As AI continues to evolve, so does the conversation about its role in public relations. But despite its growing sophistication, most communicators are still using the technology for one thing above all else — efficiency.
“We’re still using AI predominantly to write, edit and transcribe,” said Ray Day, APR, referencing the latest research from North Star Communications and the University of Missouri that highlights AI’s time-saving and productivity-boosting benefits.
However, PR professionals have an opportunity to integrate artificial intelligence into their communications strategies, said Day, PRSA’s 2025 chair and Stagwell vice chair, and Allison Worldwide executive chair.
On Oct. 13, Day hosted a virtual panel of AI experts for PRSA’s Member Mondays session. This sequel to the Aug. 11 Member Mondays featured Amanda Carl-Pratt, director and head of communications at Google DeepMind; Adam Pratt, director of issues and policy communications at IBM; and Mark Dollins, president of North Star Communications Consulting.
In public relations, Carl-Pratt said, “Some people worry that if we lean too hard on AI, then we’re not being true to the work that we do,” such as writing.
“We have to leverage AI as a tool, as we would any other tool, as we’ve progressed over the technological revolutions of our time,” she said. “We have to make sure that we’re inviting AI to the table to be our strategic partner.”
Artificial intelligence can “improve our efficiency and our effectiveness and give us more time to do the things that make us innately powerful in the jobs that we do,” she said. With AI, “I can take first drafts off my plate, and that gives me more time to be a strategic adviser to the C-suite and to provide expert counsel. My gut instinct is still there, which is something AI will never have.”
She said PR professionals “can hold hands with AI and have it question the things that you’re doing.”
AI-powered crisis communications team
Adam Pratt urged PR and comms professionals to see AI as a tool “that can make us smarter, faster and ultimately more effective communicators.”
At IBM, “we’re making our crisis-communication function AI-powered,” he said. “We’ve created an AI agent within the team that’s trained on 10 years of statements and crisis-communications plans” and other company data. “We can call upon this virtual member of our team for insights.”
During a recent crisis, Pratt trained an AI assistant in everything he was doing, “messaging, documents, internal updates,” he said. “This thing knows me now. It knows how to turn out something that feels like about 70% of what I would crank out on my own.” Pratt said he edits that AI-written copy.
“AI is a competency that we need to develop,” Dollins said. “And to do that, we’ve got to sit with the tech guys and gals at the lunch table, the machine-learning engineers and the computer scientists, and make some new friends there, right?”
These engineers and scientists “hold the cards in helping us understand what we need to do as communicators,” Dollins said. “We need to partner with them to understand the predictive, strategic use of AI for communications. We can’t be afraid of it.”
But as Carl-Pratt cautioned, “AI is like an eager intern. We have to constantly fact-check” what it tells us. “Never completely trust it.” Even when using AI, “we are accountable for what we deliver.”
Watch a replay of the Oct. 13 session below:
Photo credit: ibex media
