AI-Enhanced PR: Why Human Expertise Still Matters

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on PRsay, the official blog of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA).

Public relations is a dynamic profession that requires constant adaptation to new technologies.

In recent years, artificial intelligence has significantly improved the capabilities of PR teams while also reducing the impact of information overload. AI has streamlined various tasks by offering automation, data analysis, chatbots and content drafting tools.

But it’s always important to remember that there are things AI does well, and things that people do well — and that, according to Edelman’s 2025 Trust Barometer, humans are still far more trusted than machines. While AI can help streamline tasks, human expertise remains invaluable in strategy, creativity and relationship-building.

How AI is Transforming PR

An Institute for Public Relations (IPR) report indicates that 70% of firms incorporated AI for this reason. That’s because AI is a tool that can help your team get smarter faster by improving efficiency through real-time data processing.

Automation of Routine Tasks

• Reporting: Automation can help create reports because many software programs can access live data, providing the most accurate information to show each campaign’s results.
• Media monitoring: Automation streamlines the process of scanning global news and social media sources, enabling the efficient detection of relevant news and emerging trends.
• Trend analysis: Automation can help analyze trends and audience preferences, including tracking sentiment and topics, identifying influencers and pinpointing potential crises. PR professionals can use AI analysis to learn topics that interest their target audience and develop outreach strategies.

Crisis Management

AI tools can effectively help crisis management by analyzing current trends and public sentiment. Doing so can predict various crisis scenarios, prevent them, and develop communication strategies and possible responses if necessary. This could help with future PR planning to mitigate crisis risk, saving time and effort.

Content Generation

AI content tools can help draft various content for press releases, social media posts, and emails for outreach or email marketing. Additionally, content AI tools can summarize a large chunk of text to help PR professionals understand the topic better. These tools can be invaluable, as AI can be configured to follow specific keywords, tone and structure, allowing PR professionals to easily refine the content, incorporate relevant research, and ultimately save time while streamlining writing tasks.

Why Human Expertise is Irreplaceable

AI is great at fast, real-time data processing — once you’ve put the time in to train your model, at least — which helps PR teams execute their tasks faster and more efficiently.

However, AI cannot fully replace humans in PR, as people have many crucial skills that AI cannot replicate. That’s why I always advise using machines when machines make sense and humans when humans make sense.

Relationship-Building

People buy from people; a human element to a brand is more encouraging to audiences and shareholders. Building and fostering trust with media outlets, journalists, clients and shareholders is all about relationship-building. Leaders trust AI-generated data not because they trust the AI model but because they trust the human sharing the information.

Storytelling

Adding to the human element, humans are key to good storytelling. With a creative mind and the ability to think outside the box, humans can develop new ideas to create stories that appeal to key audiences.

Strategic Thinking and Measurement

While AI can help scale certain measurement-related tasks and filter results to reduce information overload, it is humans and their ability to think critically that determine what is done with that data. This involves navigating new situations that AI has no data on, crafting long-term PR plans and making quick, empathetic decisions during a crisis.

What to Know About the Limitations of AI in PR

AI is only as good as the questions you ask. From the quality of your prompts, to questions around the AI model itself and the data sources it uses, AI must be used as a tool to help scale humans — not replace them.

Data Hallucination

If there is missing data for the AI to generate the proper response, then it may create false information in the form of AI hallucinations. AI won’t tell you when it creates false information, which could become a significant problem if it were to do so for reports or crisis management.

How Humans and AI can Collaborate Effectively

AI just isn’t as trusted as humans in general — and for all organizations, trust is key. Despite the growing popularity of AI in communications content, strategy and measurement, the ultimate source of trust resides with people. That’s why the optimal method for PR is expert collaboration between AI and humans, along with implementing AI usage and disclosure policies to build and maintain trust with stakeholders.

When it comes to media measurement, humans augmented by AI can have a massive impact. Suppose you can instruct the AI to conduct certain tasks in specific scenarios. In that case, you’re scaling your effectiveness without even having to click a button — allowing your team to get more done, more efficiently.

The same IPR survey mentioned earlier showed that PR leaders overwhelmingly feel the best insights come from a mix of AI monitoring and human measurement, for example.

AI has undeniably transformed PR, offering efficiency in data analysis, automation and content generation. However, AI lacks the emotional intelligence, creativity and ethical judgment that define exceptional PR. Crafting creative stories, building stakeholder trust, or navigating crises with empathy and adaptability is where a human touch is crucial.

The future of PR is about leveraging AI while relying on human insight to guide strategy and connection. By embracing this synergy, PR professionals can maximize data-driven precision with the irreplaceable power of the human touch.