March 7, 2025 • 22 mins
The 2025 Comms Report by Cision and PRWeek highlights the significant impact of AI on the PR industry, touching on both the opportunities and concerns AI presents.
Abbie and Adrian discuss how AI is becoming an integral part of their workflows, while also addressing fears about job security and budget impacts. They emphasize the importance of adapting to these changes by equipping oneself with AI knowledge to enhance professional value and ensure a place at the decision-making table in future communications efforts.
Read the transcript and notes for this episode on our website.
Key Takeaways
- AI serves as a powerful tool in PR for brainstorming, research, and content creation, but it should complement rather than replace human professionals.
- There's a growing trend in the industry towards developing proprietary AI tools tailored to specific needs, rather than relying solely on off-the-shelf solutions.
- Embracing AI requires upskilling, with an emphasis on understanding and leveraging technology to retain competitive advantage in PR.
- PR and communications pros need to leverage AI as a tool to enhance their skills and add value, rather than viewing it as a replacement for human expertise in the industry.
- Despite concerns about budget impacts due to AI capabilities, effective communication professionals must demonstrate how they can integrate AI while maintaining the human element essential for strategic insight.
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Credits
Copper State of Mind, hosted by Abbie Fink and Dr. Adrian McIntyre, is a project of HMA Public Relations, a full-service public relations and marketing communications firm in Phoenix.
The show is recorded and produced by the team at Speed of Story, a B2B communications firm, and distributed by PHX.fm, the leading independent B2B podcast network in Arizona.
If you enjoyed this episode, you might also like the PRGN Presents podcast, hosted by Abbie Fink, featuring conversations about PR, marketing, and communications with members of the Public Relations Global Network, "the world’s local public relations agency.”
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
For the past eight years, PRWeek and Cision have teamed up to
produce a report based on acomprehensive survey of the PR &
comms industry. It's a sort ofstate of the industry, if you will,
and it tells a bit about thestory behind the people telling the
story. And what are peopletalking about in 20 25? Well, a lot
(00:24):
of things. But as you mightimagine, the big one is AI. It's
infecting, or affecting,depending on your point of view,
how we do the work that we do.And there's a lot of positives, but
there's also some concerns.Abbie, what's on your mind?
Yeah, AI. I've heard a lot ofmy colleagues say that their newest
employee is AI. And I'm like,well, we all have one of those on
(00:48):
our staff now. I was actuallyin a meeting with a otherday.Wewerebrainstorming.
Wewantedtoname We wanted toamea a new program and we were just
getting stuck. We couldn'tcome past certain words. I'm like,
well, give me just a second.asuddenthewheelswerespinning.Wehadgreatotherideasandall sudden
(01:12):
the wheels were spinning. Wehad great ideas and all with a couple
correct prompts to get somenew ideas. And I think for a lot
of us that are using it, we'reusing it from a brainstorming perspective.
(01:32):
We're using it for researchextent, extent, we're using it to
create content. But anoverwhelming amount of conversations
around AI are also, "but itscares me a little bit, and I'm afraid
that it might take my job."And so goingtouseAIandhowit'sgoingtobeincorporatedintoreallyeverythingwe'redoing.Butweshouldn'tshyawayforsomeoftheconcernsandworriesmaybeaboutwhatit'sdoingorwhatitmaydo,certainlytothoseofusinthecommunicationsindustry,buthowit'sbeingusedacrossbusinessesingeneral,itcertainly.
(02:17):
It certainly seems ifsomeoftheinitialexuberancehascooled,whileatthesametime the
largelanguagemodelskeepgettingbetterand better.
Manyof the toolsarejust of thetools are just light years ahead
ago.Andasfolksbegintoupskill,ifyouwillreallylearn howto
(02:39):
incorporate someof will,really learn how to incorporate some
definitely areaswhere it'sbeeneasiertoembrace,liketheBrainstorming thatyoutalkedaboutasecond
ago.Ihavethis thebrainstorming that intoChatGPTorClaudeorGeminiorwhatever
your toolof choiceis.Butthere's some interestingemergingapplicationsthatsome
your tool of choice is. Butthere are some notallbyalongshot.Butthere'sanote
(03:05):
inhereaboutwhetherornotafirmhas developed to explore. Not all,
by a long shot. But there's anote of thefirmsaidyes.Theyhad.Of
course,thatmeans63%saidno. Butwe'reseeing atrend towards lesssortofofftheshelf,youknow,ready
(03:25):
the firm said yes, they had.Of course, that means 63% said no.
