Should you be worried about artificial intelligence in public relations?

AI
July 29, 2021

PR is one of the newest industries that has been invaded by AI technology. Public Relations may be said to have begun in 1762 when it was used by Benjamin Franklin, living in London, to obtain business for his printing press. From that time on, public relations has been about promotion and management. 

When people hear artificial intelligence, they often think of AI conquering humans like something out of Terminator or as Skynet in The Matrix. This isn’t what artificial intelligence means at all! Artificial Intelligence is being programmed to do tasks rather than just executing pre-set ones. For example, take your search engine’s autocomplete function: it suggests words related to your typing so you don’t finish typing all four letters before getting the word you want.

AI has a very particular place in public relations. Yes, technology like a chatbot can be useful for amplifying a company’s presence on social media. But AI can also be used to create those same social media posts – and that is where the line between marketing and public relations begins to blur. 

It’s time to learn about some of the best ways artificial intelligence can help your PR strategy.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has changed the game when it comes to public relations, taking it to the next level. With AI, PR strategists are able to take advantage of technology that helps them stay a step ahead and keep their clients’ best interests at heart.  In this blog, we look at how AI is changing public relations, how it could be used to your advantage, and what you should think about before implementing AI technology into your public relations strategy. Read more on Artificial Intelligence Public Relations.

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What is AI?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an area of computer science, as well as mathematics and engineering. AI is able to understand its environment, learn from those interactions, and then use that knowledge to take action.

We don’t really know what will happen with AI. There are scientists who say it’ll have no effect on jobs. Others say it’s creating more jobs for them. And some people think it’s replacing jobs altogether. In any case, it’s happening now: AI-driven news bots are writing stories that never go stale. We’re seeing chatbots become help desks for tech companies. We’re even talking to each other through virtual assistants like Alexa. And AI isn’t stopping there—it’s also being used by car manufacturers, healthcare providers, and pharmaceutical giants.

It has great potential to change how we live, work, play, and communicate with one another. It’s also opening up vast new opportunities for business professionals—and their competitors—to become more productive through automation. If your organization does not consider implementing AI-powered solutions into your communication efforts now, you will likely fall behind in competition over time as other companies do so successfully. 

Why does PR need AI?

Public Relations needs AI because it helps to automate repetitive tasks and aids human decision-making. It’s something that PR professionals need to know about so they can intelligently make decisions about how AI will affect their work lives. Now, thanks to AI, people are able to ask questions like who has been mentioned in my mentions today? or, what events are upcoming for my clients? which would have required significant research time previously. The use of machine learning techniques means that data collection is more efficient, helping teams get results faster than ever before. 

It’s no secret that public relations has changed in recent years. Gone are some of the archaic, old-fashioned PR strategies that didn’t work well for modern social media. Instead, savvy companies have developed more fluid and innovative PR strategies designed to keep them ahead of their competition. One such strategy is using artificial intelligence (AI) to handle PR outreach through social media channels. By taking advantage of AI, businesses are able to reach an unprecedented number of potential customers with messages tailored just for them.

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How can PR firms benefit from AI?

Benefits of Artificial Intelligence to PR firms: 

– Improved planning and operations. 

– Better analytics and reporting. 

– Advanced customer service.

Public relations strategies are about leveraging existing relationships and making new ones. The advantages of artificial intelligence (AI) in public relations are significant because they can help you accomplish so much more. One aspect is that it can automate tedious tasks such as contacting people, finding leads, or sending invites to events. For example, when AI recognizes someone in an influencer’s social media feed who may be relevant to your campaign, it will automatically contact them with further information about your company.

We’re still not sure what will happen when Artificial Intelligence becomes self-aware, but until then we’re lucky that it’ll do so much to make our lives easier. The question now is not if we should worry about it becoming smarter than us; it’s how quickly we can adapt and stay ahead?

What are the challenges in implementing AI?

AI’s use has grown exponentially in business, and it is being used for market research, customer service responses, marketing campaigns, strategic planning and more. There are many benefits to implementing AI into public relations but there are also challenges that come with it. The most common challenge is data management: an AI must have all of its content pre-loaded into it before using it. To do so, it can require millions of articles. Another issue is that if not programmed correctly, AI can produce biased results or make errors such as misquoting text or producing typos or auto-correcting wrong information which could discredit your company. 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been both praised and criticized. It is often portrayed as being able to think like humans while others say it will take away jobs from people. One way to reduce these downsides would be increased education on both sides, companies need to understand how AI works and what they should expect from it while users should become more familiar with what AI does and how best to interact with them. The public relations industry is in a constant state of change, but with the help of AI and algorithms, PR strategy has become more manageable.

Liked this blog? Read more of our insights into AI here.

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