AI and the future of PR: the end of agencies or a new beginning?

Since Chat GPT exploded into our lives in November 2022, the hysteria around the end of jobs, human creativity, and PR as we know it has reached a fever pitch. 

As an agency director whose team trades their time, expertise, and creativity for cash, the relentless march of AI is never far from my thoughts. 

Will it spell the demise of the industry I love and ensure my place on the career scrap heap before my time? Or, will it free us PR pros from the drudgery of admin so that our time can be spent thinking of the big ideas that will generate results for our clients? 

In September 2024, Funnel and Ravn Research published a report in which 43% of marketers surveyed said AI would make their companies less reliant on agencies in the future. 

It’s a sobering statistic. 

How can we leverage AI to ensure that we don’t go the way of the Lamp Lighters, the Switchboard Operators, and the Blockbuster employees of old? 

In this article, I will look at the current role of AI in PR, its implications for agencies, its challenges, and how agencies could adapt. 

AI tools are already re-shaping PR 

AI tools have already transformed the day-to-day operations of some PR agencies. 

Open AI’s Sora is being used to create text-to-video content, large language models like Chat GPT are being used for content creation and management, as well as conducting market analysis and gathering data insights at lightning speed, and tools such as Meltwater and Cision are being used to make light work of media monitoring and sentiment analysis. These particular capabilities could revolutionise how organisations build and maintain their reputations. 

Erving Goffman’s impression management theory states that individuals and organisations strategically control the image they present to achieve desired social outcomes. 

With AI’s capability to analyse public sentiment, craft tailored messages, and predict audience reactions in real-time, this process can now be automated and optimised. 

An International Public Relations network survey found that 83% of agency members were using AI. Respondents stated that increases in efficiency (26%), support in research (23%), and reduction of staff workload (20%) were the main benefits they had seen. 

These efficiency gains are echoed by Prowly – a media monitoring software provider – who estimate that PR professionals could grab back 80% of their working week by using AI automation for key PR tasks such as keeping up to date with client industry news, building media lists, writing personalised media pitches and creating reports. 

Does this mean that agency retainers will have to be slashed as tasks are completed more quickly? Or that the CEO’s niece can now do the bulk of PR work with a Chat GPT account? (Surely the 2025 variation of a brand’s social media accounts being handed over to the teenage daughter with the Facebook page.) 

Not quite. 

As Edelman’s 2024 AI Landscape Report reminds us: “A tool is just a tool. Its value depends on what you use it for and how well you use it. Tools serve a purpose and require training, governance, policies, and a strategy.” 

This is a perfect example of task-technology fit theory: technology works best when it complements human tasks rather than replacing them. 

And tools work best when they are being deployed by those skilled in using them. 

Efficiency versus Creativity 

Creative work is where most thought leaders believe agencies can win. 

Agencies are uniquely positioned as hive minds that can come up with fresh campaigns and interesting angles that resonate on a human level – and reflect what is happening culturally. 

Will Worsdell, co-founder of marketing agency The Park, said: “There is an AI programme that can do 90% of what a human can do, but it’s the 10% that makes things special. AI can churn out some obvious insights, some predictable scripts, some OK but not quite right imagery. It saves time and gets you started, but it’s not yet a solo solution.” 

Let’s not get too stuck on the word ‘yet,’ yet. 

Is PR getting left behind? 

Everett Rogers’ diffusion of innovations theory, which states that industries and individuals adopt new technology at differing speeds, applies to the world of PR, of course: some embrace AI with open arms while others proudly state that they will never use AI. 

This latter position is short-sighted. 

This isn’t the same as choosing whether to be on Threads or Blue Sky instead of X. AI is changing the world of communications as we know it, and agencies need to be aware that innovation is critical to stay competitive. 

PR luminary Philippe Borremans, however, notes that PR, as a profession, is in danger of missing the AI rocket ship. 

Muck Rack’s State of AI in PR report noted that only 21% of PR firms offer AI training or have an AI policy in place, suggesting that AI use is ad-hoc for most firms. 

Unlike our marketing cousins who tend to leap on the next shiny new toy like a pack of enthusiastic puppies, PR pros are more cautious. 

We are already stretched for time, responsible for an ever-increasing laundry list of tasks for our clients, and AI tools are yet more things to be learned. Combine this with a fear of new technology in general and of human obsolescence specifically, and it’s not hard to understand this reluctance. 

However, Edelman warns that we need to start using AI-powered tools or risk getting left behind. 

Not only will we be unable to differentiate ourselves from the aforementioned ‘CEO’s niece’ if our AI knowledge extends little further than typing a question into Chat GPT, we will be wasting valuable time. 

Clearly, agencies not using these tools will be quickly dismissed if their clients see that they are burning through billable hours with time spent on repetitive admin tasks rather than creative work. 

Rightly so. 

Clients should not be paying us to carry out admin any more than they should pay for us to do long division in our heads rather than use a calculator. 

Some agencies are leading the charge with AI innovation. 

Gini Dietrich, CEO of agency Arment Dietrich, founder of popular PR blog Spin Sucks, and self-confessed AI super fan, has developed an extension on the Chat GPT platform. You can now ask the bot how best to use the PESO model (the classic Paid, Earned, Shared, Owned media mix model) for a range of different business scenarios and receive a strategic response. 

Challenges of AI integration 

Most agencies are not as enthusiastic about AI integration as Arment Dietrich, however. Indeed, Stuart Bruce notes that agencies are not using AI as much as in-house communicators, and Stephen Waddington warns that public relations was slow to adapt to the Internet, SEO, and social media, claiming that “less than a fifth of practitioners are upskilling.” 

