✅ AI in corporate communications and public relations

A week in management, media and public relations

Are you optimistic about artificial intelligence (AI) in PR? Paul Sutton asked me this question on the latest edition of his Digital Download podcast. AI gives public relations practitioners two assertive opportunities.

✅ It provides us with an issue to engage with management around reputational risk and strategy. AI was siloed in research or product development until the launch of OpenAI last November. Now it’s firmly on the boardroom agenda.

✅ It also provides the potential to help us work smarter and more effectively. I have a new party trick I play during speaking gigs and workshops where I demo AI tools, performing various functions of an account executive, PR manager, and head of communications.

AI shows all the signs of being as disruptive as the PC, mobile, the internet and social media. Public relations practice failed to benefit from these technologies and gave way to new media and industries.

We can’t avoid AI - for almost every aspect of public relations activity, there is a tool now to help and support what you are doing. ChatGPT will be embedded within the Microsoft Office suite by Spring.

Wadds Inc. is supporting agencies, communication teams, and management with risk and innovation work around AI-related issues. Drop me a line if you need help.

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Management

🔉 PR ON BOARD: The CIPR reports that almost half of FTSE 100 companies lack a dedicated communications director on their board or executive leadership team. This is despite the mounting reputational risks facing large companies. It shows little progress from a year ago when 52 FTSE 100 companies had comms figures on leadership teams. Source CIPR.

💰 SELLING VALUE: How To Sell Value – Demystified by Crispin Manners explores how creative agencies and professional services firms can move from time-based to value-based billing. It aims to help professionals reframe their work to better communicate the business case for why what they do matters and secure bigger budgets. Source Wadds Inc.

🏢 NOWHERE OFFICE: In her latest book Julia Hobsbawm argues that we can develop a better, more meaningful approach to work. It offers strategic guidance on office space, productivity, and managing remote teams. We’ve five signed copies of Julia’s book to give away. Hit reply and tell us why you’d like a copy. Source Publishers Weekly. 

Artificial intelligence

🔍 SEARCH PIONEER: Perplexity is building an "answer engine" powered by a large language model (LLM) to provide concise, accurate answers to questions rather than just links. It focuses on simplicity in its interface design and aims to build user trust and awareness to transform how people discover knowledge. Source Forbes.

🌐 AI RULES: A global race is underway to set the rules and regulations for AI. The emerging technology needs oversight, but there is no consensus on how best to regulate it. The EU has moved fastest, drafting an AI Act expected to be approved - but it includes a grace period of about two years after becoming law for companies to comply. Source Financial Times.

🙏 PLEASE AND THANK YOU: When asking Alexa, ChatGPT or Claude to complete a task, do you say please? We attribute human behaviours to machines, but this week's community conversation highlighted the importance of giving feedback to machines and good manners in society. Source House of Marketing & Public Relations.

Misinformation

🛢️ OIL LEAK: ExxonMobil executives privately sought to undermine climate science even after publicly acknowledging the link between fossil fuels and climate change. CEO Rex Tillerson calling IPCC warnings "not credible" - the revelations could bolster legal efforts holding oil companies accountable for alleged climate misinformation. Source The Guardian.

🌍 DEMOCRACY UNPROTECTED: AI and social media companies are not ready to tackle misinformation during elections due to take place worldwide in 2024. A coalition of civil society groups claims platforms such as Meta have already flouted their hate speech rules in countries like India, where content moderation lacks a nuanced understanding of regional contexts. Source The Guardian.

Social media

🔄 ACCOUNT SWAP: When Jill Scott and Gary Neville secretly swapped Twitter accounts, Scott received sexist comments telling her to "get back in the kitchen" while tweeting the same things Neville would typically post. The Heineken Social Swap campaign shows that there is still a way to go in achieving equality for women online and in football. Source The Guardian. 

🔀 SHIFTING EXPECTATIONS: Product updates and special offers are why people follow brands online. A Sprout Social report also found that while people expect quicker response times from brands on social media, those expectations have reduced over the past year as consumers become more understanding of brands' limitations. Source Sprout Social. 

Tools

🛠️ TOOLS VS SOLUTIONS: The tool boom threatens to limit productivity rather than improve it by enabling us to work smarter and more effectively. LLMs such as Bard, ChatGPT and Claude can help solve many problems before purchasing specialist software. Ask vendors how they integrate as part of a workflow solution. Source Christopher Penn.

Bruno Amaral, Juilian Christopher, Alan Morrison, Andrew Bruce Smith and Sarah Waddington CBE.