How AI Is Rewriting the Rules of PR

AI has moved from experiment to infrastructure in the world of PR—reshaping workflows, enhancing research, generating content, and becoming an essential part of the professional toolkit. But with adoption accelerating, many teams are moving faster than their policies, slower than their tools, and without a shared understanding of what this shift means for the future of the craft.

Part one in our special series on AI, this episode of Building Brand Gravity has hosts Steve Halsey and Anne Green kick things off with a conversation about how communicators can embrace AI to become better strategists, counselors, and learners in an era of constant change. Then, Steve sits down with Greg Galant, CEO and co-founder of Muck Rack, to unpack findings from The State of AI in PR report—exploring adoption trends, emerging professional skills, and growing gaps in training, policy, and trust.

Join us as we discuss:
• How generative AI is transforming PR workflows across the industry
• The risks of widespread use without clear guidance or alignment
• What AI adoption reveals about trust, transparency, and client expectations

Stay tuned for part two, where Anne sits down with Loren King of MorganMyers to explore how AI is quietly transforming daily workflows in digital marketing and communications.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I think at first people are like, well, if someone's
using AI, they're kind of cheating, and don't di want
the person who doesn't use AI. You know, it doesn't
feel fashioned, right, It's really the opposite. It's almost like
if someone's not using the AI, it's almost like they're
stealing from the company or from their client because they're
charging them to do something, but then it shouldn't take
that long to do and it could be done more efficiently.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Hello, and welcome to a building brand Gravity. I'm Steve Halsey.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
And I'm Anne Green, and we're excited to be teaming
up for a special series on AI. You know, this
series is really intending to dive in a bit deeper,
speak to a couple key experts, both from outside and
insider company, and also just take some time before we
bring on our guests to explore some key AI things

(00:57):
in the news.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
I'm really excited. In this episode, we're going to here
talk to our old friend, the friend of the pod,
Greg Galan, co founder and CEO of muck Rack. We're
going to really dive into the latest research they have
on the adoption of AI, and then you're going to
be talking to our own Lauren King really looking at
AI application and specific markets.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
Yeah, that'll be in an upcoming episode. Lauren is on.
He's in one of our two go to market agencies.
He's with Morgan Meyers, a GNS agency, and he's a
digital leader and specialist and really deep in the space.
So I think it'll be great to get Greg's perspective
on the big picture of where things are going for
the industry because they do so much good research. And
then with Lauren, we're going to try to get a

(01:42):
little bit deeper about the things he's really looking at
now for clients, and especially in one of our big spaces,
which is agriculture but also food. He does a lot
of work in both of those spaces.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
When I get Greg here in just a minute for
all our listeners, some really amazing stats on the adoption.
In the end of twenty twenty three, just twenty eight
percent of communication professionals we're actively using generative AI. Turn
of this year, seventy five percent of PR pros are

(02:13):
using it. And what's interesting in there is ninety three
percent say it speeds up the work and seventy eight
percent are now saying it improves the quality of that work.
You were recently featured in pr Week. They did article
as part of the Agency Business Report, the AI Audit,
where they were really talking about the impact of AI.

(02:34):
Some really interesting perspectives in there about driving a culture
of exploration, how do you mainstream it? But what are
some of the things from that article that really stood
out to you from your perspective.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
It's part of the Agency Business Report that Peer Week
does every year in the twenty twenty five and I
got a chance to talk to one of the journalists
there knows Us, and we had a pretty deep conversation.
First for the Agency Business Report of or all just
what's going on with the agency and the landscape, but
we started talking about AI and he said, ooh, I
want to follow up with you because he was taking
on this AI audit. So I think for me what

(03:09):
was interesting and we were in great company there, some
folks from Goland and Edelman and some other firms. What's
most interesting to me, I think on the macro level
is how are we all really getting into enablement, you know,
rubber on the road. What are those pilot programs and
how are you training people on that and getting them
to disrupt their own workflow, and then what's the higher
order where we're going to use these tools to improve,

(03:32):
you know, really augment our abilities to be counselors and strategic.
So I thought there was some really good things here.
I remember the person from Edelman was talking about transforming
the business model, and that's how I'm seeing it now,
really is a it's a digital transformation process, and it's
incumbent upon us to both be leading it and also

(03:52):
be side by side with our clients and exploring what's
the relevance to them and their workflows.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, hundred percent. And so as you see that maturization
in how is being used, you know, one of the
other things I thought was interesting, which is the point
that you've been talking about. At the industry level, seventy
five percent of pros say they are worried, however, that
AI will stunt the learning of younger pros because they're

(04:20):
not have to go going through the same process that
we used to the old bacons to find reporters and
update it and all of those things. What's kind of
your take as as an industry a little bit of
ironic here to not just have the adoption happen from
the senior professionals who can apply it and somewhat stunt

(04:41):
the development of younger professionals who we need to continue
what we're doing.

