Our most recent Creativity in PR study co-authored with Provoke Media shows that the PR industry is clearly embracing artificial intelligence (AI) for creativity, but there’s still a significant gap in knowledge and preparedness compared to the broader digital landscape.
While 60% of PR professionals report using AI for creativity, a striking 81% admit to feeling unequipped to fully harness Gen AI’s potential to assist with creativity.
This contrasts with the UK government’s finding that 68% of businesses overall are using AI and with IAB Europe’s research, which shows a whopping 91% of digital advertising businesses are already experimenting with or using AI, with nearly half (49%) predicting significant increases in adoption over the next year.
Key Findings about the use of PR & AI :
- Knowledge & preparedness: Over half of our respondents (54%) say that they are somewhat, or not so familiar, with how it can be used, with 46% saying they feel confident in their knowledge of how to use it.
- 47% say they don’t think that the PR industry is adequately prepared to embrace Gen AI fully in creative disciplines, with 45% saying they think it is somewhat prepared and just 8% citing extremely prepared.
- Adoption: While the PR industry is adopting AI broadly on a par with UK businesses in general, it’s lagging the digital advertising sector. This could be attributed to various factors, including budget constraints, a lack of specialized AI talent, and a steep learning curve.
- Mind the knowledge gap: A significant majority of PR professionals feel unprepared to fully utilise AI, highlighting the need for targeted upskilling initiatives. The digital advertising industry, on the other hand, is actively investing in talent development, with 32% of companies providing dedicated learning time for AI and 16% appointing an AI lead.
- Whilst we didn’t ask these 2 specific questions in our survey, no anecdotal evidence suggests that either of these two aspects are happening in the PR industry in any meaningful way.
- There are still some pockets of so-called ‘AI deniers’ who anecdotally told us words to the effect of “it’s useless” which seems at odds with an industry that seeks to innovate.As Harvard Business School and AI expert, Professor Karim Lakhani eloquently puts it:
- “AI won’t replace humans—but humans with AI will replace humans without AI.”
- Focus areas: Both PR and digital advertising are primarily leveraging AI for content creation and ideation. However, the PR industry also shows a strong interest in using AI for research and insights, suggesting a potential advantage in data-driven strategy development.
Uses: 64% of those surveyed are using AI for idea generation and inspiration, with 51% are using tools to assist with brainstorming
‘Tackling the blank page’ is an oft-cited challenge when needing to generate ideas quickly or without much in terms of stimulus – it’s clear that tools like Chat GPT can be helpful in getting creatively unstuck. What’s not so clear and needs more research is how useful the ideas are in the long run and whether agencies are communicating where they’re coming from to clients.” Claire Bridges, Founder Now Go Create
- 45% are using AI to help with research and insights – “This is an interesting area where PRs can tap into previously unavailable resources to improve audience targeting and insights to improve strategy.” Claire Bridges, Now Go Create
Ethical Concerns: The PR industry, like others, is grappling with the ethical implications of AI, including intellectual property, bias, and misinformation. These concerns are shared across industries, underscoring the need for industry-wide collaboration to establish ethical guidelines and standards.
But AI is clearly fuelling innovation and impactful creative ideas.
At Cannes, AI was used in 12% of entries this year. Winning work that had AI at its heart included Magnetic Stories which took the Grand Prix in the Pharma Lions, the Innovation Lions Grand Prix KVI Brave Fund Inc’s ‘Voice 2 Diabetes’ and the Outdoor Lions Grand Prix winner ‘Adoptable. By Pedigree’ – below – showed AI at scale.
At Cannes Lions, Jeriad Zoghby, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Interpublic Group, spoke about how the democratisation of tech tools could lead to what he called “enhanced mediocrity”.
When working at pace as so many PR pros do, particularly when responding to the 24-hour news cycle, average output could easily become the norm.
“AI tools should be considered an essential string to the PR creative’s bow. Learn the rules, play fearlessly, create ethically.” Claire Bridges, Now Go Create
Blog post image created using Openart.AI