But we're seeing a trendtowards less off-the-shelf, you know,
ready-to wear typeapplications and more bespoke, like,
let's create something, let'spull in a developer or get some folks
(03:45):
to build us a toolsomethingmeaningfulon one of them
is something very similar tohow I have used a lot of AI, and
that is Retrieval AugmentedGeneration or RAG. In other words,
instead of just searchingcomeupwith somethingmeaningfulonitsown,yougiveitasetofdocum,
(04:08):
You know, HMA Public RelationspartofthePublicRelationsGlobalNetwork, whichisa
networkofindependentlyownedagencies aroundtheworld.Andour
networkpartner our networkpartner in Washington D.C., Xenophon,
has created their ownproprietary tool called Précis AI.
And it talkingabout,thatthereareplentyofqualityprogramsthatareaccessibleandfreeforbeginners.Andobviouslyyoupay ifyouwantalittlebitmore
(04:41):
indepthandmore resources.Buttheywerefindingthat a little bit
more in depth and moreresources. But specificneedsofcommunicationsprofessionalsin
create one that honed in onanyonecanuse them, they'rethereforanylevelofexpertise.Buttheyreallywantedto
(05:03):
createonethatwasveryspecifictothe them, they're there for any level
of expertise. But theytoanyofthetoolsthatcommunicationsprofessionalsusetodo our
jobs,isthatitisatool.Andtobeaneffectivetool,we needto
(05:27):
understandit,weneedtorecognizeitsvalueto whatwearedoing
professionals use to is notaneither orhire, is a tool. And to
becommunicationsprofessional.It ishireacommunicationsprofessionalthatis
(05:48):
usingAI,right?Sowehavetokindofembrace thisideathatit's
hereandit'saincrediblypowerfultoolforus.Youknow, the,theI,Ihaven'thadthequestion
inawhile,butintheearlydaysofAI,well, 18monthsago,butin
right? SodaysofAI,youknow,therewere acoupleconversationswith
(06:11):
some,youknow,newbusinessprospectsthat, you
You know, I thequestion,canIjustdothis withAI?DoIhavetohireyou?Andyou
know,obviouslythe,youknow,I'mgoing the
earlier days of AI, you know,there were a couple conversations
with some new businessprospects that honestly were asking
(06:36):
the question, "can I justwhatisbeingasked,right?And to hire
you?" And you know, obviouslyI'm going to always youdon'twantyour
to hire me. And I can say thatconfidently because no matter how
good these promptthatsaidwriteamarketingstrategywithsixtacticsandyouknow,fordeliverables,that's,we'llallendupwiththe exactsame,you
(07:04):
know,cookiecutter scenario. Sothere's,there's benefitinwhatthis
iswhenthehumanelement isthereandthat thoseofus that embraceit,understandit,
learnto like everyone else'smarketing strategy who plugged intaplacetoprovideanalysis,giveusanotheroutlookontosomething.That'swhatyou'rebeingpaidtodo,right?That'swhatyourclientsareaskingyouto
(07:34):
the exact same cookie cutterscenario. So there's benefit in what
this is when the human elementis workmoreefficiently,haveaccessto,youknow,amuchlargerdataset,butnothingwillreplace,youknow,thehuman
componentofwhatthis,thisisandwhatI'mfindinginteresting.Wedoalotofworkwithschools,educationenvironmentsandtheconversationswithcurriculumdevelopersarearoundintroducingAIintotheclassroomandteaching do.
(08:15):
That's what, if you're anin-house team, what your organization
is asking you to do. And thistogotothelibraryandgotothecardcatalogand find
more efficiently, have accessto a much larger data set, but nothing
will replace the humancomponent of this is. And what I'm
(08:37):
finding interesting, we do alot of work with schools, education
environments, and theconversations with curriculum developers
are around introducing AI intothe classroom and teaching students
how to use it -- I'm going todate myself a little bit -- the same
(09:02):
way that we learned how to usethe Dewey Decimal System. We had
to go totheshelvestofind?TheshelfnowisawellwrittenpromptintooneoftheseAIprogramstohelpusfindthat information.
,r ""-
And of course, it's puttingOxford, who makes the 3x5 cards,
(09:24):
out of business because thatwas essential. We had to hand copy
quotes out of the books andjournals that we found and then spread
them out all over the diningroom table to try to write a high
school research paper.
I loved that. I so loved that.
