Will AI make you better at PR?

Artificial Intelligence is very much in the zeitgeist – building on 2016’s love of #BigData, AI is now the industry buzzword and it’s already making us better at PR.

We haven’t quite reached the level of Skynet (yet), but AI grows smarter every day, making our digital lives more personalised and data more understandable. It’s also everywhere –  from custom adverts across your online journey (ever felt like that product was following you?), to search engine results relying on natural language processing to serve up what you were actually looking for.

Aaron Cohen, writing for VentureBeat, claims AI will soon make us all PR superheroes. He points out that from identifying crises before they become pandemics to improving the way we speak, AI has the power to radically enhance our day-to-day activities.

And for those that fear AI will take over, Cohen points out there’s a slim chance we’ll be replaced by machines. According to Will Robots Take My Job?, PR specialists only have an 18% chance of being replaced by AI. Thankfully being excellent at PR requires too much creativity and humanity, which can never be replaced by 1s and 0s.

AI has already begun to make the life of a PR easier; Vuelio uses AI to link your contacts with their output via media monitoring, and allows you to track all of your stakeholder interactions with our powerful CRM. Not to mention all the cool things it does with distribution, analysis and data presentation.

As with any job, there are things PRs like doing and things PRs have to do. Don’t waste time on public relations, allow AI into your life to take on the necessary but dull jobs, while you focus on what’s important – building relationships and managing reputations.

And for those still not keen on AI, I’ve got bad news. Artificial Intelligence is coming (sorry Elon Musk), and we all need to embrace it. Make sure you know how AI can help you day-to-day and you too can be a PR superhero. Decide it’s just a passing fad and you’ll be left behind.

We all remember Blockbuster, right?