Finding your way through the AI chatter is not only possible for PRs, it is essential…
By Claire Simpson, Senior Communications Consultant at Hard Numbers
This isn’t another ChatGPT article. Well it kind of is… but just like with Kevin, we do need to talk about it.
Ever since the launch of Open AI’s natural language processing model last November, two words have been inescapable: artificial intelligence.
A (very funny) case in point: Google mentioned ‘AI’ a hundred and forty times in its I/O keynote (yes, really). Even Meta appears to be cooling its metaverse dreams in favour of a technology with real-world use cases in the here and now.
Meanwhile, Open AI launched its much anticipated web plugins a few days later. And, by the time this article is live, there’ll be more AI updates to wrap our heads around.
According to CB Insights, there are currently more than 250 generative AI startups globally. A third are yet to raise their Series A funding round.
TL;DR – there’s more to come.
Rise of the ‘AI expert’
My advice: don’t go down the Twitter rabbit hole. If your newsfeed is anything like mine, every Tom, Dick and Harry is weighing in with their hot take on the latest AI developments.
Not only do these ‘thought leaders’ bear an uncanny resemblance to last year’s NFT experts (remember those?), but it’s impossible to keep up with the latest ‘best prompts’ threads.
Bookmarks are where tweets go to die.
Don’t get me wrong, there are some bonafide AI experts out there. But the best way to understand AI tools is to experiment with them directly. Pick two or three to get to grips with, then try them out for yourself.
Once you have a basic understanding, Twitter can be a good place to build on that knowledge and stay up to date.
Getting started
Starting small is one thing. But with so many AI tools launching every day, it’s easy to fall victim to ‘choice paralysis’. So, I've found it helps to look at them through the lens of ‘use case’ or ‘function’.
Let’s start with the biggie: conversational AI. You might also hear this called ‘natural language processing (NLP) models’ or ‘AI chatbots’.
The most obvious example is Open AI’s ChatGPT, which is probably the best place to start. Firstly, because it was the model that got the world talking about AI almost overnight, and secondly, because so many other tools are now building on top of it – this nifty Google Sheets add-on is a great example.
But other providers are (increasingly) available, from Google’s beta-phase Bard – which brings AI features to search – to Anthropic’s endearingly named ‘Claude’, which has an expanded context window of 100,000 tokens. Translation: it can process 75,000 words – or, the equivalent of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
Given you can apply conversational AI to almost anything, it’s important to narrow your focus on how it can automate, or augment, everyday PR tasks.
For example: in media relations, by generating headline ideas and assisting with media list creation. AI chatbots can easily identify relevant journalists and publications by topic or keyword.
It’s equally useful for research and analysis, from summarising long excerpts of text, such as white papers and reports, to pulling out key themes from recent media articles. It’s adept at key message extraction and sentiment analysis, too.
Another established tool class is speech-to-text AI – capable of transcribing audio and video recordings with increasing accuracy. You can integrate these tools with your digital calendar to automatically join and transcribe meetings. Otter.ai, Fireflies and Sembly are all worth a look.
Next, there’s image generation. What ChatGPT does for text generation, DALL-E (Open AI’s other brainchild) does for image generation. Simply type in a text prompt and create photorealistic images for use in pitch decks and presentations. Other big names in this space include Midjourney and Stable Diffusion.
AI-supported editing tools have been around for a while. Think Hemingway editor – a personal favourite – or Grammarly, which is currently rolling out generative AI features to users. Newer tools are emerging too: see Wordtune or Jasper AI.
Finally, a shout-out to AI-powered presentation tools. Beautiful.ai and Tome are both good examples here of how to elevate your presentations from basic to beautiful.
Why it matters
This is by no means an exhaustive list. No-one can boil the proverbial AI ocean, and it’s ok to feel overwhelmed by the endless chatter about the technology.
It’s easy to feel disillusioned when you can’t see the wood for the trees. But doing nothing is not an option. PR has buried its head in the sand for too long on AI and not engaging won’t make it go away.
It’s also important to understand that AI tools aren’t new. They exist on a spectrum from automation to innovation. Many tools that PRs have used for years, such as brand tracking and social listening platforms, incorporate some form of AI.
But in a similar way to ChatGPT accelerating the advancement of AI models and mainstream interest in its applications, we, too, must up our game.
Taking small steps to experiment, with a clear aim in mind, is key to overcoming ‘AI overload’. Curiosity is the best tool we have against apathy.
Wondering how you can leverage AI for your PR and marketing efforts? Find out how Hard Numbers can help and contact us today.
