PR and AI: The new hot couple

By: Lily Germain | Senior Campaign Executive

If you work in the digital world, it’s hard to avoid the talk surrounding AI (Artificial Intelligence) at the moment. Recently it’s really been taking the spotlight, especially in brand storytelling and media articles.

But what is AI? Well, officially:

“The theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages”.

Essentially, it’s a smart way of helping to make your ideas a reality. If you work for a PR agency, or are the brains behind brand content creation, you might be sweating a little bit. Could AI take over your job?

Using AI is a great way of levelling up onsite content, like we did with client Drax when we wanted to imagine what a farm, and a factory, might look like in 2050.

And it can be used for streamlining social content and offsite PR stories (we know journos are loving AI content right now). So, while it can help make your work gleaming, the robots aren’t taking over just yet. Don’t stress.

We’ve thought about the pros and cons of AI, and how we marketers can work with it in perfect harmony…

Streamline your creative time

One of the wins of AI is the speed at which it can knock up content. It will optimise your time by assisting with idea generation, writing, editing and visual assets.

Us mere mortals had previously only dreamed of creating content in seconds.

AI is not a replacement for human creativity and judgement. By using it to help visualise an idea, it can save those moments of a creative block, which means you can get work out at a more efficient pace. Win win.

It’s not just visuals AI can create in record time, it’s written content too. While having technology do the hard work for you, anything written through AI should always be sense checked. Men’s Journal recently got called out for written content created through AI that contained errors and factually incorrect information. While it can cut time, you should know the correct information, so make sure you’re double checking.

Help with decision making 

AI can use data to make decisions purely based on algorithms and processes. In other words, it’s so techy, it’s unbiased. Using it can help us form conclusions for campaigns faster than ever before.

While it’s useful for shaving time off data collection, AI lacks one big thing: relatability. We know that emotionally driven content is a current trend in content marketing.

So, there still needs to be the all-important human touch. Again, that double-checking is an important part of the process.

Bring wishing ideas to life

Even the best creatives in the world can get stuck visualising certain ideas. Taking some thoughts from brains to paper don’t always land. Using AI tech (like Dall-E) means you can input chosen keywords and it generates an image based on that information.

While this can be a good starting point, the tech you use may not create the image you had in your head. This is where human touch is needed, to tweak the image so it feels just like your brand, and so it brings to life the story you’re trying to tell in an instant.

Is the cost of AI worth it?

One thing to bear in mind with some AI tools is that it can come at a costly price. Some out there will offer a free package, which is a good place to start. But if you find yourself using it more and more, you might have to invest.

When you’re putting money into anything, you want to know you’re getting the best deal. As AI is a technology, it can be difficult to manage. Making sure you still have a person attached ensures you’re getting what you ask for. Humans listen in a different way to technologies, you can have more of a back and forth to get the desired result, rather than inputting a mound of data and hoping for the best.  

So, there you have it. Hearing all this talk about AI can seem scary to us content creators, but it’s not time to throw in the towel just yet. Yes, using it will help save you time for certain creations. However, you’ll need to be there to help reach the final product, and make sure the content says what you need it to say.

We have something AI will never have. Human brains. We can use these to make the most of these new technologies, and start thinking about our next killer idea in the extra time we might have.

If you’re still a little unsure of how to use AI and what areas might be best for your brand, get in touch: hello@wearebottle.com