Speaker 3 (04:46):
I think what more specifically a lot of us are
wondering about is are products or people you know, and
it's intellectual capital, and it's experienced built in sectors over time,
and it's a lot of mentoring, mentoring down laterally mentoring up.
The fact that we have all these generations in the
workforce is a real benefit and our younger people learned
by doing We're going to have to think really hard

(05:07):
about how do we use tools to help those younger
professionals get to strategy and council faster, and also make
sure that more senior people can give them the context.
So there's contextual layer. It's not just go right, a
press release, Well now that AI knows how to do this,
and is it any good, you know, and what's the

(05:28):
context of that. I think there's got to be layers
of mentoring within this, just to make sure that we
don't lose the talent. We keep building it so that it
can work side by side with tech. I mean, but
what are your thoughts, because I think this is a
sticky issue.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
I will quote the great coach coach Ted Lasso, who
was quoting Walt Whitman of always be curious, right, be curious,
not judgmental, And I think that's really what we have
to foster in our younger professionals is to be curious
and to think about how you use the tools to

(06:05):
build up that expertise in the industries you serve the
clients that you serve, Because at the end of the day,
if you can use AI to help become a better
counselor a better strategist, and if you're able to be
curious and bring that perspective, then I think the potential

(06:26):
for what younger employees can do is amazing. But like
you said, you've got to have that context.

Speaker 3 (06:33):
And really another part of this, I'm just all about
how do we upscial ourselves. You know, the fact is
real mass upscale upskilling, upskilling at scale very rarely happens.
So we have to do everything we can as an entity,
and our clients do and everyone does to help train.
But then how do people embrace that.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
Well, we got a lot in store in these two episodes.
I'm going to jump over and hit Greg up and
see what we have to learn with me today is
a friend of the podcast, Greg Galant, co founder and
CEO of Muckrack, one of the leading technology platforms serving
PR and comms team. Greg, welcome back to building brand gravity, Gray.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
Thanks so much for having me, Steve.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
You guys did an amazing study. I just I just
kept reading it again and again at the turn of
the year, the state of the AI in PR, and
I guess as we get started here, why don't you
tell me a little bit about maybe some of your
top lines from the study and that can get us
going with today's conversation.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
Yeah, it sounds great. Well, we've done a number of
these studies and we've been using AI, machine learning and
generative AI, but going back, going back over a decade,
so it's something we've been focused on for a long time.
But we started measuring how their corporate comms and PR

(07:56):
communities using AI, and I think the big takeaways just
the jump of adoption or the course of one year,
we saw the number of or the portion of PR
people using AI went from twenty eight percent to seventy
five percent. They think of any other technology that that

(08:16):
had that that big of jump of adoption in just
one year.

Speaker 2 (08:20):
And when you when you look at that at that adoption,
I mean, is it is it just because the profession
is catching up or is it that the technology, particularly
the large language models are evolving so quickly that their
applicability to the day to day work of PR pros
of they're just like intersecting at that magic point.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
I think it's a combination of those two factors. You
know what is it takes everybody a while just you know,
just to learn any new technology, and more than to
learn it, because it's one thing to just try, you know,
playing with open ai, but it's another or a platform
like that, but it's another thing to really think like
how do you work it into your workflows and make

(09:01):
it kind of fundamental. I think another is the improvement
both that the the LM's got much more powerful. They
added many more ways to integrate into workflows. They got
better at citing sources, so there's a lot more more
power there now, and it's easier to double check their

(09:23):
work with the kind of more agentic search based AIS
that can now give citations and then uh and then
finally too, there's a lot more ways to use AIS.
So platforms like like ours like Mark Rockett integrated AI
into the platform. So even if you you know, aren't

(09:44):
using like a pure ll M, you might well be
using AI through tools you've been used to using for
for a long time.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
Yeah, and I think that's I think that's going to
be fascinating part of the discussion that you know, AI
is getting baked into so many things that it becomes
part of where we're doing. You get, you know, kind
of learning an adoption. But you know, I'm also seeing
and talking to a lot of professionals and peers that
are kind of creating AI versions of themselves. So they're

(10:14):
using paid versions of the large language models uploading their information.
And that'll be a great great when we get in
a later conversation of you know, at what point does
the professional stop and the AI start if what it's
processing is your own thoughts. The other big headline stats
for me, other than the seventy five percent are now
using generative ADI was ninety three percent says it speeds

(10:39):
up their work and seventy eight percent says it improves
their quality. I mean, what what was your take when
when when you guys pulled all the numbers and it
was like wow, look, at that ninety three and seventy
eight percent.

Speaker 1 (10:51):
Yeah, it's powerful. I mean it's not surprising it speeds
up people's work, but ninety three is definitely you know,
to get ninety three percent of people to green anything
of this world is a hard thing. I kind of
think of it the same way that like you would
have spreadsheet must have been like when A first came out,
and if you had a bunch of math problems and

(11:13):
the spreadsheets out there and you need to do your
financial model, it's going to speed you up tremendously and
you could do so much more. A AI there were
an AI brought brought about by LMS is more or
less like kind of that for the written word for research,
which is so much of what PR people need to do.

(11:36):
It's it's writing, it's it's researching what's going on, and
then it's reading and summarizing. So it makes total sense
that the PR profession can really leverage AI with a
lot of part a lot of pieces of their workflow.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
Yeah, and it's interesting to see the evolution because because
when you and I caught up last year, we were
really talking about AI in the news room and how
that how that's kind of evolving, but you know, it
really seems like right now top performing teams are really
using it brainstorming, writing, research, those sorts of those sorts
of things. Maybe you can talk to us a little

(12:14):
bit about, you know, outside some of those large language
model How are people How are how professionals interacting with
AI in your own tools at muckrack, whether they know
they are or not.

