This is the Reykjavik press release.

There’s much to say about OpenAI’s newly released ChatGPT.

And make no mis­take about it — much will be said in the com­ing weeks, months, and years.

For now, I’ll settle for this:

I asked ChatGPT to write a press release about a fic­ti­tious hotel in Reykjavik, Iceland. I think it’s a con­ver­sa­tion starter as good as any.

Here we go:

The Press Release Prompt

I wrote this prompt about a fic­ti­tious hotel in Reykjavik:

We run a hotel in Reykjavik, Iceland. We’re launch­ing a new type of hotel room with see-through glass ceil­ings. This will allow our guests to see the aurora boreal­is, i.e. the Northern Lights. Our hotel will also change its name from The Icy Inn to Northern Light Hotel. Can you write a press release to entice inter­na­tion­al travel press to cov­er our story? Please also include two quotes from our CEO, Jerry Silfwer. He is excited and proud to be able to offer guests this exper­i­ence. Mark the begin­ning with “For imme­di­ate release,” and sug­gest a descript­ive head­line for today’s date.

The Reykjavik Press Release

Five seconds later, here’s ChatGPT’s Reykjavik press release:

For imme­di­ate release: December 9, 2022

Experience the Northern Lights from the com­fort of your bed at the newly-ren­ov­ated Northern Light Hotel

The Icy Inn, a pop­u­lar hotel loc­ated in Reykjavik, Iceland, is excited to announce that it will be rebrand­ing as the Northern Light Hotel and launch­ing a new type of hotel room that allows guests to exper­i­ence the aurora boreal­is from the com­fort of their own bed. ¹The press release implies that the hotel hasn’t rebranded itself yet. If you look closely at my prompt, that’s my mis­take (a PR pro­fes­sion­al with 17+ years of exper­i­ence) by phras­ing the prompt … Continue read­ing

The Northern Light Hotel will fea­ture trans­par­ent glass ceil­ings in its newly ren­ov­ated rooms, provid­ing guests with a unique and unfor­get­table view of the Northern Lights. This nat­ur­al phe­nomen­on, also known as the aurora boreal­is, is a beau­ti­ful and awe-inspir­ing sight only vis­ible in a few select loc­a­tions world­wide.

According to Jerry Silfwer, CEO of the Northern Light Hotel, “We are thrilled to be able to offer our guests the oppor­tun­ity to exper­i­ence the Northern Lights in such an intim­ate and magic­al way. The trans­par­ent glass ceil­ings in our new rooms will provide an unpar­alleled view of this incred­ible nat­ur­al phe­nomen­on, and we can’t wait to share it with our guests.” ²As far as CEO quotes go, these are tired. Still, I did ask ChatGPT to include “excite­ment” and “pride.” I should have promp­ted some­thing more sub­stan­tial.

The hotel will also offer a range of oth­er amen­it­ies and activ­it­ies to help guests make the most of their Northern Lights exper­i­ence, includ­ing guided tours, pho­to­graphy work­shops, and hot tubs with night sky views. ³Obviously, ChatGPT made all of this up. I promp­ted noth­ing about any amen­it­ies. Still, this kind of out­side-the-box think­ing is not unreas­on­able: if it hasn’t already, the hotel should con­sider … Continue read­ing

“At the Northern Light Hotel, we are com­mit­ted to provid­ing our guests with an unfor­get­table and truly remark­able exper­i­ence,” Silfwer said. “We are con­fid­ent that our new rooms and range of activ­it­ies will make the Northern Light Hotel the premi­er des­tin­a­tion for any­one look­ing to see the aurora boreal­is in all its glory.” ⁴“If Jerry thinks that the Reykjavik press release is usable, what the hell is he think­ing?” Yes, the press release is very stand­ard. But with con­tact details and a boil­er­plate, it wouldn’t be … Continue read­ing

The Northern Light Hotel is loc­ated in the heart of Reykjavik, with­in easy reach of the city’s many attrac­tions and activ­it­ies. From the hotel, guests can eas­ily explore the vibrant cul­ture and his­tory of Iceland’s cap­it­al city and take day trips to see the country’s stun­ning nat­ur­al beauty. ⁵Few press releases are great. Many should be bet­ter, no doubt. But they’re not sup­posed to be works of art, either. We can com­plain about the qual­ity of the Reykjavik press release, but we must … Continue read­ing

The hotel’s man­age­ment team is excited to share this exper­i­ence with guests world­wide and looks for­ward to wel­com­ing vis­it­ors to the Northern Light Hotel. ⁶I would rate this first draft of the Reykjavik press release as being of mid-level pro­fes­sion­al qual­ity. As a first draft, it’s bet­ter than what I’d get from most juni­or PR exec­ut­ives and some … Continue read­ing

PR Resource: The AI Content Explosion

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. ⁷Silfwer, 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. ⁸Højris 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

PR Resource: How AI Will Impact PR

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