The PR industry has undergone a huge shift in the past decade, from an industry where print coverage was the ‘hero’ and AVE (Advertising Equivalent) the key metric to measure campaign success, to a blended environment where influencers, podcasts, digital coverage and brand-owned content play an integrated role in storytelling and reputation management.

Metrics for success have become far more tangible, measured through online visibility, website traffic, and inclusion in AI search engine results, alongside digital, broadcast and print media editorial coverage.

Ownership of brand content also plays a key role, with blogs, social media posts, customer emails, and websites enabling brands to control their own narrative without having to rely on third-party endorsement.

Day-to-day activities have also been impacted by the automated solutions available through software like Muck Rack, Prowly and CoverageBook, with these platforms automating routine tasks such as building journalist contact lists, distributing press releases, tracking brand mentions, and creating coverage reports

AI has become a fantastic tool to support the PR function of any marketing team, but it does have limitations and should be used with caution in an industry where human relationships are critical to success:

5 Dos of AI for PR

• DO use AI for brainstorming: When you’re stuck in a creative rut, AI is excellent for generating different headlines, storytelling angles, starting points and themes to explore, helping to drive creative thinking.
• DO train AI on your brand: Upload brand assets, examples of tone of voice and high-performing press materials to help AI ‘learn’ your brand. Treat it like an employee who needs to learn the business and it will more likely provide ‘on-brand’ solutions when asked.
• DO leverage AI for scaling research: Summarise lengthy industry research papers, news and insights into bite-size media bulleted data that supports or enhances brand storytelling. 
• DO use AI to simulate journalist response: If you’re sending a high-stakes, one opportunity pitch email test it first using AI. Ask AI to act as a cynical journalist bored of fluff and find out if your pitch is strong enough. Again, uploading examples of content written by your target journalist / the publication your journalist works for can make this even more effective.
• DO use it to sharpen and repurpose content: Once a human has written a great core piece of content, ask AI to check the flow, structure and suggest ideas for repurposing it across all your social media channels (e.g. LinkedIn, Instagram). A member of your team should check all content to ensure authenticity and consistent brand voice are maintained.

5 Don’ts of AI for PR

• DON’T send AI-generated pitches or press releases: This remains a key PR don’t; don’t send a generic press release to your database of target media. Pitch content must be relevant and targeted to deliver results.
• DON’T trust AI with factual accuracy or statistics: Yes, generate bulleted facts with source references, but humans must check every statistic to make sure it’s true to avoid AI hallucinations.
• DON’T feed unreleased product information or sensitive client details into AI: Once content is uploaded, it becomes public information on the LLM you’re using.
• DON’T automate your media relations or follow-ups: Relationships with journalists remain a critical component of successful PR, don’t ruin the potential of a good relationship through automated responses.
• DON’T outsource your crisis communications to AI: When a brand crisis hits, empathy, nuance, and hyper-specific cultural context are mandatory. AI lacks emotional intelligence and cannot grasp the subtle social undercurrents needed to successfully navigate a crisis.

Overall, AI is a great addition to the team, use it to help inspire creative ideas and research facts. It is also a brilliant editing tool to speed up the repurposing of content for multiple platforms, provided that all output is checked and verified by humans. Ultimately, it should be used as a tool to support your work so time can be freed up for your team to focus on the strategy and relationships.