AI and PR – a good PAIR? A week with my new chatbot colleague

One of the perks of having a relatively quiet first week back in the (WFH) office was the chance to see if the new wonder tool – OpenAI’s ChatGPT – could help this 40+ year old PR person be better at his job or not.

For context, normally I rely on a team of very talented 20 and 30 something to make me look good – greatness is in the agency of others – but I decided to test what AI (via ChatGPT) might be able to achieve with a week-long test.

So, what did I find?

‘Google is Dead’ (or maybe not)

Many very bright people have suggested ChapGPT is a ‘Google Killer’ and that it’ll be the death of the 25-year-old search giant. Like many in PR, Google searches can unlock a lot of powerful information and data to help enforce or inform a point when it comes to strategic communication. If I want white papers from Cambridge on a hot tech trend or a list of global statistic providers to underpin a megatrend, Google has been my go-to and made me look smarter than I really am for a long time.

A week of using ChatGPT made me realise that if you are looking to have a question answered, its probably more effective than typing the same question into Google. As well-known tech analyst Benedict Evans suggested – Google is great for lists, ChapGPT is more for answering questions.

It's not what you ask (but how you phrase it)

My partner often says this to me, normally with good reason. ChatGPT is similar in that the question you ask can have very different outcomes depending on the phrasing used.

Whilst I had some sensible answers to straightforward questions e.g. how do you write a good press release? Others seemed to create less sensible answers. There are probably many machine learning experts who could tell you why that is, but I’d have to Google them first.

Also, trying to get the chatbot to forward look or make bold predictions was challenging, you'd have to reframe the question to get an answer of sorts.

Judge a man by his questions, not his answers

Very smart words from Voltaire, but with AI chat bots in a commercial setting, the answers are where the ‘man’ is judged. Unfortunately, during my week using ChatGPT at work, the responses varied in accuracy and interest.

As Danny Fortson at The Sunday Times explained, ‘GPT was trained on trillions of words. When it answers a question, what it produces is the result of statistical regularities that arise from that mass. In other words, it is programmed to be bland.’

For example, when asked ‘Will the technology sector continue to cut jobs in 2023?’ the answer was quite dreary, lacked any depth or statistics and seemed very similar save for a few words to answer when asked, ‘Will job cuts continue in 2023?’

When it came to accuracy, it's a bit hit & miss. When asked ‘What could be the big UK tech IPOs in 2023?’ the AI seemed to be stuck in 2021. Of the four names suggested, three had already listed (and fallen heavily) and the final one had all the hallmarks of staying private for some time.

At least it wasn't controversial or toxic in any of the answers it provided to any of my spiky questions.

In conclusion:

1)?????Plausibility in a hurry - ChatGPT provided some very helpful moments this week, answering some questions that would have taken longer to form off my own back (arguably, helpful when you’re on a Teams call and get asked a question you need a plausible answer to… and the client can’t see you type). A warning though – whilst many of the answers ChatGPT provided sounded very polished and articulate, there were sometimes inaccurate and/or didn’t answer the question asked – I think Evans labelled this the ‘fluent bullsh*t’ problem (some might say that makes it very much like PR people).

2)?????Google is alive and well – there’s no doubt that ChatGPT can be additive for comms people, but the search giant remains, for now at least, the king of lists (which comms people rely on everyday).

3)?????Will AI take my job? – whilst the chat bot isn’t perfect, it does highlight how far the technology has come. You can see why AI could end up transforming the comms industry over the next decade. AI-infused monitoring platforms are already making analysis of coverage more effective (Note: most platforms don’t pick up sarcasm from opinion writers very well and ChatGPT refused to answer questions about media coverage on specific companies) and automating some of the more mundane tasks. Besides, every other industry on the planet is seemingly being enhanced by AI, so why not PR? I guess the one saving grace is that the AI chat bot can’t take the client or journalist for a pint and a natter.?