One of the things that strikesme about this whole thing is we're
going to see some interestingproblems emerge that we may not have
(09:49):
thought about ahead of timewhen it was so exciting, when it
was so new. But the fact thatyou can produce so many words with
just a few keystrokes and a,you know, short prompt, or the fact
that you can use a proprietarytool to generate a strategy like
you mentioned, is likely toget us to a point where there's just
(10:10):
too many things being output.It's so easy to make long documents
and long reports and things ofthat nature that there's an additional
skill which is drilling downto find what really matters. I mean,
you can get carried away in aChatGPT thread and however many thousands
of words later, you forgetwhich part of what you were doing
(10:32):
is going to be the mostimportant. We tend to think of generative
AI as giving us more. But ofcourse it's also important to tinkabouthavingitgive
usless. less. Find thereducethecomplexdocumentto athreepoint
a three-point summary, etcetera. So it goes thingslongerandmakingthingsshorter.Andwiththesummaries,
(10:56):
youknow, And with thesummaries, you know, it's fascinating,
I don't know, have you playedaround at alatGoogle.It'snottheirGeminiAI,butitis
somewhatadjacenttoit.It'saseparateproject,butbasically it
is somewhat adjacent to it.It's a separate project, but basically
this was designed withstudents or writers in mind. And
(11:19):
what you do is you createnotebooks, essentially folders, and
you can dump whatever you wantin the folder. So if this was a research
paper today, it would be thatyou put all your sources, you find
your journal articles, yourlinks, your MP3 files if you recorded
the professor lecturing or yourecorded an interview with somebody.
(11:42):
You just dump it all in thereand then you start to query that
folder, and it can summarizethings. And it's always citing the
specific thing it got out ofthe folder. didalittleexperimentacouple
couple of weeks ago. I tookall the transcripts of speeches I've
(12:03):
given,led,podcastinterviewsI'vedonewhereIwasthefeaturedguest,andI I
was the featured guest, and Ijust dumped it all in a folder. NotebookLM
has a feature now where with apush of a button -- and then you
wait about five minutes, ithas to actually process this -- it
will produce a podcast epis"" ...
So it was a big ego boost foryou is what it was.
(12:25):
No, it wasn't. It was justodd. Because, I mean, what they said
was kind of right. But alsowaslisteningtothem talkaboutwhatIhadfedit,
I thought,well, Iwouldactuallysaythat differently. that differently.
And it kind of spurred mythinking. Anyway, I don't buttheapplicationsarereally
gettingquitediverse.Alotof arereally getting quite diverse. A ofdifferentwaysthataboutit.However,youwanted
(12:48):
things. Not everybody'sfeeling good about it, however. You
wanted t
So the survey, right, thatCision and PR Week compiled, they
talked to 310 communicationsprofessionals. And on the topic of
AI, there's a fair amount ofindividuals that are still concerned
(13:11):
that it will eliminate thecommunications jobs. About 28% of
the respondents were worriedthat their job was at risk as a result
of AI. And again, my thinking,I don't say we shouldn't be concerned,
but I think the concern needsto be on learning this skill, understanding
(13:34):
it and embracing it. And thatbecomes how you continue to add value
to your team, to yourorganization. If you are a job seeker,
this is going to be a skillset that we are all going to look
for is what is your experiencewith AI? What do you know? How have
you used it? What success?What changes would you make, whatever
(13:56):
that might be. There's alwaysthe question of budgeting, right?
Is AI going to ... because itis available and to some extent there
are no costs associated withusing it, does that mean our budgets
are going to start to shrink?If AI can write the brochure, I can
stop ... I don't have to payyou to do that. Well, sure, 26% of
(14:17):
people say it's going toimpact our budgets. I'll make a similar
argument again that says,well, of course AI can create a brochure
for you, and it will createthe same brochure for you that it's
creating for everyone else.Because there's only so many ways
you can say so many thingsunless you add the human element
to it. So, you know, I'm notsaying we should not be concerned.
