Understanding the impact of AI on public relations
A new Wadds Inc. management paper for corporate communicators and public relations practitioners highlights the impact of AI and what you should be doing about it.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) will significantly impact the public relations profession in the same way as the internet and social media before it. You should give it urgent attention as a public relations practitioner for two reasons.
It has the potential to impact the relationships and reputation that gives your organisation and its customers the licence or permission to operate
It will disrupt how you work within the next five years. It will displace functional, mainly junior, roles within public relations practice
“There are significant AI issues related to organisations, from autonomous AI to legal and regulatory concerns. Organisations must review the potential impact on the fundamentals of their business and keep ahead of policy development.
“The explosion in tools isn’t sustainable. Many are solutions looking for a problem, but they do allow practitioners to try things out cheaply, quickly, and relatively risk-free. Only by using AI will you learn how and where it could be incorporated into work.”
Andrew Bruce Smith, director, Escherman, and chair, AI in PR Panel, CIPR
The term Artificial Intelligence is nonsense. It’s artificial, and it isn’t very intelligent. It is based on training an algorithm to manipulate a data set called a large language model. AI predicts words or phrases based on the data set or large language model that it has been trained on.
AI originates from the 1950s as a means of machine learning. It came to the forefront of public consciousness in November 2022 when OpenAI launched a chat-based application called ChatGPT.
Wadds Inc. has produced a management paper for corporate communicators and public relations practitioners called The Impact of AI on Public Relations. It covers the following topics.
AI and management
AI has the potential to help organisations improve efficiency and effectiveness, but it also gives rise to several areas of risk. This includes bias, copyright, privacy, and misinformation.
The impact of AI on public relations practice
The optimistic perspective views AI as an assistant that will help public relations practitioners work smarter by acting as an assistant or researcher. The pessimistic view is that AI will eliminate roles based on administration, content creation or production.
New opportunities for public relations practitioners created by AI
AI may eliminate some jobs, but it will create new roles for public relations practitioners. Professional advisory and policy work is an obvious opportunity. There is also the need to engage with machines called prompt engineering which is the task of writing AI instructions.
The adoption of AI by public relations in practice
Public relations does not have a good track record when adopting new technology. It was slow to adapt to the internet, search engine optimisation, and social media. The early signs are that history may be repeating itself. Less than a fifth of practitioners are upskilling.
Examples of AI tools that can be applied in practice
Ignoring AI tools, for now, is possible, however Adobe, Google and Microsoft will force mainstream adoption in the business and consumer environment as soon as they incorporate it into their applications.
Five practical steps to exploring the impact of AI in your work
The paper sets out a five-step plan for corporate communicators and public relations practitioners wanting to learn about AI and its potential impact on their organisation and work.
Please follow this link if you’d like a copy of the Wadds Inc. management paper.
We've also developed a one-day workshop for agency management and communication teams that digs into the theme arising from the paper and includes a series of practical sessions. We also provide bespoke training and support.
I founded the CIPR AI in PR panel in 2018 and have supported the CIPR in this area for the past five years. Please let me know if you or your organisation need help in this area.
