One of the significant keys to public relations is its reliance on human interaction to build authority, credibility, and visibility. So, in short, no, PR will never be fully automated.
While we can use artificial intelligence for things like automated appointment setting, email marketing, lead generation, and more, there always needs to be an actual person behind the scenes to do quality control and input opinionated data when working with the press.
Public relations is all about telling a story! AI might know — and be able to regurgitate — “Goldilocks and The Three Bears,” but it doesn’t know why Goldi chose the soup she did and why that soup is the number one soup in her part of the forest for bears and little girls alike.
Translation: AI can write a bland bio about you and your business, but it can’t add the exciting flair and pizazz that truly illustrates why your business is the number one choice for your prospective clients in your particular niche.
Potentially, we might one day automate the publishing of such stories to the media, and there may be some further advancements in that area. But public relations as a concept, business, and tool requires a human touch.
Another thing to consider is the need for each article to be unique and speak to a target audience’s current feelings. Robots know what is going on in the world, but they have yet to attach emotions and empathy to those events — and frankly, while this might be possible on a very surface level, it simply cannot go any deeper than that. That clever human discernment to be able to craft stories that speak to humanity’s ever-evolving mindset is what makes publicist jobs safe from the robots’ taking over.’
To be fair, the idea of automating social media posts and pitching efforts — or, hey, even writing these blog posts — does sound like a pleasant dream that could potentially increase our workflow in other areas. But the fact is that even with the most advanced technology, we still need to input data, take photos, and interview and interact with our clients.
We’ll take that trade-off anyway! We love hearing from our clients and learning what makes them tick, what makes them and their business so unique. The world would be a pretty dull place without the art of storytelling — just imagining the flat, dystopian world of completely automated PR sounds pretty depressing.
We’ll stick to our virtual onboarding calls and maybe dip our toes into virtual reality and the metaverse one day, but our human hearts and minds will always factor into the PR equation; thank you very much!
What do you think? Do you own a business where AI is a prominent feature? Would you rather trust a robot than a human with your brand story? Are there already too many robots in the world? We’d love to hear your thoughts below, so please leave us a comment!
Victorious PR was named one of the top PR firms in Las Vegas by Expertise.com in 2021. We work with entrepreneurial clientele in real estate, cryptocurrency and blockchain, and healthcare niches. If you would like to learn more about how Victorious PR can build your visibility, credibility, and authority by getting you into publications such as Inman and Entrepreneur, please book a call with us today.