(14:39):
We should. Anything thatchanges how we do what we do is worthy
of a conversation. However, Ithink where, fo me, the takeaway
really needs to be is if wesay, okay, AI and all of what it
does is going to be part ofthe work, the work that communications
(15:02):
professionals are doing. It isgoing to be in our world, what does
that mean for my organization?And how do I, as someone who wants
to be successful, someone whowants to lead in my organization,
someone who wants to be aresponsible and participatory member
of my team, how do I look atthis and say, what can I learn about
(15:25):
it? And bring that to thetable? And what information can I
share about this powerful toolthat makes my colleagues, my clients,
my organization smarterbecause we have access to that? ndweregularlytalkthat
communicationsprofessionalsneedto have
aseatat thetable. And table.And so thetableisbeingreplacedbytechnology,theperson
(15:52):
sittingnexttothattechnologyneedsto be theonethatcanmanagewhatthis
is. Andsodon'tignore.AndIcertainlydon'twant tominimizeconcerns,butIreallyfeellikethereis
anopportunitytoembraceandbethe oneontheteam,be theonethatbringsforththepowerand
(16:13):
thevalueofwhatthisis,andnotrunawayfrom it,but
embraceitinsuchawaythatitbecomesanimportantpartof whatall
ofus needtoknowhowtodo,because itis notgoingto
be goingaway.
I will just say I couldreframe these four concerns as opportunities.
Maybe that's what folks werealso thinking, because the way the
(16:33):
survey worked, these fourcommon concerns were listed, and
then people had to say whetheror not they shared those concerns.
And none of them got more thana third of respondents saying they
thought it was a problem. It'sinteresting that the top one is "the
daunting challenge ofcommunicating to stakeholders the
(16:53):
many changes that AI isbringing about to the company or
to the brand." Well, that's acommunications opportunity. Let's
communicate to the people whocare about these things exactly how
AI is changing some things forthe company or for the product or
for whatever. The middle two,"communication jobs will be eliminated"
and "communication budgetswill shrink" ... I have to say if
(17:16):
AI can replace a job or dosomething cheaper, it should. It
should do both of thosethings. That's my personal point
of view. Now I don't think itshould replace the people doing the
work, but if you have peopledoing menial tasks that could be
done by an AI, you should havethe AI do those things, and you should
then pass that cost savings onto the client or find other ways
(17:38):
to add value to theengagement. Gone are the days --
and again, this might be verycontroversial for some folks and
this is my opinion, not theopinion of this show -- but if you
are getting comfortablecollecting a monthly retainer and
assuming that the value isself evident, then you're going to
be in trouble no matter what.And if AI is bringing costs down,
(17:58):
either find ways to increasethe value you add or accept the fact
that you have to charge lessfor what you provide. One man's point
of view. And then the finalone, "do comms pros have a seat at
the table? Is AI underminingthat?" Only 14% of people said they
were concerned about that.People are very solidly confident
that C-suite executives attheir client organizations are relying
(18:23):
on their insights and on theirknowledge. I think this is all very
po
Yeah, I don't disagree. And toyour point about budget shrinking
and showing value, that is arallying cry and should be for every
individual that is servicingan organization and responsible for
(18:43):
communications. The surveydoes talk about a little bit about
measuring the impact of whatcommunications is doing. And this
has been and will anongoingconversationthatwhatwedoascommunicationsprofessionalsmust betiedtothebusinessgoalsandobjectives.Andourvaluepropositionishowweimpactthose
(19:08):
businessobjectives.Anditisnota14inchclipbookoflookatall the
it is not a 14-inch clip bookof "look at all the business that
we've got" unless thosementions drive the business theoutdatedwaysof,
ofmeasuring ourimpacton rid of someshould saynotevenour of measuring
(19:34):
our impact or our success. Ishould say not even our impact but
our success. And to yourpoint, a AI has an opportunity to
help us do that. Here's whatwe set out to do. Here is our intent
with this type of information.Did we accomplish this? Where were
(19:57):
we? What's the sentiment?What's the share of voice? Some of
those other things that areoften looked quitewiththosetypesofparametersaroundit.
Youknow,thewhileweletAIdothese,you while we let of do these
(20:23):
manual timetothatstrategyandthat,youknow,way ofmake, youknow,impacting
that way ofandyourgoals.Andwenowhave atoolthatallowsustobemoreefficientincertainareas,freeing
(20:45):
upourhumantimeonthestrategy.Andagain,maybe I'vegotabitofrose
colored glasses,butI time onthe strategy. And again, maybe I've
got a bit of rose coloredglasses, but I gotta believe that
(21:06):
smart communicationsprofessionals with this type of open
dialogue with theirorganizations, their clients, their
in-house report-ups to CEOsand such have to have these conversations
and you know, create the paththat the we bring to the table things
that a machine cannot bring.But let's let the machines do the
(21:30):
things that the humansshouldn't be doing because there's
a more efficient way to do it.And we've seen that over time with
other industries .L
Thanks for listening to thisepisode of Copper State of Mind.