Speaker 1 (12:25):
Yeah, it's a great question. So we've we have a
lot of AI pieces in muck rack. You know. For example,
we have a feature where if you have a media list,
that will automatically suggest new journalists to add to that
media list based on who's on there. Kind of very
similar to if you Spotify and you finish your playlist,
that'll just figure out new music to keep playing. And

(12:48):
it usually is pretty good, you know, and in line
with the other stuff on the playlist. It gives you
that abilities you can be discovering journalists to it and
never thought to reach out for reach out to before.
Another piece that we built in it's very exciting, is
a media brief generator. So if you've got an executive

(13:10):
meeting with the given journalists within muckrack, you can use
all the muckrack data to figure out like the first
draft of a media brief that you'd give that executive
to prep them for that meeting with that journalist. And
I think that's really exciting because until now, like there

(13:31):
was no software that could do anything like that for you.
Because software just puts enhabled our right stuff and add
that level of contextualization. So it's just you know, another
example where there used to be you know, PR software
has been around for decades. There used to just be
all these elements the PR workflow that's a software could

(13:52):
not help with because it was based on writing and
meeting conference of that software was incapable of. Now that's
all possible, and now we can build out those complete
workflows and make people a lot more efficient.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
We've come a long way from when I started his
career and I had we had to go through those
Bacon media guides that you would flip through to get everybody.
But it's interesting how you talk about the ability to
prep for the interview with all these changes and all
the possibilities.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
You know.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
Some other things that really stuck out to me in
the in the report was I'm kind of calling it
like the policy and training gap that at least that's
how I think about it, that only thirty eight percent
of PR pros report having company guidelines for how they
use AI and forty three of forty three percent of
agency pros report having access to training versus thirty one

(14:43):
percent of professionals at brands. I mean, if we've got
these numbers where you know, you've got such a significant
number of professionals using it, is it good or bad
that that the guidances is lacking so much at this
point in time?

Speaker 1 (15:01):
Yeah, I think I think that's an area that the uh,
the industry, I think has challenge for every business has
to skip a lot better with and take a lot
more seriously because having those policies and having a proper
training is super important because AI AI is not perfect,
and the reason we want to human in the loop

(15:22):
people people involved in this is to make sure the
output's good and that it's being used in a responsible way.
I think another thing that's pretty key is is to
review the policies and companies nature be their policies. Probably
probably quarterly is a good idea, but at least once
a year. Because when when AI first came out a

(15:42):
lot of people rushed out policies that I think were
you know, maybe the right thing at the time, but
but very conservative and reaction area. So now that AIS
come along a lot further, you really have to look
back up those policies because otherwise I think it's like

(16:04):
people either have no policy and it's a wild West,
or they have some policy they wrote when AI first
came out, and it's like don't use AI or you know,
only use AI with approval. It's not just about going
to chat, GPT, dot com anymore in that's AI. It's
that in you know, outbook or email like they're you know,
AI is baked in there, so you know, it's almost

(16:27):
like your team is going to be using AI no
matter what. And I think the key is to write
AI policies that that map to where the world is
today and are clear and the you know, people at
a company can actually follow versus having it like, Okay,
we signed this AI policy that doesn't really map to

(16:47):
what the technology is today's I either have to ignore
it or not use AI.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
We're starting to see a lot more with procurement as
we're working through contracts having to be really specific about AI.
We use generative AI even just asking about like what
AI is built into the software we're using, which you
know from where you're sitting. As a technology platform, it's

(17:12):
kind of an interesting question because you really want to
be upfront about some stuff, but then it's also part
of your secret sauce. You know that that that you
don't want to give away, So from asking you from
where you sit is kind of like a technology platform leader,
what are the things that you need to do to
give trust in the users of your products and ultimately

(17:32):
they're customers that you've got standards that is being treated ethically.

Speaker 1 (17:38):
Yeah, I think a lot of it's about transparency and
showing that you know where you're using AI and how
you're using AI, the safeguards that you're putting into it
for a human review on the output that you have
from AI, and how you know how you're kind of
handling that data responsibly. And I think at the end

(18:02):
of the day, the most important thing, ironically is good
human judgment. Where I mean people, every knowledge worker has
been using technology to do their job efficiently for the
last several decades, even before the latest advances in AI.

(18:23):
You know, imagine you said, hey, we need you to
state every way you're using powerful clouds, software on our
behalf and spreadsheets on our behalf and all that, and
to some degree it's like, well, what really matters is
that you know the judgment to use all these powerful
tools and response away and create a good output. So

(18:44):
I think on one hand, being transparent and explaining how
you're going about your process is needed. But also I
think it's important people don't get too draconian about like
prescribing exactly what to do versus making sure there're people
who just exercise good judgment in using these tools and

(19:04):
reviewing the output being good work outputt.

