How Artificial Intelligence (AI) Will Affect The PR Industry

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become an increasingly common topic in everyday life. What seemed to be a far fetched sci-fi movie concept long ago is now something many of us use in our daily lives. AI technology has been integrated into industries like customer service, content creation and optimization, online search and so much more. Despite these integrations, AI often gets a bad reputation due to its perceived invasive nature among consumers and even some professionals in the industry. As the PR and Marketing industry moves forward, here are some things you and your team should consider and be made aware of.

AI Will Not Steal Your PR/Marketing Job 

The most common misconception about AI is the fear of job loss. While that may be true in certain industries, you have to remember that communications is an art form and AI is a science. Any job within the communications industry heavily relies on the human connection and touch in building meaningful and lasting relationships. Even the smartest of AI machine learning will never be able to replicate the constant effort it takes to build and manage relationships with customers, clients, brands and other communications professionals which is the most integral part of being in PR or Marketing.

Increase Productivity And Eliminate Tedious Tasks 

Every PR or Marketing professional at one point in their career had the responsibility of dealing with mundane tasks such as organizing media lists or other large files, sifting through large amounts of media coverage, and arranging meetings, etc. While these tasks are important to the organization, it can take up a lot of time and more important priorities can take longer to finish. AI can assist PR professionals in helping with routine tasks to complex ones such as:

• Translating And Transcribing Large Amounts Of Data  — Imagine your client has received large amounts of media coverage or your team is interested in learning about a specific topic for your next project. Natural Language Processing AI can help you summarize, find keywords and facts in a way that is understandable but more importantly, meaningful. As the PR and Marketing industry continues to sit on incredibly large sums of data, this will be ever more important in our work so that we can make the most efficient and data-driven decisions. Without Natural Language Processing AI, this task would take many days to complete and might not even scratch the surface of the mass amounts of information available.

• Creating Hyper-Tailored Outreach Methods — As much as PR and Marketing professionals want to create tailored outreach emails and pitches to journalists, influencers and other media professionals, the reality is that we simply do not have the time since many of us work on multiple projects with tight deadlines. AI technology can analyze previous work done by a journalist or influencer to see what kind of topics they cover, their writing style as well as curating a more relevant match so that the targeted journalist or influencer would more likely be interested in covering a story or product.

• Predicting Industry and Media Trends — PR and Marketing firms always want to be ahead of the curve and offer innovative tactics for their clients. AI can analyze current consumer behaviours, attitudes and patterns and forecast future opportunities of growth that will be supported by organized and sensible data.

Consider Your Network 

AI in the PR and Marketing industry is not a matter of if, it is a matter of when. Therefore, if you want your organization to grow and continuously stay competitive in your field, you might want to consider your network and resources. Ask yourself ‘What is currently available for me and my organization?’, ‘Do I have any vendors or contractors who can help me?’, ‘Do I have the right kind of talent in my team?’, ‘Can I do a proof of concepts?’, ‘How do I measure and define success in the realm of AI?’. AI can be daunting for many because it’s often a topic we don’t know much about and can be very technical. However, don’t be afraid to admit that you might be unsure and surround yourself with specialists who can help you and your business grow for the future!

Don’t Fear, Embrace AI 

Remember that AI is here to help us do our jobs better. While we could be spending lots of time doing our daily routine tasks, AI can help us minimize the kind of work that requires tedious counting and organizing. Instead, we can put our time and efforts in strategizing creative and innovative tactics and building relationships with customers and clients because that’s what we PR and Marketing professionals do best!

Information collected from Meltwater webinar.