Prompted: Do's and Don'ts of Leveraging AI for PR

The conversation around how we can safely and effectively utilize generative artificial intelligence at work is ever-evolving. Professionals across all industries are still figuring it out, but for those of us in public relations, generative AI presents exciting opportunity to save time and streamline processes for certain tasks. To help you up your game, we’re sharing some guidance relating to the best ways to use AI in PR — and some to avoid.

Before we dive in, an important caveat: It’s crucial to review both your company and client’s AI policies to ensure you’re following the proper protocols from these entities. For example, at Tier One, we have agency-wide guidelines in place to protect the integrity of client information and maintain ethical AI usage. 

DO Use AI For ...

Research

Like many industries, public relations moves at rapid speed. In PR, we often need to get familiar with specific industries, thought leaders, or events in a limited amount of time. AI can be a valuable tool in these situations, offering an immediate and thorough response to specific questions — but don’t forget to fact check! For example, if you have a quick-turn new business inquiry or a meeting with a new client partner, AI tools such as ChatGPT or Gemini can help provide key information about the company, its industry and competitors, and more. These tools save precious time compared to collecting all of this information manually. 

Pro tip: Remember to think of your prompts for AI tools more as a conversation than a Google search. When generative AI provides information, you can use prompts like, “Tell me more about the challenges of that industry” or “I’m having trouble understanding how these two companies are considered competitors” to elicit more helpful responses. Sticking to the same terms you’d use with a search engine won’t get you the information you’re looking for.

Summarization

Keeping up with the news is nearly impossible. Given the amount of stories published on a daily basis, it can be overwhelming and time consuming to sift through it all. In our industry, summarization is a key value driver of generative AI because of the time it saves. For example, you can prompt ChatGPT to summarize an article for you in a structure that works best for you or your client. You can even train the GPT to provide that summary in the specific format you need it in, highlighting key quotes or noting the two most important takeaways relevant to a certain industry. These time-saving tactics allow teams to focus on turning the summary into a strategic recommendation for clients. 

Brainstorming

Kicking off a brainstorming session can be the hardest part of creating new concepts or project plans. Generative AI tools can help initiate a productive conversation by getting a few initial ideas down on paper (or, in this case, on-screen). Having a few ideas to use as conversation starters can help the wheels start spinning for a team brainstorm, creating a basis to work off of as a group. To get the best results, be specific with your prompts, including details about your target audience and objectives. The more information you provide, the more relevant and useful a GPT’s suggestions will be as a starting-off point.

DON'T Use AI For ...

Building Media Lists

As any PR professional knows, building the right media list is an intentional, methodical process that requires human insights and analysis. In our experience, the currently available AI tools aren’t helpful in this process, as they often are working from outdated information or incorrectly interpreting a reporter’s field of coverage. (In an ever-shifting media landscape, keeping up with these changes is a crucial component of strong PR work.) That being said, a future where AI does help with this task isn’t completely out of the question. In fact, media database platforms like Meltwater have already started implementing AI into their products, helping to facilitate a faster and more streamlined process in pulling relevant media reporters.

Trendspotting

While generative AI tools can help summarize news coverage, account teams are more effective with recognizing the relevance of emerging trends and analyzing the opportunity for our clients. Trendspotting requires agility and a keen human eye for identifying meaningful patterns. Trendspotting relies heavily on the human experience: What we’re talking about and hearing from our friends, family, social media, podcasts, morning newsletters, and more — and the feelings those topics elicit. Our lived insight and expertise is vital in order to successfully leverage a trend to create meaningful and authentic connections between a brand and its audience. 

Check out our recent How to Spot a Trend blog post to learn more about key trendspotting strategies.

Writing

Last but not least, generative AI will never replace strategic writing. While there are ways for GPTs to be a part of the process  of developing content, we don’t recommend using these tools to write PR materials such as press releases, bylines, and pitches. Even with the most specific prompts, tools like ChatGPT will share an output that often lacks variation and originality, and sometimes even deviates the truth. Not to mention these tools tend to lean heavily on certain words and phrases, making it easy to tell if something was written with AI assistance. Instead, think of these tools as a partner in the process and leave the writing up to the expert: you.

Prompted, our biweekly blog series, brings you relevant updates and insights on how to strategically add AI-driven solutions into your marketing toolkit. Subscribe to receive updates in your inbox.