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Public Relations Has Not Escaped Artificial Intelligence

 

 

I remember watching the film, Minority Reports in the cinema and at that time having goosebumps with what the future may hold for us, with technology. That film was 17 years ago and fast-forward on Artificial Intelligence (AI) is here. Now when we look across various industries, AI advancements continue to surge. In the consumer sector, Apple introduced its HomePod  to compete with Amazon’s Echo and Google’s Home AI assistants. While, SephoraEstee Lauder and other retailers have refined the use of chatbots to engage and interact with customers rather than just talking.

My industry, PR has not escaped this wave of AI innovation and machine learning is already in common use for everyday PR tasks like developing media lists and researching. The Chartered Institute of Public Relations Artificial Intelligence panel has published new research revealing the impact of technology, and specifically AI, on public relations practice. It predicts the impact on skills in the profession in the next five years. The report found that 12% of a public relations practitioner’s total skills (out of 52 skills) could be complemented or replaced by AI today, with a prediction that this could climb to 38% within five years. Fundamental human traits such as empathy, trust, humour and relationship building can’t be automated.

There’s been quite a bit of conversation about communications content ultimately being replaced by robot writers and automation, but for now these tools are not threatening our roles as PR professionals, because effective public relations and storytelling require emotional intelligence in addition to human trust. The best kind of PR cultivates relationships among three parties: brands, customers and the media.

However, as the key to this is for now…Picking up on this topic Asian Voice newspaper, the UK’s and Europe’s leading newspaper for the British Asian community contacted me for my thoughts, which are here http://: https://www.asian-voice.com/News/UK/Meet-the-new-%27RoboReporters%27-as-your-news-anchors