It's not a book launch unless there's cake and conversation

4 May

AI for Public Relations is published today. There is cake. There is also a much bigger conversation ahead for the industry.

AI for Public Relations: A How-To Guide for Implementation and Management, edited with Ben Verinder, is published by Kogan Page. Two years of work, 16 chapters, 15 contributors, and a community of practice that has shaped our thinking throughout.

Thank you to everyone who has been part of it.

The book is the conclusion of a two-year project. It is also the start of a much bigger conversation for the industry. That is the part that we are most excited about.

Public relations is positioned to lead on three of the questions every organisation is now wrestling with.

How AI is embedded in everyday workflow.
How it is governed internally.
And how organisations remain visible as audiences shift from search engines to large language models.

Each of these is a reputational question before it is a technical one. This is the role of public relations practice.

1. Workflow

AI is compressing the time practitioners spend on research, drafting, editing and evaluation. The capacity that frees up is the interesting bit: judgment, creativity, advisory work, the things that have always justified the function’s management role.

Andrew Bruce Smith maps the tools landscape (chapter 2). I write on the impact of AI on the future of practice (chapter 3). Gay Flashman covers content creation (chapter 4). Richard Bagnall and Paul Hender write on planning and measurement (chapter 6). Antony Mayfield writes on building AI-ready teams (chapter 8). Jeff Beringer and Jonny Bentwood cover agency adoption (chapter 9). Serena Mitchell does the same for in-house teams (chapter 10). The book is a community of practice, not a single voice.

2. Generative engine optimisation

This is the chapter I wrote myself (chapter 5). Audiences are moving from search to AI assistants. The discipline of shaping how an organisation appears in the outputs of a large language model is new, and it sits naturally with the function that already owns reputation, narrative and source credibility. Communications teams are equipped to lead this.

3. Management advisory

Boards are asking for counsel on AI risk, governance and adoption. The communications leader who understands both the technology and the reputational stakes is the obvious person to provide it.

Ben and I open the book with the key challenges and opportunities (chapter 1). Farzana Baduel, Ben and I write on AI and public relations management (chapter 7). Amy Mollett covers developing, implementing and measuring AI policy (chapter 11). Ben writes two chapters on risk: technical and operational (chapter 12), behavioural and systemic (chapter 13). Will Julian-Vicary covers vendor relationships (chapter 14). Anne Gregory and Swati Virmani write on the contribution of public relations to shaping AI’s role in society (chapter 15). Ben and I close the book on the future of public relations in the age of AI (chapter 16).

Why public relations is positioned to lead

Public relations already owns reputation, stakeholder trust and organisational ethics. Those are the disciplines AI adoption now depends on. The function does not need to invent a new mandate. It needs to apply the one it has.

Ben puts it more sharply. AI is a huge opportunity for public relations if the function adopts it with credibility, confidence and care, and if it steps up to help organisations maximise the benefits while managing the considerable risks.

AI for PR Conference 2026

The conversation continues at the AI for PR Conference 2026, organised by Communicate magazine in London on Thursday 18 June. It is the natural next step from the book: a one-day programme of real-world case studies, expert insight and forward-looking discussion.

Many of the book’s contributors are speaking. Ben and I are both on the programme. The agenda covers the same three pillars we have built the book around (workflow, GEO and management advisory) with sessions led by practitioners who have done the work in their own organisations.

Proceeds, publication and thanks

All author proceeds go to Socially Mobile, the not-for-profit Sarah Waddington and I co-founded. It supports UK public relations practitioners from under-represented backgrounds to progress into leadership.

AI for Public Relations: A How-To Guide for Implementation and Management is published by Kogan Page, 288 pages, paperback £30.

Thanks to Ben for the partnership on this project, to all of the contributors for the generosity of their thinking, and to the team at Kogan Page.