TV, the internet, TikTok, and now artificial intelligence. Major technological events have long affected how organisations and individuals interact with the outside world. Few, though, have embedded themselves quite as quickly or deeply as AI - and the appetite is only growing.
There’s no getting around the fact that GenAI tools are here to stay. The appeal is obvious. Speed, efficiency, consistency - all easily accessible. For comms and PR teams under pressure to produce more with less budget, AI has become an easy default. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find a PR team that doesn’t use some form of AI in their tech stack. And, frankly, I’m not sure if you’d want to retain one that doesn’t.
LLMs never give the exact same answer, even to the same prompt, but these outputs are formed based only on what they are trained on. So where’s the problem, if every answer is different? It’s hiding in plain sight, somewhere between the word “utilized”, the “silver bullet” analogy and the umpteenth mention of “the rapidly evolving technology landscape”. It’s become impossible to escape the drone of carefully balanced, risk-free language that says nothing while sounding like it should. And it’s not just isolated bits of copy, it’s press releases, quotes, even “spokespeople” themselves. All sanitised, safe, and wholly forgettable.
It’s not the AI’s fault, after all it’s doing as it’s told. The blame lies with the professionals who use it blindly and without proper processes. For PR’s this is ultimately a massive credibility problem.
Journalists are already inundated with pitches and statements. When statements start to read like regurgitated slop, trust is quickly lost. Journalist relationships can be ruined, with emails blocked and agencies blacklisted. Just take a glance at your LinkedIn feed and within a couple of scrolls you’ll doubtless see a journalist bemoaning the amount of fake “expert commentary” flooding their inbox.
Differentiation has and always will be a brand’s most valuable asset, and for PR’s this also stands true. AI, by design, produces quite literally average copy, and this won’t do for any publication worth its salt.
Now, this isn’t a criticism of the technology itself. It’s doing exactly what it’s designed to do, generating coherent, statistically probable language. The issue is how instinctively - and uncritically - it’s being used.
The answer isn’t to abandon AI, but to reframe its role. PRs need to go back to basics, prioritising unique and credible voices that are rooted in real perspective. From there, AI can support, but it shouldn’t be the starting point. Spokespeople need to sound like themselves, rather than a response to a prompt.
Now, I’m far from an AI sceptic, but I do recognise that the only thing that truly cuts through is something real. The PRs that get this right will be those that use AI thoughtfully - starting with a human voice and building from there. Authenticity and human judgement come first. Everything else follows.
