The Reality: It’s Both
If one thing is becoming clear, AI is not a zero-sum game. You don’t have to be on a “side” when it comes to this new technology. In fact, being thoroughly excited and scared to death at the same time is probably intuitive, and even smart.
One day last week was a perfect example. That was when my CEO demonstrated to me how, through Claude Code, he was going to save our company thousands of dollars per year and, at the same time, build a CRM far more tailored to our needs. Win/win!
Excitement: This is great news! We need a better system and the ability to get one while nearly eliminating subscription fees makes it even better!
Fear: My son is currently a computer science major in college. Two years ago, this project would have employed him at a generous salary. Now, an entire segment of job opportunities seems to be disappearing into thin air. What will he do?
These types of examples are popping up daily, particularly in the PR and Communications space.
Excitement: With the right instruction, ChatGPT can produce what appears to be a credible communications plan for a client.
Fear: Why the hell do they need those of us who do this for a living?
Excitement: AI can write that press release that my team is crashing with on a deadline in about 30 seconds.
Fear: What does this mean for my junior people? Are we going to be forced to become those cold-hearted corporate jerks who lay off half their staff because the computers are cheaper?
It is a lot. But when it starts to make me nervous or sick to my stomach, I look to history. Every time technology has threatened to replace an industry, something else has popped up in its place.
TV was going to kill radio. It did not. Programming on radio evolved and the explosion of automobile ownership provided a new, captive audience that lasted decades. (Though it is on the verge of another upheaval thanks to Spotify, et al.)
More recently, the internet was going to kill the newspaper industry. In some ways it has, but in others it has not. The printed paper is clearly on life support, but we are watching the local paper adjust its business plan to survive, and in some cases flourish. The need for information is still there and has been moved to digital platforms. Video and podcast content are now part of a larger arsenal for those newsrooms. Also, their sales departments are moving into broader digital spaces, selling everything from Google ads to social media to OTT spots. They are adopting agency models where they are selling as much other media as their own content. They are making money in new ways, and their industry is shifting before our eyes. (Stay tuned for the end result. We’ll see how they do!)
New Roles, Not Just Lost Ones
People in these industries certainly do not have a “warm and fuzzy” feeling about the current state of affairs, but at the same time, they are by no means dead. Additionally, jobs that once didn’t exist at a newspaper (videographer, back-end web developer, social media director, etc.) now pay the bills for many employees.
This will be same as AI settles into something we can truly get our heads around and critique.
A couple of forecasts on my part: the amateur coding project being taken on by my CEO will be replicated in small businesses all over the country. I suspect leadership in places like HubSpot, Salesforce, and Monday.com are already looking for ways to combat this or compete with it.
I would also bet that all this DIY system building is going to bring a massive lift for the cybersecurity industry. Claude Code can only do what you tell it to, and rookie developers don’t know what they don’t know. It seems like a potential hacker’s paradise.
Here in the PR world, we will also need to adapt, taking advantage of the tools where we can, and adjusting where they aren’t quite up to par.
On the writing front, AI still isn’t there. We all know this. It’s clunky. It’s noticeable. It can’t convey human feelings with a turn of phrase the way a good writer can. That said, the junior person in a PR firm will be well-served to figure out all the best uses for AI tools and become the expert in the building when it comes to writing the prompts. AI will learn, but it will never be better than the instruction it is given. There will always be demand for the instructors.
On the strategy front, you can’t argue that AI is valuable in its ability to search volumes of knowledge on a subject and produce ideas in a way you might not have come up with. But I bet you have come up with ideas the chatbot didn’t produce as well. That’s because a computer can only spit out accounts of other’s lived experiences. It has none of its own.
An AI bot can quote from an article about crisis communication during a school shooting. Conversely, as a communications director for a school system, I was in the room when the call of a shooting came in, on the scene as scared, confused kids were being rushed onto buses, and at the table for every media and communications discussion and decision that came afterward. Computers don’t have experience, people do. That will not change.
The Real Takeaway
For our industry, experience will continue to be a top commodity. As leaders it is incumbent upon us to see that our junior people are getting it, too. Their roles are shifting with technology, but we need to ensure that they cross the threshold from “junior” to “senior” so someone is there to receive the baton as we age and ride off into the proverbial sunset.
The point is the need for organizations and businesses to communicate better and smarter will not disappear with the advent of artificial intelligence. People are still going to be on both ends of every message. The forming and conveyance of the message may change, but the need for a human connection won’t.
At Chemistry PR and Multimedia we are right there with the rest of you, learning these lessons and adopting these tools in real time. We do it with enthusiasm because the opportunities seem almost limitless. We also do it with care because AI doesn’t just make work easier, it makes mistakes easier.
Again, this is not a zero-sum game. Being a Luddite in this environment will almost certainly lead to your demise. But putting your company on autopilot with developing technology could be just as disastrous. The trick is to learn, test, adopt, and test some more. And remember we are all still human organizations relying on other humans’ decisions to achieve our goals.
