Chat GPT Kills Public Relations? … not so fast …

Writers, interpreters, data analysts, receptionists, customer service representatives and accountants. All gone, dead and buried. Replaced by machines. Apparently. Or that seems to be the dominant narrative in 2024. 
Of course, similar fantastical predictions were made about the telephone in the 1890s:
AT&T chief engineer John J. Carty wrote that:
 “Someday we will build up a world telephone system, making necessary to all peoples the use of a common language or common understanding of languages, which will join all the people of the earth into one brotherhood. There will be heard throughout the earth a great voice coming out of the ether which will proclaim, ‘Peace on earth, good will towards men.'”
AI is a productivity tool for business. It will allow the automation of some functions, it will improve productivity and may help with decision making but it is, fundamentally, a tool.
For some small companies, Public Relations comprises little more than pumping out the occasional media release, staff communications and social media communications. Public Relations is a function that is an afterthought and is sometimes run by HR or even by the business owner/CEO. AI can be a great help with all of those functions by using ChatGPT or similar AI applications like Google’s Bard to produce copy in the blink of an eye.
But public relations is so much more. Effective PR – is business focused, strategic, and analytical. Like marketing, it is always bounded by the vision and goals of an organisation and structured to meet the strategy of an organisation.
In time AI may be able to do these things, just as the telephone may usher in world peace, but it isn’t quite in the AI handbook yet.