‘It’s a journey you need to get going on’: Using AI to solve PR’s time problem
AI can free up time for busy communications professionals who can delegate tasks “up to the last step”, according to the executive director of Meltwater APAC, David Hickey.
Speaking at Mumbrella CommsCon last week, Hickey said its not hard to argue with the fact that for a new news landscape, comes the need for new comms methods.
But new methods can be time consuming, and for an industry that is already time poor, it proves to be a big challenge.
Part of this, Hickey said, stems from the “undeniable” relationship between news and social media. According to a recent Meltwater report, Australia is a country with an “extremely high” internet penetration – Australians are spending a lot of time online, mainly on social media.
The report found that 78% of Australians — 21 million people — are using social media platforms every month. And an increasing number (27%) are using these platforms to access news or education.
Hickey presenting at CommsCon last week
So for communicators today, Hickey said: “You need to have a heavy hand on both news and social media if you want to take some form of control over the news cycle.
“It’s no longer enough to just be across and concerned about traditional news media, you also need to be across social media as well. What we see in social media is also shaping our opinions, and those opinions are then being influenced in news.”
Another factor impacting the time challenge for communicators, according to Hickey, is that team sizes are down, therefore people are having to do more in less time.
37% of PR professionals said they’re working longer hours, with 40% saying they’re experiencing burnout, according to the Meltwater report. Recruitment was also down 25%.
Another comes from the spread of mis- and disinformation, which comms professionals are constantly having to debunk or correct.
According to the report, 75% of Australians are “fearful” of misinformation, however, 70% are more likely to share something they know to be fake than something they know to be real.
The time challenge is expounded more so by comms professionals getting their priorities wrong, having to do more work with smaller budgets, or being inflexible in their strategies. It is also impacted by the amount of data being made available online.
“So there’s a couple of different buckets that are obviously where most of our time is going,” Hickey said.
“So we clearly need help as these challenges are hitting us. And there is light at the end of the tunnel, there’s an opportunity that’s emerging just as we’re losing all of this time.
“It’s not hard to argue that new methods are needed, what’s gotten us to this point is not what’s going to make us successful from here,” he said. “If we keep doing the same old things, we can’t expect different results.”
Hickey spoke to a packed room
The solution, according to Hickey, is AI. He said it is “promising to step into the gap” and help comms professionals, whether or not they agree with it.
Between AI assistants — the likes of ChatGPT or Copilot — and AI agents — like ChatGPT Operator or Agentforce — he said there is a “significant opportunity” for communicators to save time.
“We’re not just talking about helping in the workflow, we’re talking about actually going ahead and doing jobs for you, before bringing a human in the loop right on the last step just before execution.”
Hickey said it’s time to move away from the “state of fear” that AI will “go out and take our jobs”, and instead figure out how it can help PR professionals do their jobs better.
“AI has the potential to replace and take away mundane tasks, which will give people back time. And with that time, communicators can focus on being the communicator they need to be,” he said.
“Integrating AI into your business is a journey, but it’s a journey you need to get going on. You can’t hold back the tide, you need to get with the motion of the ocean and you need to start building AI as muscle in your business.”
However, it is important to note the downsides of utilising AI as a communicator.
According to Hickey, it can get cluttered easily and it should not be used as the final copy.
“Garbage in is garbage out with AI,” he said. “I don’t see customers using AI and sending that copy straight out, we don’t advise customers to do that. It’s more about the starting position, then you put your craft into it.”
He also admitted it can sometimes exacerbate the above challenges – especially the amount of data available onine.
“We’re simply drowning in data… And AI is only making this more of a challenge,” he said.
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Lauren McNamara is the associate editor at Mumbrella, covering the agency beat. She joined in November 2022 as editorial assistant, after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS.
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