If you enjoyed theconversation, please share it with
a colleague who might alsofind this podcast valuable. It's
(21:53):
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of Mind is brought to you byHMA Public Relations, the oldest
(22:13):
continuously operating PR firmin Arizona. The recordedandproducedbytheteamatSpeedofStory,a
B2BcommunicationsfirminPhoenix,anddistributedbyPHXFM,the distributed
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network in Arizona. For all ushereatSpeedofStoryandPHX.fm,forsharingtheshowwithothers.If youchoosetodoso.Wehopeyou'lljoinwith
(22:40):
othersif youchooseto do so. ofMind.
For the past eight years, PRWeek and Cision have teamed up to
produce a report based on acomprehensive survey of the PR &
comms industry. It's a sort ofstate of the industry, if you will,
and it tells a bit about thestory behind the people telling the
story. And what are peopletalking about in 20 25? Well, a lot
(00:24):
of things. But as you mightimagine, the big one is AI. It's
infecting, or affecting,depending on your point of view,
how we do the work that we do.And there's a lot of positives, but
there's also some concerns.Abbie, what's on your mind?
Yeah, AI. I've heard a lot ofmy colleagues say that their newest
employee is AI. And I'm like,well, we all have one of those on
(00:48):
our staff now. I was actuallyin a meeting with a otherday.Wewerebrainstorming.
Wewantedtoname We wanted toamea a new program and we were just
getting stuck. We couldn'tcome past certain words. I'm like,
well, give me just a second.asuddenthewheelswerespinning.Wehadgreatotherideasandall sudden
(01:12):
the wheels were spinning. Wehad great ideas and all with a couple
correct prompts to get somenew ideas. And I think for a lot
of us that are using it, we'reusing it from a brainstorming perspective.
(01:32):
We're using it for researchextent, extent, we're using it to
create content. But anoverwhelming amount of conversations
around AI are also, "but itscares me a little bit, and I'm afraid
that it might take my job."And so goingtouseAIandhowit'sgoingtobeincorporatedintoreallyeverythingwe'redoing.Butweshouldn'tshyawayforsomeoftheconcernsandworriesmaybeaboutwhatit'sdoingorwhatitmaydo,certainlytothoseofusinthecommunicationsindustry,buthowit'sbeingusedacrossbusinessesingeneral,itcertainly.
(02:17):
It certainly seems ifsomeoftheinitialexuberancehascooled,whileatthesametime the
largelanguagemodelskeepgettingbetterand better.
Manyof the toolsarejust of thetools are just light years ahead
ago.Andasfolksbegintoupskill,ifyouwillreallylearn howto
(02:39):
incorporate someof will,really learn how to incorporate some
definitely areaswhere it'sbeeneasiertoembrace,liketheBrainstorming thatyoutalkedaboutasecond
ago.Ihavethis thebrainstorming that intoChatGPTorClaudeorGeminiorwhatever
your toolof choiceis.Butthere's some interestingemergingapplicationsthatsome
your tool of choice is. Butthere are some notallbyalongshot.Butthere'sanote
(03:05):
inhereaboutwhetherornotafirmhas developed to explore. Not all,
by a long shot. But there's anote of thefirmsaidyes.Theyhad.Of
course,thatmeans63%saidno. Butwe'reseeing atrend towards lesssortofofftheshelf,youknow,ready
(03:25):
the firm said yes, they had.Of course, that means 63% said no.
But we're seeing a trendtowards less off-the-shelf, you know,
ready-to wear typeapplications and more bespoke, like,
let's create something, let'spull in a developer or get some folks
(03:45):
to build us a toolsomethingmeaningfulon one of them
is something very similar tohow I have used a lot of AI, and
that is Retrieval AugmentedGeneration or RAG. In other words,
instead of just searchingcomeupwith somethingmeaningfulonitsown,yougiveitasetofdocum,
(04:08):
You know, HMA Public RelationspartofthePublicRelationsGlobalNetwork, whichisa
networkofindependentlyownedagencies aroundtheworld.Andour
networkpartner our networkpartner in Washington D.C., Xenophon,
has created their ownproprietary tool called Précis AI.
