✅ AI tool explosion set to disrupt public relations
A CIPR report considers the future impact of AI on public relations practice
My personal view is that artificial intelligence (AI) is set to be as disruptive to public relations practice, in good ways and bad, as the internet.
A report - Artificial Intelligence tools and the impact on public relations practice - published yesterday by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) finds that the impact of AI has been limited in the past five years but is set the explode. The report was researched and written by Andrew Bruce Smith and myself, with support from Prof Anne Gregory, Jean Valin, and Scott Brinker.
Andrew and I originally set out the scope of the project in May 2022. The plan was to update a report from five years ago about the tool market for public relations. The report was ready for publication in October, however the launch of tools based on the GPT-3 dataset led to a complete reappraisal of the project.
Our analysis based on Scott's Chiefmartec dataset suggests that there are 18 categories, made up of around 5,800 tools that have the potential to be applied to public relations practice, ranging from stakeholder management to web analytics, and from content management to project management. We’d encourage you to explore the dataset for yourself.
Up until November 2022, the market for public relations tools has been characterised by point solutions focussed on a specific application. There’s limited evidence of integrated solutions. Innovation in tools in public relations, and adoption by practitioners, appeared to have changed little in the past five years.
We can already see that November was an inflection point. The rapid arrival and accessibility of a new generation of generative AI and machine learning tools and services, coupled with the relatively easy ability to integrate these technologies, has since created the potential for significant effects upon all aspects of the public relations profession.
We have attempted to examine the potential impact on public relations practice and the public sphere. Reaction so far within the public relations industry seems divided between those who see it as an existential threat and those that view it as an opportunity to augment the role of the professional.
We call for urgent attention to the ethical issues thrown up by the rapid growth of AI, including whether practitioners need to declare using AI in their work and whether the technology could be weaponised to create misinformation at unimaginable speed and scale.
Thanks Anne and Jean for their support and critical review of the project. Thanks also to Katie King, and Scott, for reviewing the final report and each providing their own perspectives.
Finally, thanks to the CIPR’s Alastair McCapra and Jon Gerlis, for supporting this project. It takes bravery to publish a report of this nature. The CIPR has been at the forefront of exploring the impact of technology on public relations and society over the past 30 years through work on the internet, social media, and most recently AI.
Andrew and I will be joined by Mark Rofe, Maya Koleva and Bruno Amaral at 1-2pm GMT today for a special edition of Waddcon to discuss the impact of generative AI tools on practice.
Conference tickets cost a £10 donation to The Bay Foodbank. It's our local foodbank in Newcastle.