Generative AI is the creative colleague you’ve been waiting for

As AI tools become available to everyone, it’s now easier than ever to produce polished materials at scale, creating new challenges for PR professionals. As more organizations leverage AI tools, we’re seeing a sea of sameness in content that makes it increasingly difficult to capture attention.

This new reality means the bar for quality content is rising. The key to better content is understanding how to use AI strategically – not just for efficiency, but to push our creative boundaries and tell better stories.

AI as your thought partner

Imagine having a tool that takes the grunt work out of content creation and inspires, challenges, and pushes your thinking further. A tool that lets you vet your hypothesis faster, brainstorm more freely, and unlock your creativity.

By engaging with AI tools through techniques like chain-of-thought prompting and directional stimulus, PR professionals can explore new angles and challenge their assumptions. Think of chain-of-thought as asking someone to show their work – have the AI break down an idea or strategy step by step. For directional stimulus, I like to play devil’s advocate, pushing the AI to consider completely different angles I might not have thought of. The key is approaching these tools not as content generators, but as partners.

Changing our research process

Rather than spending hours manually gathering and analyzing information, teams can now use AI to synthesize large amounts of data, identify patterns, and surface insights without having to tap research experts.

This shift allows us to spend more time on high-value activities like developing unique angles, pressure-testing assumptions, and crafting narratives that better resonate with our audiences.

The tools I use the most

AI tools are changing quickly, each offering unique strengths for PR teams:

• ChatGPT has strong reasoning abilities, and with access to the internet, offers real-time current events and trends analysis, making it invaluable for developing timely narratives. Its ability to summarize large texts, reformat information into various tones and generate tailored responses makes it highly flexible for communication professionals. It excels at brainstorming using advanced prompting techniques, and its new Canvas feature allows you to edit and brainstorm with the AI directly in the document.

• Claude excels at capturing a more authentic voice in written materials, especially when you provide brand voice guidelines, along with analyzing complex documents and providing nuanced insights. Additionally, with Projects, you can upload a lot of background context and interact with it. Its ability to process multiple sources while maintaining context makes it particularly useful for developing more complex ideas.

• Perplexity stands out for its ability to deliver well-researched, factual responses drawing from current sources. Its powerful natural language processing engine provides nuanced insights into complex topics, making it especially valuable for content creation requiring depth. The tool’s interactive question-and-answer format helps refine queries and provides more reliable sourcing, including reference materials for easier fact-checking.

• Google’s NotebookLM brings a unique collaborative approach to content development. Its interactive notebook-style interface is designed for collaborative brainstorming and hypothesis testing, allowing users to accumulate research materials, annotate findings, and dynamically interact with information. A particularly valuable feature is its ability to create audio summaries that sound like podcasts from uploaded content, which can accelerate learning complex topics for many.

Human judgment above all else

While AI tools provide powerful support, we need human judgment and creativity overseeing the full process. The partnership works best when AI allows us to focus on strategy, following a process such as

Start with research: We need human insight to identify relevant trends, understand context, and determine which angles will resonate with specific audiences. AI can accelerate this process, but strategic judgment comes from experience.

Point of view development: Creating a distinctive perspective requires blending industry knowledge, client understanding and cultural awareness – areas where human expertise is irreplaceable. AI can help test and refine these viewpoints, but the core insights should come from human strategists.

Content refinement: While AI can generate initial drafts, human editors ensure the content maintains authenticity, emotional resonance and brand consistency. This includes verifying facts, adjusting tone, and ensuring cultural sensitivity.

Essential considerations

While these tools offer tremendous potential, they require careful attention to two key areas: accuracy and bias. AI can make up convincing but false information, which remains a significant concern. All AI-generated content requires thorough verification, especially for sensitive communications.

Equally important is the conscious effort to identify and mitigate bias in AI-generated content. This starts with how we frame our prompts and requests. When developing content, be explicit about the need for inclusive language and diverse perspectives. Review outputs carefully for unintended stereotypes or exclusionary language. For example, when crafting corporate messages, specify the need for content that reflects diverse workplace cultures and experiences.

Looking forward

As AI tools continue to evolve, and believe me they will, to keep up we need to focus on using them strategically:

• Using AI to identify unique angles and insights that others might miss.

• Testing different narrative approaches quickly.

• Focusing on developing distinctive points of view that stand out.

• Maintaining rigorous standards for accuracy and originality.

Our value lies in fresh perspectives. In a world where people are overwhelmed by messages, success comes from focusing on what makes our brands unique and creating genuine value. That’s where the true power of AI in PR lies: in giving us the space to focus on what matters.

You can read the original post here on PR Daily.