And it talkingabout,thatthereareplentyofqualityprogramsthatareaccessibleandfreeforbeginners.Andobviouslyyoupay ifyouwantalittlebitmore
(04:41):
indepthandmore resources.Buttheywerefindingthat a little bit
more in depth and moreresources. But specificneedsofcommunicationsprofessionalsin
create one that honed in onanyonecanuse them, they'rethereforanylevelofexpertise.Buttheyreallywantedto
(05:03):
createonethatwasveryspecifictothe them, they're there for any level
of expertise. But theytoanyofthetoolsthatcommunicationsprofessionalsusetodo our
jobs,isthatitisatool.Andtobeaneffectivetool,we needto
(05:27):
understandit,weneedtorecognizeitsvalueto whatwearedoing
professionals use to is notaneither orhire, is a tool. And to
becommunicationsprofessional.It ishireacommunicationsprofessionalthatis
(05:48):
usingAI,right?Sowehavetokindofembrace thisideathatit's
hereandit'saincrediblypowerfultoolforus.Youknow, the,theI,Ihaven'thadthequestion
inawhile,butintheearlydaysofAI,well, 18monthsago,butin
right? SodaysofAI,youknow,therewere acoupleconversationswith
(06:11):
some,youknow,newbusinessprospectsthat, you
You know, I thequestion,canIjustdothis withAI?DoIhavetohireyou?Andyou
know,obviouslythe,youknow,I'mgoing the
earlier days of AI, you know,there were a couple conversations
with some new businessprospects that honestly were asking
(06:36):
the question, "can I justwhatisbeingasked,right?And to hire
you?" And you know, obviouslyI'm going to always youdon'twantyour
to hire me. And I can say thatconfidently because no matter how
good these promptthatsaidwriteamarketingstrategywithsixtacticsandyouknow,fordeliverables,that's,we'llallendupwiththe exactsame,you
(07:04):
know,cookiecutter scenario. Sothere's,there's benefitinwhatthis
iswhenthehumanelement isthereandthat thoseofus that embraceit,understandit,
learnto like everyone else'smarketing strategy who plugged intaplacetoprovideanalysis,giveusanotheroutlookontosomething.That'swhatyou'rebeingpaidtodo,right?That'swhatyourclientsareaskingyouto
(07:34):
the exact same cookie cutterscenario. So there's benefit in what
this is when the human elementis workmoreefficiently,haveaccessto,youknow,amuchlargerdataset,butnothingwillreplace,youknow,thehuman
componentofwhatthis,thisisandwhatI'mfindinginteresting.Wedoalotofworkwithschools,educationenvironmentsandtheconversationswithcurriculumdevelopersarearoundintroducingAIintotheclassroomandteaching do.
(08:15):
That's what, if you're anin-house team, what your organization
is asking you to do. And thistogotothelibraryandgotothecardcatalogand find
more efficiently, have accessto a much larger data set, but nothing
will replace the humancomponent of this is. And what I'm
(08:37):
finding interesting, we do alot of work with schools, education
environments, and theconversations with curriculum developers
are around introducing AI intothe classroom and teaching students
how to use it -- I'm going todate myself a little bit -- the same
(09:02):
way that we learned how to usethe Dewey Decimal System. We had
to go totheshelvestofind?TheshelfnowisawellwrittenpromptintooneoftheseAIprogramstohelpusfindthat information.
,r ""-
And of course, it's puttingOxford, who makes the 3x5 cards,
(09:24):
out of business because thatwas essential. We had to hand copy
quotes out of the books andjournals that we found and then spread
them out all over the diningroom table to try to write a high
school research paper.
I loved that. I so loved that.
One of the things that strikesme about this whole thing is we're
going to see some interestingproblems emerge that we may not have
(09:49):
thought about ahead of timewhen it was so exciting, when it
was so new. But the fact thatyou can produce so many words with
just a few keystrokes and a,you know, short prompt, or the fact
that you can use a proprietarytool to generate a strategy like
you mentioned, is likely toget us to a point where there's just
(10:10):
too many things being output.It's so easy to make long documents
and long reports and things ofthat nature that there's an additional
skill which is drilling downto find what really matters. I mean,
you can get carried away in aChatGPT thread and however many thousands
of words later, you forgetwhich part of what you were doing
(10:32):
is going to be the mostimportant. We tend to think of generative
AI as giving us more. But ofcourse it's also important to tinkabouthavingitgive
usless. less. Find thereducethecomplexdocumentto athreepoint
a three-point summary, etcetera. So it goes thingslongerandmakingthingsshorter.Andwiththesummaries,
(10:56):
youknow, And with thesummaries, you know, it's fascinating,
I don't know, have you playedaround at alatGoogle.It'snottheirGeminiAI,butitis
somewhatadjacenttoit.It'saseparateproject,butbasically it
is somewhat adjacent to it.It's a separate project, but basically
this was designed withstudents or writers in mind. And
(11:19):
what you do is you createnotebooks, essentially folders, and
you can dump whatever you wantin the folder. So if this was a research
paper today, it would be thatyou put all your sources, you find
your journal articles, yourlinks, your MP3 files if you recorded
the professor lecturing or yourecorded an interview with somebody.