Concerns about losing the ‘human touch,’ job displacement and role evolution, and issues around ethics, transparency, and trust have been barriers to adoption.

The Elaboration Likelihood Model states that the effectiveness of persuasion depends not only on the audience’s level of engagement but also on the nature of the message and context. 

This ability to know when and how specific audiences engage deeply or superficially is distinctly human. 

In its current form, AI cannot experience heartbreak, feel joy or fear, or draw on lived experiences, making persuasion difficult. (If we do get to this point, I’d suggest we have more to worry about than the fate of PR agencies.) 

As David Symington, deputy director of the Institute of the Story of China, notes, AI may be able to generate a coherent narrative, but “without real-world experiences or empathy, AI can miss the context that breathes life into a story.” 

Job displacement is a valid fear; however, there will likely be a raft of new jobs and new service offerings that we haven’t envisaged. 

The CIPR 75th Anniversary edition of Influence magazine listed several possible future roles. Could Deep Fake Crisis Comms be a service that you offer your clients? What about Prompt Engineering for large language models? 

There are also issues related to ethics, transparency, and trust. 

The reliance on AI for content creation and decision-making raises concerns about accountability, biases, and authenticity, which can undermine stakeholder confidence if not addressed responsibly. Perhaps this is why, according to Statista, as of December 2023, just 19% of PR agencies surveyed worldwide reported disclosing AI usage to their clients all the time. Around 23% stated doing it some of the time, while 21% claimed never revealing AI use. 

PR agencies could be seen as curators of trust in an AI-driven world, however. 

Human judgement can ensure that content is ethical and aligns with stakeholder values, and, while AI may enhance personalisation; trust and loyalty are built through human interaction. 

As Ivan Ristic noted in the heady pre-GPT days of 2017, ‘humans build trust with humans – not bots.’ The recent furore around Meta’s AI generated profiles is a case in point. 

The agency of the future 

Some commentators believe that the rise of AI-generated news and DeepFakes may predicate an increased reverence for the big media houses, with people turning to trusted institutions such as the BBC for curated and fact-checked news. A good PR agency could help to secure placements on these platforms. 

Further, Marketing Week columnist Mark Ritson believes that brand stewardship will remain necessary – another area that PR agencies could be well placed to manage.

75% of agencies already use freelancers or content marketplaces to keep pricing competitive. Is it too much of a stretch to imagine this work will be outsourced to AI agents in the future? 

Just as the modern agencies don’t have the bloated teams that the Mad Men-era agencies enjoyed, agency teams of the future will be hybrids: leaner, sharper, and faster. 

Agencies that charge by the hour rather than by the outcomes of their work will not survive this new paradigm. Results are what clients care about – not how long we have spent on a piece of work. 

Tracking time should be resigned to the proverbial PR dustbin, as A.V.E. (Advertising Value Equivalent) and printed press kits were before it. 

If we leverage AI for what it does best and double down on our creativity and humanity, the future looks bright for agencies. 

AI could give us time to breathe. 

While we may not have the enormous team that Don Draper had, we may get to enjoy his two-hour lunch breaks and afternoon naps while AI does the admin and we ponder over our next brilliant creative idea. 

And, unlike our purely robotic counterparts, we can offer an experience that certain prospects may covet: a distinctive agency brand, shared values, face-to-face meetings – perhaps in brick-and-mortar offices with fantastic coffee – and real relationships built on human-to-human conversations with perspectives drawn from real life. 

Of course, there will be some who don’t think they need an agency anymore – those 43% of marketers who said AI would make their companies less reliant on agencies in the future, for starters. 

Narrative paradigm theory tells us that stories are more convincing than arguments – and humans are natural storytellers. 

We need to tell the right story about the value we can add. Ironically, this is a communications problem. Who better to solve it than the creative hive mind of the modern PR agency? 

Becky’s perspective on studying for the CIPR Professional PR Diploma 

Becky Wade is Relationship Director at Harvey & Hugo, an award-winning PR agency embracing AI and amplifying clients’ voices through powerful creative campaigns. She prepared this article for a CIPR Professional PR Diploma assignment while studying with PR Academy.

What do you see as the key benefits of studying the CIPR Professional PR Diploma?

My background and qualifications are in marketing, so whilst having worked in PR for a number of years now, the diploma has bolstered my confidence in my role, arming me with additional theory and knowledge to underline the work I propose for my clients

What has been your favourite part of the course so far?

I really enjoyed this Unit 2 assignment. I love writing – and don’t get to do as much of it as I’d like to in my director role. I thoroughly enjoyed the research, the drafting and the editing process to produce the finished article.

Have you been able to apply any of the learning, and if so, how?

The research and measurement aspects of the diploma have been useful. Measurement was the aspect of PR that I was most interested in learning about as it is notoriously difficult – so we are told – and as a result, PR is often seen as a ‘nice to have’ rather than a necessity. Clients often want to jump right into tactics and the diploma has given me the confidence to push back and advise them on best practice to improve outcomes.

About the CIPR Professional PR Diploma 

Thank you to Becky Wade for being happy to share this article writing as part of the second assignment for the Chartered Institute of Public Relations Professional Public Relations Diploma. 

The PR Diploma is a Master’s level qualification for more experienced practitioners who are looking to underpin what they do with theory and contemporary models.  Topics include PR strategy and planning, content management, media and engagement, measurement and evaluation, and PR leadership and process improvement. 

You have two years to complete it but with PR Academy you set your own study pace and many students finish in about ten months.