With all the current technology race, we should all embrace that AI is сreating more problems than solutions for PR
There are many discussions these days about how people in creative fields, including PR and communication, should interact with AI. Many pros claim that AI is an inevitable tool in the current paradigm—AI is in the driver’s seat for change. Nevertheless, I strongly disagree with that. As PR specialists, we are still far from being friends with AI, and the sooner we realise that, the better.
The use of AI has the potential to benefit PR professionals in certain ways. For example, it can streamline work processes by automating mechanical tasks: generate a plan for the text, offer original headlines etc. However, this is a two-sided coin. On the one hand, AI can be a helpful assistant, but on the other hand, it raises concerns. While everyone is discussing tips for using AI properly, I want to take a completely different approach and highlight how AI, unfortunately, complicates the PR field.
- GenAI takes the life out of the content. With the appearance and popularisation of Generative AI, the creation of similar and lifeless texts and images has significantly increased. Nevertheless, the trust in AI-generated content is questioned, given the potential long-term risks it may present. We should not compete for quantity but quality and uniqueness, and AI is not a tool that will help us achieve that, at least nowadays.
- Falling trust between media and public relations. For me, as a journalist and PR specialist with more than 15 years of experience, it is especially painful to realise that AI only adds fuel to building trusting connections. Now, PR professionals must prove that their content is authentic—the very fact of needing to prove it already leaves the mark. At the same time, we understand that there is no single reliable method to identify AI-generated content. Recently, I have conducted a small corporate experiment and obtained an interesting result: independent sources regarded the original texts as AI-generated and vice versa. It's frightening to think about the chaos that is taking place on a larger scale.
- AI is slowly ruining relationships with clients. Unfortunately, clients often request to prove that we do not use AI in our work. In response, we also need to check clients' abstracts for originality to safeguard relationships with the media. Various AI-based tools have created the temptation to write comments without delving into requests. Despite non-original texts becoming more and more common, we must prevent their spread.
If we dig deeper, we see that the simplification of PR professionals' work with the use of AI is not as simple as it seems. I support any kind of technology that can automate and simplify life and work, nevertheless, at the current stage of AI development, I see some ethical and authorial content issues because of AI. As GenAI is here to stay, we can do one thing for sure—PR agencies need to focus on creating an Ethics Code. Addressing the ethical part will help establish clear guidelines for using AI beneficially and will maintain trust in the industry.