(11:42):
You just dump it all in thereand then you start to query that
folder, and it can summarizethings. And it's always citing the
specific thing it got out ofthe folder. didalittleexperimentacouple
couple of weeks ago. I tookall the transcripts of speeches I've
(12:03):
given,led,podcastinterviewsI'vedonewhereIwasthefeaturedguest,andI I
was the featured guest, and Ijust dumped it all in a folder. NotebookLM
has a feature now where with apush of a button -- and then you
wait about five minutes, ithas to actually process this -- it
will produce a podcast epis"" ...
So it was a big ego boost foryou is what it was.
(12:25):
No, it wasn't. It was justodd. Because, I mean, what they said
was kind of right. But alsowaslisteningtothem talkaboutwhatIhadfedit,
I thought,well, Iwouldactuallysaythat differently. that differently.
And it kind of spurred mythinking. Anyway, I don't buttheapplicationsarereally
gettingquitediverse.Alotof arereally getting quite diverse. A ofdifferentwaysthataboutit.However,youwanted
(12:48):
things. Not everybody'sfeeling good about it, however. You
wanted t
So the survey, right, thatCision and PR Week compiled, they
talked to 310 communicationsprofessionals. And on the topic of
AI, there's a fair amount ofindividuals that are still concerned
(13:11):
that it will eliminate thecommunications jobs. About 28% of
the respondents were worriedthat their job was at risk as a result
of AI. And again, my thinking,I don't say we shouldn't be concerned,
but I think the concern needsto be on learning this skill, understanding
(13:34):
it and embracing it. And thatbecomes how you continue to add value
to your team, to yourorganization. If you are a job seeker,
this is going to be a skillset that we are all going to look
for is what is your experiencewith AI? What do you know? How have
you used it? What success?What changes would you make, whatever
(13:56):
that might be. There's alwaysthe question of budgeting, right?
Is AI going to ... because itis available and to some extent there
are no costs associated withusing it, does that mean our budgets
are going to start to shrink?If AI can write the brochure, I can
stop ... I don't have to payyou to do that. Well, sure, 26% of
(14:17):
people say it's going toimpact our budgets. I'll make a similar
argument again that says,well, of course AI can create a brochure
for you, and it will createthe same brochure for you that it's
creating for everyone else.Because there's only so many ways
you can say so many thingsunless you add the human element
to it. So, you know, I'm notsaying we should not be concerned.
(14:39):
We should. Anything thatchanges how we do what we do is worthy
of a conversation. However, Ithink where, fo me, the takeaway
really needs to be is if wesay, okay, AI and all of what it
does is going to be part ofthe work, the work that communications
(15:02):
professionals are doing. It isgoing to be in our world, what does
that mean for my organization?And how do I, as someone who wants
to be successful, someone whowants to lead in my organization,
someone who wants to be aresponsible and participatory member
of my team, how do I look atthis and say, what can I learn about
(15:25):
it? And bring that to thetable? And what information can I
share about this powerful toolthat makes my colleagues, my clients,
my organization smarterbecause we have access to that? ndweregularlytalkthat
communicationsprofessionalsneedto have
aseatat thetable. And table.And so thetableisbeingreplacedbytechnology,theperson
(15:52):
sittingnexttothattechnologyneedsto be theonethatcanmanagewhatthis
is. Andsodon'tignore.AndIcertainlydon'twant tominimizeconcerns,butIreallyfeellikethereis
anopportunitytoembraceandbethe oneontheteam,be theonethatbringsforththepowerand
(16:13):
thevalueofwhatthisis,andnotrunawayfrom it,but
embraceitinsuchawaythatitbecomesanimportantpartof whatall
ofus needtoknowhowtodo,because itis notgoingto
be goingaway.
I will just say I couldreframe these four concerns as opportunities.
Maybe that's what folks werealso thinking, because the way the
(16:33):
survey worked, these fourcommon concerns were listed, and
then people had to say whetheror not they shared those concerns.