Speaker 2 (19:07):
There's also the interesting innovation curve too that if you
if you put if you put too much guidelines, too
much style, you're losing you can lose a competitive advantage
because you're not fully unleashing the innovation that that is
possible either an individual team or a broader, broader company.
And that that's where you just some other stats I said,

(19:29):
they're just such some amazing stats, and and we'll put
the we'll put the link to the study in here
as well for everybody. But you know, some of the
other stats that were interesting along this lines was that
thirty seven percent of brand side pro so they always
want disclosure from their agency when they're using AI, but
only twenty percent of AI pros say they always disclose.

(19:54):
It's interesting to me seeing kind of almost the doubling
of the brands side pros that want to use it
versus the agency pros that that say they want to
use it. And part of me says, Jesus has a
big gap, you know, what does it deal with that? Greg?
The other part of me is saying, well, but if
what a lot of you're using it is baked in,
I mean, how do you really disclose that? I mean,

(20:16):
is that something you hear? Hear much kind of that
mix between the brand side and agency size on disclosure.

Speaker 1 (20:23):
I think that tension has always been there, you know,
like we all I've been ever since I got into
this business. I've been hearing brands saying they want the
agency to show them all the emails that they're sending
on their behalf and all the pitches, and the agency
people saying, hey, this is our secret sauce, this is
our relationships. We don't want to show you all of

(20:44):
our pitches. So I think there's some element where this
is just the latest, uh the latest front of that
tension that you naturally had between an agency and their client,
where you know the agency uh you know one hand,
I mean, on one hand, you know, people care about
results and the agency wants to say, hey, look let

(21:06):
us give you the results and don't question our methods.
And then some degree bands are always like, well, we're
curious how you got there, we want to monitor it.
So I don't think it's anything new. I just think
AI is the latest, the latest front, and that that
tension that that that's you know, always existed there.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
I think you're probably right there. And then then like
one of the other big areas of tension is just
around you know, originality, the human factor, editing, all those
sorts of things, and and again just a just a
plethora of just such fascinating data in here he was.
Here was one of the pieces I thought was really
interesting that of the pros using AI, ninety eight percent

(21:53):
edit the output, but only fifty one percent now say
they have to rewrite most of it, versus sixty one
percent saying that last year. So what do I read
from that? Greg? Does that Does that just mean that
that the software is becoming that much better? Does that
mean as pros, we're just being we're getting better in

(22:14):
how we're using and applying it. Or is it a
little bit of a combination of both.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
I think it's definitely both. I mean, it's undeniable. It's
gotten way better in the last year, both both in
terms of what AI is capable of and also how
it's been integrated. I think even if like they stopped
improving AI, even if there had been no improvements in
AI in the past two years, Uh, just taking what

(22:41):
was invented two years ago and getting that into all
the software products and into people's workflows would be a
huge left and would take ten years. And that's happening,
and it's getting better as we go. So I think
there's that element. And then and then I think, you know,
getting used to it is really powerful, Like.

Speaker 2 (23:03):
I think it.

Speaker 1 (23:04):
Sam Altman was saying that, like, uh, you know that
that kind of our generation is more using it like
to replace school starts and looks stuff up. For us
and younger generations, it's their personal operating system and they
don't do anything without consulting it, and they've chained AI
on how they work and it's kind of become this

(23:26):
companion for them. Or you know this extra superpower and
you know, stuff like that. It just takes time to
play out, to think kind of use it, when to
use it? What are the right questions to ask? And
that's really the exciting printier here.

Speaker 2 (23:41):
I really expected to see more of a generational divide
in an AI adoption. I was expecting to see kind
of like what we saw with like a little lot
of like the social media and like a lot of
digital marketing to skew heavily towards the younger audience and
less more senior. But ironically, what I've found is that

(24:02):
it's like the senior and more mid level professionals that
are actually adopting at a higher pace because they can
deploy it in a little bit different ways. Is that
something that you're seeing. Are you seeing any kind of
age cohorts or big generational shifts and how people think
about AI?

Speaker 1 (24:20):
You know, I think in a way, the more senior
people have a lot more leverage to get with AI
because the more senior you are, the more pressed you
are for time, and time becomes very precious. You know,
clients want to see you, you have management responsibilities, there's

(24:42):
more and more pressures, so there's actually a much bigger
economic value that if you can find ways to leverage
AI to save you time, help peoprep for meetings, last
minute take notes, et cetera. Like, you're actually getting a
much bigger piece of leverage off that than the more
unior persons. So I think that's why it's getting kind

(25:04):
of such adoption across you know, levels of seniority in
age cohorts. It's just so powerful, and it's also something
that everybody's now using in a personal life too, so
you know, it kind of feeds on itself. Similarly when
like the Internet came out, and then if you're going

(25:25):
home and you're finding all these interesting use cases for AI.
You're having a plan your vacation, figure out where to
where to go for dinner, telling it what what's in
your fridge, and having it suggests recipes for you, Like
you can't do all that at home and then walk
into work and not think of a few good use
cases for AI.

