PR Beyond AI

What will PR bey­ond AI look like?

Living in the dawn of the Electronic Age, I some­times think about pub­lic rela­tions and its future.

I’m sure we must adapt.

If we allow the world to think of PR pro­fes­sion­als as out­dated flacks, we’ll fade into obli­vi­on while armies of digit­al mar­keters take over our responsibilities.

But so far, PR has not played a role in the AI Revolution, but we should. We must.

Here we go:

PR Beyond AI

Whenever I’m asked what I do for a liv­ing, I reply, “I help organ­isa­tions to com­mu­nic­ate bet­ter.” That, to me, has always felt like an accur­ate and mean­ing­ful answer.

But pro­gress is unavoidable. 

As the AI Revolution makes its pres­ence felt, I think about what ‘com­mu­nic­at­ing bet­ter’ will mean as we move forward.

I’m won­der­ing:

Replacing Humans — A Good or Bad Idea?

During the Industrial Revolution, soci­ety under­went three dis­tinct phases:

Based on the three phases of the Industrial Revolution, we can see that whatever comes after­wards is a nat­ur­al out­come of the indus­tri­al­isa­tion process.

The res­ult was­n’t ter­rible. The AI Revolution may lead to sim­il­ar outcomes.

How AI Will Impact PR (Probably)

Overall, AI’s impact on the PR industry is likely to be sig­ni­fic­ant, with the poten­tial to revolu­tion­ise many aspects of how PR pro­fes­sion­als work and inter­act with stake­hold­ers, influ­en­cers, and pub­lics.

There are sev­er­al ways in which arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) is likely to impact the pub­lic rela­tions (PR) industry. 

Here are a few examples:

More IT = We Need More (Not Less) PR Skills

Historically, soci­et­al pro­gress has often meant that humans have been freed to think, com­mu­nic­ate, and cre­ate. And it’s usu­ally in these rare and inspired times of enlight­en­ment that we take great strides towards dis­cov­er­ing mean­ing, cre­at­ing art, and under­stand­ing the universe.

For bet­ter or worse, pub­lic rela­tions is a lub­ric­ant for the inter­face between the indus­tri­al sys­tems and real people engaged in pro­du­cing and consuming. 

This is how PR pro­fes­sion­als have found their role in the great­er scheme of soci­et­al development.

This is likely how we’ll find our foot­ing bey­ond AI, too.

In a post-AI soci­ety, human-to-human com­mu­nic­a­tion skills will likely be as val­ued as they are today. Perhaps even more.

Read also: PR Beyond AI

Enter: The Electronic Age

Human cul­ture is often described based on our access to pro­duc­tion tech­no­lo­gies (e.g., the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age).

According to Marshall McLuhan and the Toronto School of Communication Theory, a bet­ter ana­lys­is would be to view soci­et­al devel­op­ment based on the prom­in­ence of emer­ging com­mu­nic­a­tions technologies.

McLuhan’s Four Epochs

McLuhan sug­gests divid­ing human civil­isa­tion into four epochs:

“The Gutenberg Galaxy is a land­mark book that intro­duced the concept of the glob­al vil­lage and estab­lished Marshall McLuhan as the ori­gin­al ‘media guru’, with more than 200,000 cop­ies in print.”
Source: Modern Language Review ²McLuhan, M. (1963). The Gutenberg galaxy: the mak­ing of typo­graph­ic man. Modern Language Review, 58, 542. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​2​3​0​7​/​3​7​1​9​923

As a PR pro­fes­sion­al and lin­guist, I sub­scribe to the concept of the Electronic Age. I firmly believe soci­ety is unlikely to revert to the Gutenberg Galaxy.

Like the rest of soci­ety, the PR industry must com­mit to digit­al-first, too. Mark my words: It’s all-in or bust.

Read also: The Electronic Age and the End of the Gutenberg Galaxy

The AI Content Explosion

As we ven­ture fur­ther into the era of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, the growth of cor­por­ate con­tent is inev­it­able. Natural lan­guage pro­cessing (NLP) algorithms enable busi­nesses to gen­er­ate large volumes of writ­ten con­tent in a frac­tion of the time it would take a human writer.