And none of them got more thana third of respondents saying they
thought it was a problem. It'sinteresting that the top one is "the
daunting challenge ofcommunicating to stakeholders the
(16:53):
many changes that AI isbringing about to the company or
to the brand." Well, that's acommunications opportunity. Let's
communicate to the people whocare about these things exactly how
AI is changing some things forthe company or for the product or
for whatever. The middle two,"communication jobs will be eliminated"
and "communication budgetswill shrink" ... I have to say if
(17:16):
AI can replace a job or dosomething cheaper, it should. It
should do both of thosethings. That's my personal point
of view. Now I don't think itshould replace the people doing the
work, but if you have peopledoing menial tasks that could be
done by an AI, you should havethe AI do those things, and you should
then pass that cost savings onto the client or find other ways
(17:38):
to add value to theengagement. Gone are the days --
and again, this might be verycontroversial for some folks and
this is my opinion, not theopinion of this show -- but if you
are getting comfortablecollecting a monthly retainer and
assuming that the value isself evident, then you're going to
be in trouble no matter what.And if AI is bringing costs down,
(17:58):
either find ways to increasethe value you add or accept the fact
that you have to charge lessfor what you provide. One man's point
of view. And then the finalone, "do comms pros have a seat at
the table? Is AI underminingthat?" Only 14% of people said they
were concerned about that.People are very solidly confident
that C-suite executives attheir client organizations are relying
(18:23):
on their insights and on theirknowledge. I think this is all very
po
Yeah, I don't disagree. And toyour point about budget shrinking
and showing value, that is arallying cry and should be for every
individual that is servicingan organization and responsible for
(18:43):
communications. The surveydoes talk about a little bit about
measuring the impact of whatcommunications is doing. And this
has been and will anongoingconversationthatwhatwedoascommunicationsprofessionalsmust betiedtothebusinessgoalsandobjectives.Andourvaluepropositionishowweimpactthose
(19:08):
businessobjectives.Anditisnota14inchclipbookoflookatall the
it is not a 14-inch clip bookof "look at all the business that
we've got" unless thosementions drive the business theoutdatedwaysof,
ofmeasuring ourimpacton rid of someshould saynotevenour of measuring
(19:34):
our impact or our success. Ishould say not even our impact but
our success. And to yourpoint, a AI has an opportunity to
help us do that. Here's whatwe set out to do. Here is our intent
with this type of information.Did we accomplish this? Where were
(19:57):
we? What's the sentiment?What's the share of voice? Some of
those other things that areoften looked quitewiththosetypesofparametersaroundit.
Youknow,thewhileweletAIdothese,you while we let of do these
(20:23):
manual timetothatstrategyandthat,youknow,way ofmake, youknow,impacting
that way ofandyourgoals.Andwenowhave atoolthatallowsustobemoreefficientincertainareas,freeing
(20:45):
upourhumantimeonthestrategy.Andagain,maybe I'vegotabitofrose
colored glasses,butI time onthe strategy. And again, maybe I've
got a bit of rose coloredglasses, but I gotta believe that
(21:06):
smart communicationsprofessionals with this type of open
dialogue with theirorganizations, their clients, their
in-house report-ups to CEOsand such have to have these conversations
and you know, create the paththat the we bring to the table things
that a machine cannot bring.But let's let the machines do the
(21:30):
things that the humansshouldn't be doing because there's
a more efficient way to do it.And we've seen that over time with
other industries .L
Thanks for listening to thisepisode of Copper State of Mind.
If you enjoyed theconversation, please share it with
a colleague who might alsofind this podcast valuable. It's
(21:53):
easy to do, just click the"Share" button in the app you're
listening to now to pass italong. You can also follow Copper
State of Mind in ApplePodcasts, Spotify or any other podcast
app. We publish new episodesevery other Friday. Copper State
of Mind is brought to you byHMA Public Relations, the oldest
(22:13):
continuously operating PR firmin Arizona. The recordedandproducedbytheteamatSpeedofStory,a
B2BcommunicationsfirminPhoenix,anddistributedbyPHXFM,the distributed
by PHX.fm,podcastnetworkinArizona.For allofus
network in Arizona. For all ushereatSpeedofStoryandPHX.fm,forsharingtheshowwithothers.If youchoosetodoso.Wehopeyou'lljoinwith
(22:40):
othersif youchooseto do so. ofMind.
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