If you’ve been anywhere near the internet lately—scanning news, reading industry newsletters—you’ve likely heard that the use of artificial intelligence is on the rise. It’s revolutionizing and reshaping industries in a multitude of ways. Knowing how AI will transform the PR industry is critical, however, as you pursue earned media coverage.
Press Hook founder and CEO Michelle Songy spoke with Ben Shapiro at the MarTech Podcast to discuss her thoughts on how AI is already—and may continue to—changing the PR game and what all those in the industry need to know.
“I think some of these things, we thought, being in the PR world, it’s not one of the most innovative industries in the world and it’s been a bit antiquated, but I think we are seeing that with the newness of OpenAI and ChatGPT and the features and enhancements that it’s made, things that we thought in the future were a possibility are happening a lot quicker than we expected,” Songy told Shapiro.
The main uses, as Songy sees them, come down to three areas:
- Content creation (quicker and faster and in better ways)
- Discovery and relevancy - cut through the noise to find what’s needed
- Overall communication - “helping this industry of brands and publicists and journalists connect and collaborate and helping them connect with each other in more relevant ways than we ever have been able to do before.”
AI and machine learning are tools with applications for all involved: journalists, marketers, publicists, even brands themselves. Journalists can use AI tech for research purposes, finding the names and credentials of potential sources, discovering new brands, and more. It can help solve that pain point of endless online searching without the results you’d hope to show for it when you call it quits. For marketers and publicists, AI can help you find new pitch angles and even the top journalists on a given beat or at a particular publication. Brands too can find use in AI technology, using it to help create website copy and other content (just be sure to use it as a first draft and make certain everything is correct and in order before throwing it up on your website).
No matter the way you’re using AI tech when it comes to the PR space, you need to make sure you’re doing so responsibly, checking for accuracy, brand voice, and the like. Bad information can still be a concern, so doing a bit of due diligence—and focusing on using it for more initial stages of content creation, like research—can help you avoid an unnecessary misstep. It may not always be final-draft ready, which means you’ll still need to take a close look at what it produces before moving ahead, but it is consistently improving.
The old ways of searching or subscribing to databases to get you similar information were often costly, in time or money, which means that for some, they weren’t an option at all. AI tech certainly makes for a more level playing field when it comes to initial information access, but may also allow for a more expansive pool from which results are pulled, Songy said. Subscribing to a database limits you to the data sets to which the service has access, while AI tech may pull from a larger group.
To hear more of the conversation between Songy and Shapiro, head over to listen to the MarTech Podcast episode and look for part two of the conversation, coming on March 10.
Curious about how Press Hook can help you navigate the constant changes in earned media, PR, and media relations? Schedule a call with our team here to learn more.
