writers in mind.

And what you do is you create notebooks, essentially folders, and you can dump whatever you want in the folder. So if this was a research paper today, it would be that you put all your sources, you find your journal articles, your links, your MP3 files if you recorded the professor lecturing or you recorded an interview with somebody. You just dump it all in there and then you start to query that folder, and it can summarize things.

And it's always citing the specific thing it got out of the folder. didalittleexperimentacouple couple of weeks ago. I took all the transcripts of speeches I've given, led,podcastinterviewsI'vedonewhereIwasthefeaturedguest,andI I was the featured guest, and I just dumped it all in a folder. NotebookLM has a feature now where with a push of a button -- and then you wait about five minutes, it has to actually process this -- it will produce a podcast epis"" ...

So it was a big ego boost for you is what it was. No, it wasn't. It was just odd. Because, I mean, what they said was kind of right. But also waslisteningtothem talkaboutwhatIhadfedit, I thought,well, Iwouldactually saythat differently. that differently. And it kind of spurred my thinking. Anyway, I don't buttheapplicationsarereally gettingquitediverse.Alotof are really getting quite diverse. A ofdifferentwaysthataboutit.However,youwanted things. Not everybody's feeling good about it, however.

You wanted t

So the survey, right, that Cision and PR Week compiled, they talked to 310 communications professionals. And on the topic of AI, there's a fair amount of individuals that are still concerned that it will eliminate the communications jobs. About 28% of the respondents were worried that their job was at risk as a result of AI. And again, my thinking, I don't say we shouldn't be concerned, but I think the concern needs to be on learning this skill, understanding it and embracing it.

And that becomes how you continue to add value to your team, to your organization. If you are a job seeker, this is going to be a skill set that we are all going to look for is what is your experience with AI? What do you know? How have you used it? What success? What changes would you make, whatever that might be. There's always the question of budgeting, right?

Is AI going to ... because it is available and to some extent there are no costs associated with using it, does that mean our budgets are going to start to shrink? If AI can write the brochure, I can stop ... I don't have to pay you to do that. Well, sure, 26% of people say it's going to impact our budgets. I'll make a similar argument again that says, well, of course AI can create a brochure for you, and it will create the same brochure for you that it's creating for everyone else.

Because there's only so many ways you can say so many things unless you add the human element to it. So, you know, I'm not saying we should not be concerned. We should. Anything that changes how we do what we do is worthy of a conversation. However, I think where, fo me, the takeaway really needs to be is if we say, okay, AI and all of what it does is going to be part of the work, the work that communications professionals are doing.

It is going to be in our world, what does that mean for my organization? And how do I, as someone who wants to be successful, someone who wants to lead in my organization, someone who wants to be a responsible and participatory member of my team, how do I look at this and say, what can I learn about it? And bring that to the table? And what information can I share about this powerful tool that makes my colleagues, my clients, my organization smarter because we have access to that?

ndweregularlytalkthat communicationsprofessionalsneedto have aseatat thetable. And table. And so thetableisbeingreplacedbytechnology,theperson sittingnext tothattechnologyneedsto be theonethatcanmanagewhatthis is. And

sodon'tignore.AndIcertainlydon'twant tominimizeconcerns,butIreallyfeellikethereis anopportunitytoembrace andbethe oneontheteam,be theonethatbringsforththepowerand thevalueof whatthisis,andnotrunawayfrom it,but embraceit insuchawaythatitbecomesanimportantpartof whatall ofus need toknowhowtodo,because itis notgoingto be goingaway. I will just say I could reframe these four concerns as opportunities.

Maybe that's what folks were also thinking, because the way the survey worked, these four common concerns were listed, and then people had to say whether or not they shared those concerns. And none of them got more than a third of respondents saying they thought it was a problem. It's interesting that the top one is "the daunting challenge of communicating to stakeholders the many changes that AI is bringing about to the company or to the brand." Well, that's a communications opportunity.

Let's communicate to the people who care about these things exactly how AI is changing some things for the company or for the product or for whatever. The middle two, "communication jobs will be eliminated" and "communication budgets will shrink" ... I have to say if AI can replace a job or do something cheaper, it should. It should do both of those things. That's my personal point of view.

Now I don't think it should replace the people doing the work, but if you have people doing menial tasks that could be done by an AI, you should have the AI do those things, and you should then pass that cost savings on to the client or find other ways to add value to the engagement.

Gone are the days -- and again, this might be very controversial for some folks and this is my opinion, not the opinion of this show -- but if you are getting comfortable collecting a monthly retainer and assuming that the value is self evident, then you're going to be in trouble no matter what. And if AI is bringing costs down, either find ways to increase the value you add or accept the fact that you have to charge less for what you provide. One man's point of view.

And then the final one, "do comms pros have a seat at the table? Is AI undermining that?" Only

14% of people said they were concerned about that. People are very solidly confident that C-suite executives at their client organizations are relying on their insights and on their knowledge. I think this is all very po Yeah, I don't disagree. And to your point about budget shrinking and showing value, that is a rallying cry and should be for every individual that is servicing an organization and responsible for communications.

The survey does talk about a little bit about measuring the impact of what communications is doing. And this has been and will anongoing conversationthatwhatwedoascommunicationsprofessionalsmust betiedtothebusinessgoalsandobjectives.Andourvaluepropositionishowweimpactthose

businessobjectives.Anditisnota14inchclipbookoflookatall the it is not a 14-inch clip book of "look at all the business that we've got" unless those mentions drive the business theoutdatedwaysof, ofmeasuring ourimpacton rid of someshould saynotevenour of measuring our impact or our success. I should say not even our impact but our success. And to your point, a AI has an opportunity to help us do that. Here's what we set out to do. Here is our intent with this type of information.

Did we accomplish this? Where were we? What's the sentiment? What's the share of voice? Some of those other things that are often looked quitewiththosetypesofparametersaroundit. Youknow,thewhileweletAIdo these,you while we let of do these manual timetothatstrategy andthat,youknow,way ofmake, youknow,impacting that way of andyourgoals.Andwenowhave atoolthatallowsustobemoreefficientincertainareas,freeing

upourhumantimeonthestrategy.Andagain,maybe I'vegotabitofrose colored glasses,butI time on the strategy. And again, maybe I've got a bit of rose colored glasses, but I gotta believe that smart communications professionals with this type of open dialogue with their organizations, their clients, their in-house report-ups to CEOs and such have to have these conversations and you know, create the path that the we bring to the table things that a machine cannot bring.

But let's let the machines do the things that the humans shouldn't be doing because there's a more efficient way to do it. And we've seen that over time with other industries .L Thanks for listening to this episode of Copper State of Mind. If you enjoyed the conversation, please share it with a colleague who might also find this podcast valuable. It's easy to do, just click the "Share" button in the app you're listening to now to pass it along.

You can also follow Copper State of Mind in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcast app. We publish new episodes every other Friday. Copper State of Mind is brought to you by HMA Public Relations, the oldest continuously operating PR firm in Arizona. The recordedandproducedbytheteamatSpeedofStory,a B2Bcommunications firminPhoenix,anddistributedbyPHXFM,the distributed by PHX.fm, podcastnetworkinArizona.For allofus network in Arizona.

For all us hereatSpeedofStoryandPHX.fm,forsharingtheshowwithothers.If youchoosetodoso.Wehopeyou'lljoinwith othersif youchooseto do so. ofMind.