Robo PR: Is there a future for AI in the PR industry?
Automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) seem to be the way to go as a means to increase efficiency and productivity, as well as to cater to evolving consumer needs. With massive transformation and disruption, the communications industry, like others, is trying to adapt and respond. Telum Media spoke to comms experts about the role of AI in the PR world, how PRs can leverage on such technology, and what the future holds.
“A machine will win a Pulitzer one day,” predicts Kristian Hammond from Narrative Science, a company that specialises in natural language processing technology to automatically generate narrative content.
No, machines have not taken over the world. However, they are seeping into our lives and gradually affecting the way we live, work and play. Voice-activated personal assistants like Siri and Alexa, self-driving vehicles with predictive functions, and behaviour algorithms are some examples of AI already operating in our daily lives.
The media industry is also adopting AI in its day-to-day processes. Writing bots like Narrative Science and Automated Insights are taking over some of newsroom. News agencies such as Fox, AP and Yahoo have started to use bots to auto-generate sports recaps, financial analysis reports and natural disaster reports from data.
The PR industry, too, will depend very much on the collaborative effort between human and machines. A Weber Shandwick survey found 55% of CMOs predict AI is set to shake up the marketing and communications industry to a greater degree than social media has. Furthermore, 60% of them believe that within the next five years, companies will have to engage AI to succeed. Simply put, as research and technology improve, both industry professionals and consumers will certainly feel its effects on the communications industry extensively.
A recent PR stunt using AI caught the attention of Alina Morais, APAC Regional PR Manager at Isobar. “The Dove Baby UK launch had a billboard featuring the ‘perfect mum’. The face of the campaign was generated using an algorithm. It had been fed thousands of mum-images from advertisements placed in newspapers, magazines and social media. The campaign sparked conversation and debate around the unrealistic portrayal of mums and the subsequent follow-up reveal was a video on Dove’s belief that there are no ‘perfect mums’, just ‘real ones’.”
Beyond PR campaigns, Alina foresees a significant role for AI technology in the industry. “The power of a cleverly constructed algorithm could make many aspects of our jobs like media monitoring, social listening, list building, data-mining and info-gathering a breeze. If these mundane tasks can be automated, more of our time could be spent on ideating and problem-solving.”
SumoStory, a Singapore-based company, aims to do so by marrying data science and the old art of media pitching. Founder, Chris Chong, believes that the process of media pitching should be more efficient and that the PR industry could “leverage on the massive amount of information online to bring the right story to the relevant journalist”.
He believes that technology can reduce the perceived practice of some PRs spamming journalists. “With real-time data being used as an asset, PR professionals can then provide journalists with content they are interested in, rather than content they find annoying. Press releases can be optimised specifically for an individual journalist in real-time, producing higher results due to the messaging being relevant to that individual.”
Alina, however, does not fully trust the robots. “A meaningful and effective press release requires a keen understanding of the company. PR means public relations and I don't believe that media outreach can ever be as successful without human relationship to back it.”
Fairil Yeo, Managing Director at LEWIS Singapore, also sees the value of AI in generating targeted content, especially when reaching out to the consumers in a seamless manner. “The use of AI will drive this approach forward, faster. With AI, brands eventually will be able to predict to some degree, how consumers react to the applications they’ve built and the content they create. Hence, we will see brands developing new forms of seamless content strategies to reach and keep in touch with customers.”
Furthermore, AI is also influencing consumers’ interactions with brands. Alina points out that “there is a myriad of service providers like banking and airlines that have introduced chatbots to answer basic, less-complex consumer queries.” Indeed, Facebook currently offers more than 11,000 chatbots via its messenger app that let users do everything from buying clothes to finding the right vacation spot.
However, these chatbots come with another set of risks as well. Alina adds, “Brands should still ensure there are proper back-ups and fail-safes in place (along with a strong crisis communications plan) so we can avoid another Microsoft Tay incident. You definitely need humans for this!”
Despite its growing presence, Fairil points out that AI is still in its infancy. “Recent developments such as chat bots and using AI in digital media buys are progressing quickly but are not anywhere near being mature. As we progress further it will be about refining and integrating the different modes of applying AI.”
Chris echoes that thought, “The hype about AI taking over the world and being a plug and play technology has led to the misconception of what is truly possible today. We’re still early in a convoluted market.”
At the same time, there have been concerns that AI may take over most jobs and negatively impact the workforce. Yet, the consensus is that tech is still no match for the human element. A study by McKinsey Global Institute found that although half of employees’ tasks could be partially automated, less than 5% of current jobs could be taken over entirely by machines.
Fairil points out that the internet did take away jobs, but also created many opportunities. “There is no real strategy or approach in achieving the human-tech balance, but individually there is a choice for professionals to embrace emerging technologies and to learn to use them. Professionals and machines will always co-exist because there will always be those driven enough to learn, adapt and grow.”
Chris feels similar, “Instead of worrying if machines will take our jobs, we should be more focused on how they can improve our own efficiency and creativity. Many seasoned PR professionals believe that machines do not, and never will, possess the creative ability to supersede humans. I would argue that it's not creativity, but humans' powers of anticipation and responsiveness, that will separate us from machines.”
Alina, too, stands firm on this notion. “As much as you can teach a machine to scan and understand human emotion and behaviour, there’s only so much heart you can teach a machine to have.”
Looking to the future, we asked Alina, Chris and Fairil what they wish AI could do in 10 years.
Alina: “I personally am looking forward to a future where I would never have to generate clipping reports, competitor SOV analysis or background research, either manually or through the intervention of a third-party provider, but rather with my very own KITT.”
Chris: “A sizable portion of everyday work in public relations dealing with unstructured text will be interpreted and organised using machine learning and NLP.”
Fairil: “In 10 years, I’m hoping to see AI with professionals enabled to customise every single form of communication from a brand to an individual. With the refined use of AI, instead of segmentation by groups, segmentation on an individual level with predictive success metrics would be the key to achieving true and authentic brand experiences.”
Technology vs. man will be one of the more interesting dilemmas for humanity in the future, but AI won’t be making human skills obsolete, at least not for a very long time.
If you have a topic or opinion that you’d like to share with the Asian marcomms community, get in touch with Germaine at [email protected]