What Is AI Doing to PR?

The Wall Street Journal asks whether AI will help PR firms drive profits or whether it will just drive us all crazy with spam. Or both?

Good Morning!

Here are today’s highlights:

• “Every time we authorize a shipment from one of our factories,” says the owner of two ecommerce businesses, “we’re rolling the dice on what we’ll have to pay in import fees.”

• There’s a growing movement to make grocery stores more like farmers markets.

• The rise of cremation is killing funeral homes that don’t adjust.

• Today’s question: What do you see AI doing to PR firms and other professional-service businesses?

PUBLIC RELATIONS

Will AI drive profits for PR firms or render them unnecessary? Public-relations agencies email reporters every day with suggestions to cover their clients, but this pitch from March stood out from the flood with its unusual subject line: ‘You care more about Tesla than a cancer killing thousands.’ The email went on to scold U.S.-based reporters for giving priority to Tesla earnings news and celebrity gossip over the work of Mainz Biomed, a German firm that develops tests for colorectal cancer. After rattling off statistics about increasing cancer rates, it stated, ‘This isn’t a future problem. It’s happening right now. But you wouldn’t know, because you’ve been covering crap that doesn’t matter. Do better.’”

• “This pitch was generated entirely by an artificial intelligence tool called PRAI, which suggested getting reporters’ attention by combining the well-known Tesla name with a confrontational tone, according to Valentin Saitarli, who is chief executive of PRAI and managing director of Exclusive PR Solutions, a public relations firm that represents Mainz Biomed. It succeeded in generating attention—and hostility.”

• “Is this the future of public relations? The email is an extreme example of AI being applied to PR without proper human oversight, according to communications veterans. But the field is already being changed by AI in other ways. Nearly every major PR firm has named an AI leader, and they have also developed a range of proprietary tools.”

• “When a client is the subject of negative headlines, the PR firm Golin can use AI to track more real-time responses and test potential responses on synthetic focus groups created by large language models, said Jeff Beringer, chief AI officer at the agency, part of Interpublic Group of Cos.”

• “PodPitch was specifically designed to help communications professionals land their clients on podcasts, said co-founder Neal Shulman. Its product uses AI to match users’ topical keywords with transcriptions from thousands of podcast episodes and generate personalized pitch emails based on clients’ qualifications and the shows they are targeting, Shulman said.”

• “Microsoft last year developed a generative AI interface that summarizes mentions of Microsoft in news stories, podcasts, and social-media posts so its communications team can more quickly develop a response strategy, said Steve Clayton, vice president of communications strategy at Microsoft.”

• “AI has complicated the jobs of PR people as well. The technology made email outreach less effective by encouraging an ever-larger deluge of spam messages, according to Nick Toso, CEO and co-founder of Rolli, a tool that connects reporters with subject matter experts for their stories.” READ MORE

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