Speaker 2 (25:46):
I also think you know some some of the adoption
as you think about AI, whether you're using it for
creativity or efficiency. You know, it's almost like those are
like two axes on the on the grid. I think
really create some interesting ways to think about it. And
then also I guess, as I think about like the

(26:07):
more senior versus junior professionals use of AI, I would
postulate that the more senior members of our profession could
probably prompt better because they have intuitively a better knowledge
of the industry, of the trends, of what they're trying
to accomplish, that that that may guide their ability to

(26:31):
prompt a little bit better, which kind of raises there
was some question in like one of yours, which was
one of the big concern is about seventy five percent,
if I remember correctly, kind of worry that AI is
going to stunt the learning for younger pros. I mean,
what was kind of your reaction when you saw that

(26:53):
that stat come out?

Speaker 1 (26:54):
I back up, you know what you said made me
think of another point. I think from more senior all
that that one of the things you learn going into
the management is how to explain what you want to
junior people. And I think that the classic thing that
new managers do wrong is they don't explain what they want.
So they say, hey, get me a media less junior

(27:16):
person makes the media less. That comes back and then
they realize like, oh wait, you know this media list sucks.
But it's not because you did a bad job. It's
I didn't explain this is a media list for so
and so, and here's the method you should use, and
here's you know, what I've learned all my years. And
so it's pretty analogous to prompting, where it's like, you know,
if you're prompting, you have to really explain what you

(27:39):
want and then you get a good result. But if
you don't explain what you want, you get a bad result.
So I think in a way of learning to manage
people is great experience for knowing how to prompt. You know,
managing is really this prompting another person to do something.
But I do think, you know, I do wonder what

(28:00):
that It's like, Okay, it's gonna stump learning this stuff
that can now be done by AI. But that's also
not not worth learning now because AI can do it
the same way that you know, knowing how to do

(28:20):
the arithmetic behind a financial model, you know, how to
multiply quickly is not a valuable skill, like knowing how
to write the formulas is down the skill, but not
doing quick multiplication. In addition, and subtraction and all that.
There'll be a bunch of stuff that someone used to
spend a bunch of time doing that they can now
do super fast. On the other hand, they'll be you know,

(28:41):
new companies and jobs and you know, new potential, you
know things, you know, opportunities created that work task created,
that people will be doing that never existed before you
do the abundance created by AI, and you know where
that will net out. Nobody knows, but that that'll be

(29:03):
you know, the world that we're we're going through and
we can't really control the macro of it. So I
think everyone needs to focus on how how they can
be best leveraging AI so you know, they're they're able
to make sure that they set themselves up for real
uh career greatness. And that's where I think junior people
might might have the advantage or or have a competitive

(29:26):
advantage just growing up using AI in a much more
fundamental way at least at least according to that Sam
Altman interview, that if they can come in knowing like, hey,
you know, I know how to create GPTs and train
the rest of the team on how to use it
and here prompts and connect different applications together with AI,

(29:47):
it's uh, you know, they're able to bring valuable new skills.

Speaker 2 (29:51):
Yeah, I thought I thought that was a really interesting
point you made just a little bit ago when you
when you were talking about, you know, learning the management
skill and if you can engage and manage individuals and
you learn that skill, you can do that with the PROMPT.
So I really love that, love that explain and manage

(30:11):
the prompt and kind of this idea that as you
move up as a professional, you're not just managing people,
You're you're managing the AI. But there there there is
some commonality and how you manage people that applies how
you manage the AI if for no other reason, how
has been designed to I guess mimic human thought and approach.

(30:34):
So I think that's that's really interesting.

Speaker 1 (30:36):
I mean, that's the powerful thing about AIS now with
MS is that you can speak to them with uh,
normal language rather than having to write code, and it
it gives you this advantage. The better the better you
are with angers, the better you are and explaining what
you need, the better results. So I'll get from the

(30:57):
LMS and uh, that's where I think that PR profession
can really excel because they're communicators, they know how to
express themselves. They can be thoughtful about asking questions, about
thinking of new ways to research, about directing what the
LLM should do, and if they can find the right

(31:19):
way to leverage. Leverage is solid, that it's a real
force multiplier.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
Kind of leaves me to I want to share something,
so we'll go a little bit dystopian and then we'll
kind of we'll kind of bring it back to reality.
But it was it was an article recently I read
an Axios called Behind the Curtain, certainly clickbait title, a
white collar bloodbath, but Dario Amode, the CEO of Anthropic,

(31:45):
was basically saying that AI could wipe out a significant
number of entry level jobs, specifically across technology, finance, law consulting,
especially like entry level gigs. But I thought there was
some interesting interesting things in that he was talking about
how tech companies like open Ai, Google, Anthropic are really

(32:08):
leveraging basically vast improved capabilities of large language models to
meet or beat human performance on more and more tasks,
hopefully the ones that are less valuable. This I thought
was interesting was far too many workers still see chatbots
mainly as a fancy search engine, a tireless research or

(32:30):
a brilliant proof reader, but they're not really understanding how
fantastic they are at summarizing, brainstorming, reading documents, reviewing legal contracts,
interpreting medical symptoms and health records. And just kind of
close to this that AI models are being used mainly

(32:51):
at present for augmentation helping people do their job, but
with the rise of more automation genic AI and agents,
it's going to fundamentally shift the landscape. So a little
bit dramatic, a little bit dystopia. But what's kind of
what's kind of your like take in reaction to kind
of his take in terms of where we're at right now.

