PR Beyond AI: A New Profession Emerging From the Rubble

What will PR bey­ond AI look like?

Living in rap­idly evolving times, I some­times think about pub­lic rela­tions and its soci­et­al purpose. 

PR hasn’t played a clear role in the AI revolu­tion for nearly a dec­ade, but as soci­ety evolves, we must adapt, too.

But how?

The Industrial Revolution

One of many ways to think about how our world got indus­tri­al­ised is to think of it in three over­lap­ping phases:

For bet­ter or worse, pub­lic rela­tions is a lub­ric­ant for the inter­face between the indus­tri­al sys­tems and real people engaged in pro­du­cing and con­sum­ing. As a pro­fes­sion, this is how we have found our role in the great­er scheme of soci­et­al development.

Of course, this sim­pli­fied view of the indus­tri­al revolu­tion is, in many ways, pro­voc­at­ive. This per­spect­ive places the digit­al trans­form­a­tion not as a sep­ar­ate revolu­tion­ary shift but as the nat­ur­al out­come of the indus­tri­al­isa­tion process.

Read also: How To Write About AI: A Beginner’s Guide

The Existential PR Challenge

Being the inter­face between indus­tri­al efforts and humans, PR has always found itself at the inter­sec­tion between object­ives and ethics. 

But as we’re well under­way trans­ition­ing bey­ond AI. We face an almost exist­en­tial chal­lenge as we must replace humans rather than util­ise them.

For me, as a PR pro­fes­sion­al, two per­tin­ent ques­tions spring to mind:

For two dec­ades now, whenev­er I’m asked what I do for a liv­ing, I’ve replied, “I help organ­isa­tions to com­mu­nic­ate bet­ter.” That, to me, has always felt like an accur­ate and mean­ing­ful answer. 

But what is a mean­ing­ful answer for the com­ing two decades?

Read also: The Reykjavik Press Release — ChatGPT

PR Beyond AI: An Optimist’s Outlook

The AI Revolution: Transforming Public Relations

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

• More high-level tasks, less low-level. The use of AI-powered tools to auto­mate tasks such as media mon­it­or­ing, con­tent cre­ation, and social media man­age­ment. This could free up PR pro­fes­sion­als to focus on their work’s more stra­tegic and cre­at­ive aspects.
• Improved ana­lys­is and bet­ter strategies. The devel­op­ment of AI-powered sys­tems that can ana­lyse large amounts of data to identi­fy trends and insights that can inform PR strategy and decision-making.
• Using PR pro­fes­sion­als as AI train­ers. Using AI-powered chat­bots and vir­tu­al assist­ants to handle cus­tom­er inquir­ies and provide inform­a­tion to the pub­lic allows PR pro­fes­sion­als to scale PR training.
• Better pub­li­city through inter­con­nectiv­ity. The cre­ation of AI-powered plat­forms and net­works that can facil­it­ate con­nec­tions and col­lab­or­a­tions between PR pro­fes­sion­als, journ­al­ists, pub­lics, influ­en­cers, and oth­er crit­ic­al stake­hold­ers in the industry.
• Earlier detec­tions of poten­tial PR issues. AI-powered tools can help PR pro­fes­sion­als identi­fy and mit­ig­ate poten­tial crisis situ­ations by ana­lys­ing data and provid­ing early warn­ing sig­nals of poten­tial problems.
• Increased edit­or­i­al out­put. In organ­isa­tions where the com­mu­nic­a­tions depart­ment is driv­ing the con­tent strategy, PR pro­fes­sion­als will have plenty of tools for increas­ing both the qual­ity and the quant­ity of the out­put. ¹Silfwer, J. (2023, March 20). AI & PR: Beware the Artificial Content Explosion. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​a​r​t​i​f​i​c​i​a​l​-​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​-​e​x​p​l​o​s​i​on/

Overall, the impact of AI on the PR industry is likely to be sig­ni­fic­ant, with the poten­tial to revolu­tion­ise many aspects of how PR pro­fes­sion­als work and inter­act with their audi­ences.

Read also: PR Beyond AI: A New Profession Emerging From the Rubble

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PR to facil­it­ate and estab­lish the found­a­tion of a more pros­per­ous and advanced soci­ety might have been just a step­ping stone. Transforming human­ity into replace­able parts of AI pro­cesses is prob­ably an irre­vers­ible outcome. 

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.

In a post-indus­tri­al­ised soci­ety, excel­lent com­mu­nic­a­tion skills will be as val­ued as they are today. Perhaps even more.

For PR to move bey­ond the AI revolu­tion is not a fail­ure — it’s an accomplishment.

Read also: AI & PR: Beware the Artificial Content Explosion

PR Resource: The Electronic Age

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The Electronic Age

Human cul­ture is often described based on our access to pro­duc­tion tech­no­lo­gies (i.e. Stone Age, Bronze Age, 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 sug­gests divid­ing human civil­isa­tion into four epochs:

• Oral Tribe Culture. Handwriting marks the begin­ning of the end of the Oral Tribe Culture. The Oral Tribe Culture per­sists but without its former prominence.
• Manuscript Culture. Printing marks the begin­ning of the end of the Manuscript Culture. The Manuscript Culture per­sists but without its former prominence.
• Gutenberg Galaxy. Electricity marks the begin­ning of the end of the Gutenberg Galaxy. The Gutenberg Galaxy per­sists but without its former prominence.
• Electronic Age. Today, we reside in the Electronic Age. Possibly, we haven’t exper­i­enced the begin­ning of this age’s decline yet.

“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. The point is that soci­ety is unlikely to revert to the Gutenberg Galaxy.

Thus, digit­al-first is the way for pub­lic rela­tions, too.

Read also: Digital-First is the Way

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PR Resource: Content Themes

Content Themes

Let’s use a fic­ti­tious example of an IT com­pany. First, they decide on a Promise Filter for their con­tent strategy:

Promise Filter: We make IT easy to understand.

Then, the IT com­pany breaks their core mes­sage down into four busi­ness-crit­ic­al Content Themes:

Q1 Content Theme: We make people under­stand the Internet of Things (IoT).

Q2 Content Theme: We make people under­stand busi­ness auto­ma­tion.

Q3 Content Theme: We make people under­stand cloud com­put­ing.

Q4 Content Theme: We make people under­stand man­aged services.

For each quarterly Content Theme, they pro­duce Content Packages (to build Content Skyscrapers). Each Content Package could con­tain the following:

• Infographics
• Blog Articles
• Whitepapers
• Social Media Updates
• Landing Pages
• Lead Magnets
• Swipe Files
• Template Files
• Content Upgrades
• Online Courses
• Podcast Episodes
• Livestreams
• Email Send-Outs
• Events
• Case Studies
• Webinars
• Video Tutorials
• Interactive Quizzes
• Press Releases
• E‑Books
• Testimonials
• Influencer Collaborations
• Mobile Apps
• Slide Presentations

Learn more: The Content Themes PR Strategy

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