Using AI in tactical and strategic applications in public relations and management
AI tools can help public relations practitioners work more efficiently and effectively, but the focus on generative AI content overlooks more strategic and disruptive applications.
AI tools have the potential to improve the skills of public relations practitioners and improve standards. AI has assisted practitioners with spelling, grammar, reading level and writing quality in the past ten years.
Not all practitioners use these tools, but where they do, the impact has been recognised as improving and levelling up skills.
New technologies become embedded into workflow over time. Spelling, grammar, reading level analysis, and writing quality tools have all been incorporated into word processor applications. I have used all these functions to produce this article.
Microsoft Word checked the spelling, accessibility, and reading age. Grammarly provided a proofing function, analysed the grammar, and improved comprehension. ChatGPT wrote the headline and introduction, and Claude 2 reviewed the argument and logic.
An AI assistant called CoPilot, based on Open AI ChatGPT will be incorporated into Microsoft Office and Office 365 within the next few months.
Roy Amara, a Stanford computer scientist, noted in the 1960s that we exaggerate the impact of technology in the short term but underestimate it in the long term.
Using AI to generate content in public relations
The current focus of practitioners on AI tools is on generative applications. This application uses AI to produce the first draft of documents and generate multiple content formats.
I have a party trick at conferences and speaking events where I use a white paper as an input for a large language model and ask it to generate a press release, media pitch, blog posts and various social media posts.
The quality of the outputs will depend on the quality of the prompts and the number of iterations, but the exercise takes less than ten minutes. The impact on labour is clear. It immediately eliminates around a day of work. The destruction of time-based work is almost inevitable.
Impact of AI on skills and time-based work
A recent study - Humans Needed More Than Ever (2023) - published by the CIPR reports that human skills are irreplaceable in public relations work requiring senior-level judgement, ethical reasoning, and strategic counsel.
The CIPR study found that up to 40% of public relations tasks now utilise AI assistance to some degree. Experienced users estimated productivity gains from AI tools in the 15 to 25% range. That’s a saving on 1 to 1.5 days of work per week. It’s consistent with my experience.
Andrew Bruce Smith, chair of the CIPR AI in PR panel, says that AI won’t take your job in public relations or professional services, but it may be taken by somebody who uses AI.
Risk issues: misinformation and complacency
Significant concerns remain in the use of AI related to misinformation. An issue with AI tools is that they don’t follow logic and will generate fiction even when a source document is provided. It’s more human than we’d recognise, but it results in the inadvertent creation of disinformation.
An over-reliance on AI tools has led to a user behaviour identified by Ethan Mollick, Associate Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, called “asleep at the wheel”, whereby users don’t question its outputs. Instead of improving professional standards in public relations practice, an uncritical use of AI could erode quality and skills.
The focus on generative AI and content in public relations overlooks a much bigger opportunity. The combination of natural language prompts and the reductive application of large language models support strategic applications of AI in public relations practice.
Strategic applications of AI in management and public relations
A new range of customer relationship management (CRM) tools is emerging from the media relations industry. It enables practitioners to understand stakeholder interests and make better-informed pitches.
We’ve demonstrated applications as part of horizon scanning to summarise and identify patterns in data sets such as conversations, databases, and spreadsheets. This assistive role is invaluable in planning and strategy.
This ability to make sense of large amounts of data offers the potential to build knowledge. In another application, we’ve demonstrated how to extract arguments from research papers and create a virtual body of knowledge.
A related application uses a body of content, such as a report, to train a large language model and interrogate it from different stakeholder perspectives.
I’m open-minded and optimistic about AI. There are significant risk issues, however we’re only just beginning to understand both its tactical and strategic role in practice.
We’re helping several agency clients and in-house communication teams work through AI risk and opportunity issues. Please let me know if you need support.