Speaker 1 (33:13):
Yeah, I think I think it's a it's a provocative take.
And I think it's indisputable that AI is going to
change every job and uh, and and I think he's
right that a lot of people are underestimating what you
can do with AI simply because a lot of people
have only had, you know, limited amounts of time to

(33:38):
try to push it to its boundaries. You know, some
people to have been uh, you know a lot of
people going back to the policies, maybe they haven't been
able to upload certain documents to AI due to policies,
and once they can find out how to deploy I
and a secure environment, they can they can leverage it
up or they're they're handstrung by you know, regulatory issues

(34:00):
that once that you know, people find compliant ways to
use AI, it will become much more powerful. So, you know,
I think it's going to have a huge impact on
every job. I think that, you know, the big question
still and I think where it's hard to have that
certainty even even if you're someone running an l M company. Uh,

(34:22):
you know, you definitely have to be a genius to
do that, but it's still hard to know, like, okay,
if it if it just you know, destroys a certain
percentage of the existing jobs, how many jobs does it create?
Where does the you know, that efficiency in the economy
flow through to make new opportunity. And that's something I

(34:43):
think that's confounded people for for years, where you know,
every new technological invention, you know, there's always this assumption
that you know, it changes the world. Today it's hard
to know exactly how it plays out. But you know,
just thinks even in pr like it used to be,
you'd draft one version of our press release, because it
takes a while to draft a press release. Just imagine

(35:06):
if if three years ago, even before the Alums came
out up, I said, hey, you know, we got this
big announcement. I want ten versions of the press release,
written in different styles and pushing different angles. You'd say
to me, that's crazy. Someone's gonna have to spend you know,

(35:27):
you know, dozens or hundreds of hours writing ten versions
of this one press release. Like that would be you
know that that would you know, just be a waste
of time and mutts and you have to pay for time,
a big waste of money. Now, if I said, hey,
I want ten versions of the press release and different
styles emphasizing different elements, you'd be like, no problem, I

(35:48):
can create that with the LM, and you do it
in an hour, and we through them all and kick
around which would be the best. So I think they're
just all these ways where like the kind of the abundant,
it's created by a I can create new work to
do we would have never thought to have done before.
And no one knows how that's going to play out,

(36:09):
but it's going to be a really interesting ride.

Speaker 2 (36:11):
Yes, certainly is certainly is not a not a boring
time to be to be in our profession. And I
want to be clear, I don't share the dystopian view.
I agree that it's going to impact every every life,
but then in every job. But then you got to
think about value creation and model creation. I'm a models guy,
so I'm sorry, I'm always thinking in models. But if

(36:33):
you think I like the X axis, like that's like
your efficiency and productivity access, and then your hy is
almost kind of like your your strategy and creative enabling access,
that lower left quadrant obviously is not where you want
to be. That's where you see AI as a threat
to the craft, right. It's undermining traditional skills of practices

(36:54):
and competencies and oh my gosh, what are we going
to do? But as you move forward on that productivity model,
I'm starting to see that there are a number of
agencies and pros that are being very very deft in
how they use AI, almost like a studio assistant, you know,
emphasizing its role has to improve our productivity, our operational efficiencies.

(37:16):
What are those things? If you kind of go up
on the Y axis, it's almost like AI as almost
kind of like a creative catalyst. How can this help
me unleash my thinking? How can I drive more strategic
insights and outcomes? And at least from my mind, I
don't necessarily want to go I don't want to be
in the threat of the craft. I don't just want

(37:38):
an assistant. I don't just want to be creative. It's
almost how do you get then to that upper right
quadrant of like AI as a multiplier right driving strategic
insights creative outcomes. I think I think the agencies and
professionals that can figure out how to get there are
the ones that are going to see tremendous success and
tremendous growth as this adoption continues.

Speaker 1 (38:00):
I think it's one of those things where the more
it's almost like, you know, I think at first people
are like, well, if someone's using AI, they're they're kind
of cheating, and don't I want the person who doesn't
use AI. You know, it doesn't the old fashion where
it's really the opposite. It's almost like if someone's not
using the AI, it's almost like they're stealing from the

(38:23):
company or from their client because they're charging them to
do something that you know that it shouldn't take that
long to do or it could be done more efficiently.
And you know, even if you're out of company and
you're not being paid by the hour, its that you
could be having this much more efficient output that instead
of you know, doing something the tedious way, you can

(38:45):
do it a better way. And like like you were saying,
it's not just the AI automating the tedious parts. Maybe
you could have a better idea to share share with
your company if you breed and storm around what to
do with it. Like just this week, we were coming
up with a new name for a feature that we're

(39:05):
working on, and a couple of years ago, we would
have just sat around brainstorming names and kicking them around
on Slack and coming up by one by one. Now,
one person on our team just spent the Claude popped
in fifty names and said, yeah, I just pulled this
from Claude. We went through them and then some of
them were compelling, and we settled on one that we

(39:27):
really liked. We so had to check, you know, someone
else who's in that name? I think through is it
unique enough? We had to throw away a lot of
really bad ideas that I gave us. Well, it was
just one of those things where like we might not
we might have spent the same amount of time otherwise
but not gotten to as good a name because we
would have never been able to brainstorm so many variations

(39:48):
in such a short amount of time. So it's you know,
I think it's like we owe it, you know, to
our clients, to our company, to our team members, to society.
It will be as effective as we can with AI
and really bring that force multiplier to play, and I
think those that do will be the ones you're most successful.

