When was the last time you used artificial intelligence (AI) in your daily tasks? If you’re not sure, think about the autocomplete search suggestions Google showed you on your desktop, the Maps app you used in Drive, or the songs you asked Alexa to play.
Whether we like it or not, AI is already a part of our daily lives. So, should our professional lives stay the same? The AI examples above have been around for a while and belong to the first wave of the AI revolution, “predictive AI.” What’s really shaking experts is the breakneck speed at which the second wave of AI, generative AI (or GenAI for short), is being developed.
GenAI refers to deep learning models that can generate high-quality content, such as text, images, and videos, based on trained data. With the release of ChatGPT, the most famous of the GenAI models, in November 2022, we truly realized the power of AI. Since then, we haven’t heard any news about more advanced AI models (Gemini, Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek, Claude) for about a month.
For corporate communications (CC) professionals, this is a clear and immediate challenge. Because GenAI appears to be able to perform many tasks much faster. Does this mean that AI can replace the CC professional, or will it help develop her talent?
There are no clear black and white answers to these questions. The advent of telephones, personal computers, and applications such as Microsoft Excelhad also increased the likelihood of significant job losses, but ultimately created the potential for new employment opportunities. Will AI follow the same path? For now, yes. As CC professionals around the world are discovering, AI offers great potential when used properly.
According to the State of PR Technology 2023 report published by public relations (PR) SaaS platform Prowly, 67.8% of professionals surveyed are leveraging some form of AI in their work. There are clearly benefits to AI when it comes to corporate communications.
So what are the main uses of AI by CC professionals? Content creation and strategy development
The most important application of AI in CC is clearly content creation. AI’s ability to analyze extensive data and create relevant and contextual content can significantly reduce the time and resources typically required for content development. Text content such as article drafts, social media posts, images, infographics, and animations can be generated in seconds with the right inputs and prompts. This allows communicators to prioritize strategic development over the technical details of content creation. Even in strategy formulation, AI can suggest concepts and ideas that humans can build upon.
personalization
AI tools can be used to customize content to suit individual tastes and increase the personalization of communications. This level of customization, which previously required large amounts of resources, has become more achievable thanks to AI’s analytical and generative capabilities.
Speech-to-text conversion and translation
AI can quickly and accurately transcribe audio and video interviews, making it easy to find keywords and relevant information. Translating Indian and international languages has also become very easy with the help of AI tools like Google Translate.
Identifying influencers
AI-driven tools are now available to help you find key influencers within a specific industry. By leveraging data management and analytics, CC professionals can customize their outreach efforts and create more effective campaigns. This approach allows you to precisely target your communications, connect with influencers, and increase the overall impact of your messaging.
Contact suggestions
The days of manually building traditional media lists through category and keyword searches may soon be replaced by AI tools that help identify journalists covering topics relevant to a particular business. This allows CC professionals to choose the media outlet most likely to cover their news pitch. With the help of AI, CC professionals can spend less time building lists and more time building valuable relationships.
Social Media Automation With the proliferation of social media platforms, developing user-relevant content and tracking comments can be extremely time-consuming. AI tools can automate the creation and posting of content, as well as replying to comments.
media monitoring
As media channels, especially online, proliferate, AI can sift through terabytes of data in a fraction of the time it would take a human to create accurate media monitoring reports that highlight the stories that matter most to CC professionals. AI makes post-campaign analysis and identifying potential trends much easier.
sentiment analysis
Beyond traditional media monitoring, AI has the skills to identify how people think about brands, companies, and organizations, understand language in different contexts, recognize subtleties, and consider different points of view. AI’s continuous brand sentiment analysis capabilities are a great aid in reputation management, as CC professionals can highlight the positive aspects and handle the negative aspects more effectively.
crisis management
AI-powered tools can predict when negative sentiment turns into a crisis, especially in the social media realm, so CC professionals can plan strategies to mitigate these risks. If a crisis occurs, she is ready to respond quickly and prevent further escalation.
We get it — AI can be very helpful. But what are its drawbacks?
Clearly, the possibility of AI replacing humans is a very real threat, especially in the content creation space. However, are there any technical drawbacks? Quite a number, actually.
data security
The very way GenAI operates can pose a threat to data security. GenAI creates new content using available data or data provided for a specific case. However, once this data is used, it is not forgotten. Rather, it may use this data for learning and generate future content that includes that information, especially the free version. What this means is that the data you enter for your own purposes may end up in someone else’s content. Or, another party’s copyrighted information could make its way into the content, creating legal hurdles. Therefore, it is important to never provide sensitive information to GenAI and to double-check AI-generated content for potential copyright issues.
AI illusion
There are quite a few instances where GenAI answered questions with false or inaccurate information. One of the most famous failures was when Google introduced its platform Bard, where the AI tool falsely claimed that the James Webb Space Telescope had taken the first photo of an exoplanet. This mistake was easy to spot because the telescope was launched in 2021 and the first photo of an exoplanet was taken in 2004. However, this is not always the case, and CC professionals must remain vigilant to prevent the spread of misinformation.
Possibility of bias
Machine learning develops artificial intelligence by studying human behavior, the raw data that captures human behavior. However, this approach can introduce bias and can lead to unintended PR crises, so it must be carefully managed. At the end of the day, AI is only as good as the input it gets. CC professionals must always be aware of bias in AI-generated content (both written and visual).
conclusion
But as the State of PR Technology 2023 report reveals, the benefits of AI clearly outweigh its drawbacks for CC professionals. as much as possible
61.4% of early adopters reported an overall increase in efficiency and productivity by using AI tools.
For now, the use of AI in corporate communications will only increase. An unintended side effect of this is that new entrants into the profession may not gain sufficient foundation-level experience as AI performs most of the repetitive tasks such as sending emails, building contact lists, and monitoring media. These jobs may be monotonous, but they give newcomers the opportunity to learn the ropes and develop personal relationships with journalists and clients, which can be very useful later in their career.
But the real challenge for CC professionals will come from the third and fourth waves of AI: autonomous agents and artificial general intelligence (AGI). Autonomous agents are AI-powered programs that, when given a purpose, can create tasks such as:
Prioritize your tasks and complete them in a way that helps you reach your goals.
AGI refers to a theoretical AI system that has the ability to understand or learn any intellectual task that is humanly possible. In short, it is sentient AI, a quality that still distinguishes humans from machines.
Can CC professionals, or indeed all professionals, overcome this challenge? Only time will tell. Right now, staying relevant requires staying informed of the latest industry trends and innovations, and continually evolving by developing new skills (including exactly how to use AI) and relearning old ones. Above all, CC professionals must remember that they have two skills that machines may not be able to develop right away: intuition and a personal touch. These are important features of CC functionality. Machines are still far behind in understanding human emotions and idiosyncrasies. It’s important for corporate communications professionals to leverage this advantage to stay ahead of the competition.
The author is Chief Manager (Corporate Communications) at GAIL (India) Limited. views are personal