From product descrip­tions and mar­ket­ing mater­i­als to news art­icles and social media posts, AI-powered con­tent gen­er­a­tion tools rap­idly stream con­tent pro­duc­tion and allow com­pan­ies to main­tain a con­sist­ent pres­ence across mul­tiple platforms.

By util­ising chat­bots on web­sites, social media plat­forms, and mes­saging apps, com­pan­ies can engage with their audi­ence around the clock, answer­ing quer­ies and offer­ing tailored recommendations. 

By pre­dict­ing the most com­pel­ling top­ics, formats, and chan­nels for con­tent dis­tri­bu­tion, AI empowers com­pan­ies to cre­ate … more con­tent. As a res­ult, the rise of AI is fuel­ing an AI con­tent explosion.

AI, Content, and PR

Artificial intel­li­gence will impact every industry — and pub­lic rela­tions is no excep­tion. People are using AI tools to churn out con­tent at an explos­ive rate.

Many PR pro­fes­sion­als are explor­ing new and excit­ing AI tools to increase their out­put of cor­por­ate con­tent. ³Silfwer, J. (2022, December 10). The Reykjavik Press Release. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​r​e​y​k​j​a​v​i​k​-​p​r​e​s​s​-​r​e​l​e​a​se/

However, fol­low­ing suit with the AI con­tent explo­sion might not be the best idea.

If your organ­isa­tion has a habit of pro­du­cing mediocre cor­por­ate con­tent, util­ising AI tools to pro­duce expo­nen­tially more mediocre con­tent won’t improve your pub­lic relations.

It’s reas­on­able to assume that emer­ging AI tools will enable lazy storytellers to churn out more con­tent en masse. Should your organ­isa­tion join this group?

The sheer volume of AI-gen­er­ated con­tent being pro­duced and pub­lished means that it will become increas­ingly dif­fi­cult for com­pan­ies to dif­fer­en­ti­ate them­selves and cap­ture the atten­tion of their tar­get audi­ence. This is espe­cially true in indus­tries where many organ­isa­tions are vying for atten­tion. ⁴Højris Bæk, D. (2023, January 11). Google is not against AI gen­er­ated con­tent and text any longer. Seo​.ai. https://​seo​.ai/​b​l​o​g​/​g​o​o​g​l​e​-​i​s​-​n​o​t​-​a​g​a​i​n​s​t​-​a​i​-​c​o​n​t​ent

PR Must Zig When Other Zag

In an increas­ingly arti­fi­cial world, PR pro­fes­sion­als must dare to think differently. 

Public rela­tions is a zig­zag. When every­one is zig­ging, you should zag. Embrace your inner contrarian.

The rise of AI-gen­er­ated con­tent presents a counter-intu­it­ive oppor­tun­ity for pub­lic rela­tions. In a quant­it­at­ive world, your brand could go the oth­er way and focus on qual­ity (the prin­ciple of scarcity).

By focus­ing on qual­ity over quant­ity and safe­guard­ing the human touch in com­mu­nic­a­tions with stake­hold­ers, influ­en­cers, and pub­lics, organ­isa­tions can stand out from the crowd and make a real impact with their messaging.

Learn more: The AI Content Explosion

THANKS FOR READING.
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The Electronic Age

• The Electronic Age and The End of the Gutenberg Galaxy
• The Hippie Web is Dead (2005 – 2015)
• Enter the Money Web (2016 – Present)
• Techlash: The Great Digital Depression
• The Age of Epistemic Solipsism
• Digital Sharecropping

Artificial Intelligence

• PR Beyond AI
• The AI Content Explosion

Digital Transformation

• Digital Transformation: Overview
• Digital Transformation Hierarchy

Digital Public Relations

• PR Must Adapt — or Die
• Digital-First is the Way
• What is Digital PR?
• The Online Base Camp

Learn more: All Free PR Courses

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