Speaker 2 (40:10):
So since you mentioned new feature, I'm not going to
ask you to disclose it now, but but so, what
what is like the AI roadmap look like like for
a company like yours? Because to me, it's got to
be fascinating to be both in the tech platform development
space and everything that you have to do with that,
but then think about the application and what is inherently
a very human centric storytelling industry. I mean, how do

(40:34):
you how do you how do you how do you
balance that? And then what what's what's next? What's coming
from ukrack? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (40:39):
Well said right, I think that's a great point about
the industry and that I think in a way that
PR industries, you know, some of the best set for
AI because because of the human element of it, like
that relationship building, the trust building that that the PR
community has to do with with journalists with podcasts or

(41:00):
newsletter writers andever everyone they need to reach for earned media,
Like that's something that you can't can't fully automate. You know,
you can't be like, hey, this company's AI is saying this,
so trust it. New York Times, Hang, No, I need
to talk to somebody at the company and you know
what's going on. So I think it's an industry that's

(41:23):
really well set up for this era. And then also
the effect of news articles in influencing what LLM says,
since LM's train on news articles and cite them is
extremely powerful. So you know, when you get a press placement,

(41:43):
you know the force multiplier that AI is trained on
those press mentions. So I think it's never been a
better time for this industry. And then the opportunity for
us is to continue the journey that we're on with
you using AI to be involved in more parts of
the PR workflow, like with that media brief generator that

(42:06):
I mentioned as an example, where where we can we'll
be launching lots of features like that that help people
use AI in ways they never could before. And then
also in finding ways to take things in that you
do with in PR that might be tedious and maybe

(42:27):
even teds in in muck Rock that parts of the
platform that were built before the AI are and bring
a lot of AI to make that more efficient, and
as we've already been doing with things like that media
less recommendation piece to save people the time of having
to manually look out for every additional journals to add.

(42:48):
But there's just a ton of opportunities like that, And
the way that we look at it is the more
we can make our customers more efficient in the software,
the more time they can do the human parts of
their job and build those relationships and doing the storytelling
elements of PR and working with their executives to figure out,
like what a really great news angles so they could

(43:10):
go out to the market with. So there's a lot
of opportunity.

Speaker 2 (43:14):
In that that is exciting, and uh yeah, gotta say,
I love your guys commitment to constantly improve that user
experience and think, I think how that's building out before
we wrap. Is there anything else from the State of
AI in uh PR report that you wanted to make
sure that that we hit on or that that I

(43:35):
didn't ask about.

Speaker 1 (43:36):
I think that covers it really well, and i'd encourage
everybody to uh to download their their own topy of it.
And you know, even if you don't have time to
read the whole thing, just stick it into chat GPT
and ask it to summarize it for you. But there's
a lot of great stuff in there, and I think
it's a really powerful data you know. One thing I
always tell people too, is if you're listening to a

(43:58):
podcast like this and you're reading this like maybe you
don't even need it because you're the one who's head
of the curve and know that you need policies for
AI and your team needs to use it. But it's great, Amal,
if you need to convince your organization, your organization or
your client hasn't yet fully embraced these trends, to show
them the stats and it could be just a very

(44:21):
powerful way to drive change and make people realize the
urgency of doing this kind of transformation.

Speaker 2 (44:28):
Yep. So I would invite. I would would invite and
strongly suggests everybody download that report as well as some
of the other reports. Like I said last year, we
were looking at Ai in the newsroom. You can follow
Greg on social media. He is very consistent and prolific
and I get him delivered to my inbox every day,
so always looking forward to the latest insights from Greg

(44:52):
and muckrac Well. Well, Greg, thank you for joining us
again on Building Brand Gravity and being a friend of
the pod. Can't wait to see what research you do
next year so we can have you back and talk
about that continued evolution. And I just want to thank
all of our listeners for joining us here today and
doing end soon for the next episode of Building Brand Gravity,

(45:15):
when we will be talking with industry leaders like Greg
about the greatest trends that are out there impacting our industry.

Speaker 3 (45:23):
That was a great discussion. I love speaking with Greg.
I'm glad you had the chance to ask him about
this research. And you know, it really sticks in my
mind that stat you shared about thirty eight percent of
comms pros saying they don't have or they're not clear
on the guidelines at their organization agency or otherwise. And
I have to say I find that like a little shocking.

(45:45):
I mean, shocking is a big word, but I find
a little surprising. It's one of the first things we
did almost two years ago is to try to set
some ground rules, and we've been evolving them quickly. So
I think that's a sign that there's a lot of
intentionality that need to happen very quickly, because this horse
is way out of the barn running across the fields
at this point.

