✅ Monday briefing: Postcard from India
A week in management, media and public relations
I’ve been in Chennai, India, for the past few days for the World PR Forum and #PRAXIS10.
The World PR Forum is an annual conference organised by the Global Alliance. PRAXIS is India’s largest national public relations conference, now in its tenth year.
More than 600 practitioners attended the three-day event. The scale, energy and hospitality of the Indian public relations community have been incredible. The confidence of the profession in India, both agency and in-house, is palpable.
The conferences highlighted the focus of the Global South on professional development through qualifications, continuous learning, and community to advance public relations as a profession.
Look out for a longer report this week via CIPR International.
Have an excellent week.
Management
👩 DIRECTOR JOURNEY: The Chartered Director qualification from the Institute of Directors provides strategic insight and governance expertise that enhances your skills as a director. It’s an excellent goal for those who’ve achieved Chartered public relations status and want to develop management competencies. Source: Wadds Inc.
👥 SOCIALLY CONSCIOUS PR: Public relations has traditionally been focused on meeting an organisation's business objectives. A new study - The Future of PR/Comms and their Social Impact - reports growing calls for a more radical, socially conscious approach. This focuses less on image and reputation and more on creating shared value for the organisation and its stakeholders. Source: Wadds Inc.
💷 VALUE BILLING: AI tools will disrupt businesses that bill by the hour, such as agencies and professional services firms, by automating tasks previously done manually. To stay competitive, these businesses should adopt AI and switch billing models since AI-enabled firms will have higher efficiency, lower costs, and greater profitability. Source: Christopher S Penn.
😰 ELITES DISTRUSTED: A report by MHP finds that nearly one-third of British adults are Super Distrusters who regard the system as broken and elites as corrupt. Super Distrusters come from across the political spectrum and present challenges to achieving goals such as reaching net zero emissions. Source MHP.
Artificial Intelligence
❌ AI FIRED: Stunt of the week goes to UK PR agency Bottled Imagination which hired an AI employee named Aimee as a digital marketing manager for two weeks to test if AI could replace a human. Unfortunately, the AI account executive did not pass its probation period as it was limited in generating original content and its knowledge only went up to 2021. Source: PRWeek.
⚠️ AI CAUTION: Money Saving Expert has cautiously started using ChatGPT to answer user questions by training it on the site's archive. Editor-in-chief Marcus Herbert remains concerned about AI's ability to hallucinate false information. He says AI currently struggles with tone of voice and attribution when recommending articles and so human oversight is still needed. Source: Press Gazette.
🧑💻️ HUMANS STILL NEEDED: A new study by the CIPR finds that while AI tools are being adopted for some public relations tasks, human skills like ethical reasoning and strategic counsel remain essential for senior advisory roles. The report highlights an opportunity for public relations to take a leadership role in AI governance and oversight, given its client advisory capabilities. Source: Wadds Inc.
🔗 BARD LINKS: Bard, Google's AI chatbot, has launched new capabilities to integrate with Google apps and services. This enables Bard to provide more personalised and useful responses by connecting information across Gmail, Docs, Drive, Maps, and more. Source Google.
🤹 AI LEVELS SKILLS: A new study finds knowledge workers using AI tools such as GPT-4 completed more tasks faster and produced higher quality work versus those without access, though overreliance can backfire on tasks ill-suited for AI. The research indicates AI acts as a skill leveller. Source: One Useful Thing.
Social Media
🤳 TIKTOK TRANSPARENCY: TikTok announced new labels to disclose AI-generated content, including a tool for creators to label their own AI content and test automatic AI-generated labels. This aims to provide context about AI-generated content to viewers and align with TikTok's policy requiring disclosure of synthetic media. Source: TikTok.
💼 LOW AI CONCERN: A survey by PRWeek UK found that only three per cent of young public relations practitioners are very concerned about AI replacing their jobs, as most believe AI currently lacks human skills like understanding context and emotions. However, they see AI as useful for assisting with creative ideas and streamlining tasks, though it still needs human supervision. Source: PRWeek.
🖼 AI IMAGE GENERATION: OpenAI has released DALL-E 3, the latest iteration of its AI image generator, which can create highly detailed images from text prompts and will be integrated with ChatGPT to allow iterative image generation. OpenAI claims DALL-E 3 has improved accuracy, safety mitigations, and options for creators compared to prior versions. Source: OpenAI.
🧵 THREAD UPGRADE: Threads is rolling out new features, including post-editing, account switching, and profile deletion, to attract users, though engagement still lags behind X/Twitter. Threads is trying to rapidly build out functionality after launching in July, earlier than planned to capitalise on user frustration with X/Twitter under Elon Musk’s management. This week Musk threatened to put the site behind a paywall. Source: Social Media Today.
☑️ BUSINESS VERIFIED: Meta is expanding its paid verification program to business accounts. The new Meta Verified for Business package will provide verified checkmarks on Instagram and Facebook for a monthly fee. Source Meta.
Thank you to the following community members for sharing and debating stories covered in the newsletter over the last week: Stuart Bruce, Julian Christopher, Adrienne Cohen, Alan Morrison, Andrew Bruce Smith, and Sarah Waddington CBE.