Speaker 2 (46:05):
Yeah, and it's the kind of thing you really don't
want to have that kind of uneven adoption across your company.
I mean, there's certainly risk, which is the first thing
that comes to mind, but I also think about a
lack of performance, right if you if you're if you're
really not being intentional with how you're deploying it at scale.
And I think one of the other thing that's interesting

(46:26):
is AI is so embedded in multiple tools, even like
Muckracke itself, that I think sometimes when people hear that,
they're not really equating to the AI that's naturally in
what they're doing. They're thinking, literally, you know, I've got
to go into chat Ept or Perplexity or Google, Gemini

(46:47):
or co pilot, pick your pick your AI engine. You know.
I think they think about it more as a conscious
effort than it being kind of integrated in how we
work every day.

Speaker 3 (46:58):
Well, the embedded everywhere is where it's going. I think
that's why we're seeing different client organizations here and there.
We'll probably talk about this in the next episode too,
really struggling from a legal and procurement standpoint to understand
what their actual structure is for agencies and what they're allowing.
But the guidelines piece. When we did our most recent
update of our guidelines at the GNS Integrated Marketing Communications Group,

(47:21):
there was a focus in the guidelines of what we
want folks to do and what we want to be
excited about, and that curiosity and the enthusiasm. So it's
not just I would really urge folks to think about
AI guidelines, not just thou shalt not, but also what
thou shalt and really making that a mandate for people
to catalyze and activate the learning and getting hands on

(47:43):
and also asking themselves really the essential question not what
can AI do, which is like everything, but what problem
do I have that might be solved?

Speaker 2 (47:53):
Yeah, you know, it's be interesting to see just how
much those numbers continue to climb, you know, and the
adoption and to the use. Now I know me personally,
how I'm using it now versus heck, three weeks ago
versus three months ago. It's a really interesting time professionally.
But like what you said when we were talking earlier,

(48:15):
you have to have the context, you have to have
the council, you have to have the intentionality, which which
I think is going to be key. And I think
those agencies and those brands that are very smart and
how they use it are going to see a lot
of potential to capitalize on AI.

Speaker 3 (48:33):
I agree. Now, what's fun is we come to a
close is I tend to ask guests on this show
what is it that has them in its gravity? This
is building brand gravity. So what you know a thing
in the culture or reading or so I'll start with mind, Steve,
and then I'm going to ask you for yours. So
right now when we are recording this, and the news
travels fast, so by the time this comes out, I

(48:55):
don't know, maybe this will seem quaint to you all,
but I've been very interested in watching the trials of
Meta and Apple and Google, each special in their own way,
each complex in their own way. The Apple and Google
crossover is very interesting. Relative to the revenue that Apple
drives from Google for search and Apple's sort of appearance
at Google's trial. So I think that for me, I've

(49:16):
been listening to a lot of other podcasts like hard Fork,
converge Cast and people really getting into it. What does
it mean for the future of search? What does it
mean for the evolution of AI? What is it signaling
about how AI is used today? What does it mean
to these business models? You know these companies, some are
predicting they're going to look very different a year or
two from now. And then also you know how the

(49:36):
government's looking at antitrust today. So that to me has
been really fascinating. But Steve, what has you in its
gravity these days?

Speaker 1 (49:44):
Well?

Speaker 2 (49:44):
What has mean? The gravity is a little bit in
the sports and entertainment land. I've just been I've been
fascinating watching the impact of the NIL, the name image
and likeness in college on communications. Now you're literally having
debates of should somebody go pro or should they stay

(50:05):
in college and make more money in college? Through that name,
image and likeness, you have all these groups, booster clubs,
different groups are promising really high NIL contracts. So it
was really forcing kids at eighteen years of age to
really be functioning and acting like professionals and to have

(50:26):
full scale communications team behind them. So it'll be interesting
to see how that continues to develop. I mean you
have something like like last month the NFL draft. Usually, hey,
you paid attention to the top couple picks, and you
didn't pay any attention to that. I mean, this year,
there was heavy coverage through round five and you know,

(50:48):
there's some great stories out there of where Tom Brady
went and where rock parties went, and so there's just
a fascinating storylines and communication and tactics being done. And
now you have just a horse race not only who
was drafted, who should have stayed in college? Now it's
going to be who's going to be starting wire way

(51:09):
not It's just, uh, it's just amazing how once you
click on a couple of stories on that, it gets
in your feet and it's.

Speaker 3 (51:16):
Such a brand You're right, it's such a transformational story
from the brand perspective, and how more and more people
are professionalizing and the use of these tools social media, comms,
media training, also fashion, w NBA, but also the NFL,
how the suiting, the outfits, the intentionality about the communication

(51:37):
of identity. So I love that one, Steve. I think
that's great and I think it's something to watch for sure,
And it.

Speaker 2 (51:43):
Was something something unexpected. I was not. I was not
I was not planning to get that pulled into it,
but it but it's fascinating to watch it's play out. Well,
that's going to wrap this episode of Building Brand Gravity.
Make sure you tune in soon for or our second
part where Ann's going to interview our own Lauren King.

(52:04):
I can't wait to watch that episode.

Speaker 3 (52:06):
Yeah, and as always, you know, tune in, keep following us,
check out our other episodes, and give us feedback. Thank
you so much for listening.