I have spent much of my career in public relations, specifically for high-tech companies. When I started, I only had Microsoft Word, Cision, Meltwater, social media channels to post on, and my writing chops and creativity. Thanks to AI and the ever-evolving tools available, you can now find several tools that will assist with PR tasks such as:

• Idea Generation
• Press Release Creation
• Research
• Reporting
• Monitoring

Gathering a media coverage report could take a 1/2 day (a week if it was a global report), and then you need to put all the data into a PowerPoint presentation. Sifting through all the mentions and press release coverage to determine what was successful and what was not would require even more time. Furthermore, knowing how well your press release did and whether it positively impacted the brand or product awareness was problematic. Oh, and then there is the time it took to draft the perfect press release, dotting all the I’s and crossing the T’s. 

Another challenge was when others on your team added content or made changes to the press release and then emailed their copy to you. You had to review the press release line by line to see their changes. Thanks to online editing tools like Google Docs, everything was tracked! That gave you some time back, at least.

Overall, the process was complex and time-consuming, making it difficult to assess the success of a press release.

Now, we have AI tools to assist with these issues above. I initially considered how these tools could have saved me hours…days…of my time. But then, as technology typically does, the base level of what one produces increases. But that’s okay. I have always liked the idea of working smarter rather than harder anyway.

Here are 11 AI tools to support efforts launching a PR campaign:

• ChatGPT: Considered one of the most popular AI tools for communication. You can use ChatGPT to craft press releases, generate creative ideas, conduct research, and compose pitches and follow-up emails.
  • Positives:
    • Versatile for various PR tasks like writing press releases, pitches, and emails
    • Saves time on content generation and research
    • Can handle a large volume of requests simultaneously
  • Negatives:
    • Lacks creativity and nuance in writing
    • May produce generic content without brand voice
    • Potential for factual errors or outdated information

Disclaimer about using ChatGPT for public relations:

1. Perform fact-checking before using the content generated by ChatGPT. In the fight against fake news and manipulation, you must verify the accuracy of AI-generated content to prevent the spread of false information. Humans need to double-check the content and make sure it is legitimate.

2. Prioritize data security—AI utilizes user input to enhance its machine learning process. This means that the information you provide can potentially shape future-generated content. Do not input confidential company information. Do not input a huge upcoming announcement or any information about how a product was developed or plans for a product or service that has not already become public knowledge. 

• Prowly: An AI-powered PR platform that helps streamline PR workflows and content creation.
  • Positives:
    • Streamlines PR workflows
    • Assists with content creation
  • Negatives:
    • Specific limitations not mentioned in the search results

• Midjourney: An image generation tool useful for creating visual content for PR campaigns. You can type in a prompt and have a fully finished image in minutes.
  • Positives:
    • Useful for creating visual content for PR campaigns
  • Negatives:
    • Limited to image generation, not text-based PR tasks

MidJourney Disclaimer – the images you create are fed back into Midjourney. This means you do not own the copyright to your work. Other Midjourney users can see and use your content. Remember that the images you create will become public domain, and you cannot delete them. 

• Jasper: An AI writing tool that helps PR professionals generate and personalize content efficiently, among many other capabilities. Jasper can do routine PR tasks and handle your entire PR Workflow, such as maintaining an up-to-date media database, building media relationships, tracking PR efforts and outcomes to land tier-1 media coverage, and creating PR reports with clear ROI. Just upload the creative brief and the app can handle the rest. 
  • Positives:
    • Helps generate and personalize content efficiently
  • Negatives:
    • May lack human touch in writing style

• Grammarly: An AI-powered writing assistant that helps improve your writing.
  • Positives:
    • Improves quality and clarity of written communications
  • Negatives:
    • Limited to proofreading and editing, not full content creation

• Brand24: A social listening tool that analyzes brand mentions and sentiment across various online platforms. Brand24 provides a mentions feed and discussion reports and can detect brand milestones and emergencies (crisis communications alerts). 
  • Positives:
    • Analyzes brand mentions and sentiment across platforms
  • Negatives:
    • Focused on monitoring rather than content creation

• Synthesia: An AI video creation tool that allows PR professionals to create high-quality videos without expensive equipment or technical knowledge. PR pros can use it to turn any idea into a promotional video.
  • Positives:
    • Creates high-quality videos without expensive equipment
  • Negatives:
    • Limited to video content, not other PR tasks

• Canva AI: A design tool with AI capabilities for creating visual content for PR campaigns. This design tool has many features that allow anyone to become a designer, even without design skills. 
  • Positives:
    • Assists in creating visual content for PR campaigns
  • Negatives:
    • Limited to design tasks, not text-based PR work

• Copilot in PowerPoint:  An AI tool that can help draft and tweak presentation decks for PR purposes.
  • Positives:
    • Helps draft and improve presentation decks, saving a lot of time
  • Negatives:
    • Limited to PowerPoint presentations, not other PR tasks

• Wordtune – AI-powered writing assistant offering several key features and benefits for content creation and improvement. 
  • Positives:
    • If your content sounds unclear, you can ask Wordtune to simplify or summarize it, adjust tone, expand or shorten content, rewrite and rephrase it, enhance vocabulary, and even integrate it with Microsoft Word.
  • Negatives:
    • Learning curve
    • Not PR-specific
    • Possible inconsistency with brand voice

• Otter: This AI tool tunes into your meetings (on Zoom, Google Meet, and other platforms) and “listens” to them. Otter then takes notes using its proprietary AI technology. In short, it transcribes the meeting as it happens in real time. It identifies who spoke at which time and which sentences they uttered.
  • Positives:
    • Provides high accuracy levels in transcribing interviews and conversations, which is crucial for maintaining the integrity of PR content
    • Saves time
    • Integrates seamlessly with platforms like Teams and Zoom, making it convenient for recording and transcribing meetings or interviews
    • Collaboration features
    • Speaker identification
    • Can be exported in various formats for reporting or presentations
  • Negatives:
    • Accent recognition issues: Some users report difficulties with the software understanding different accents, potentially leading to errors in transcriptions
    • English-only: Otter.ai only transcribes English, which could be limiting for international PR work
    • Privacy concerns: While Otter.ai has a detailed privacy policy, the nature of AI transcription services may raise concerns about sensitive PR information
    • Competition from integrated AI tools: As video conferencing apps develop their own AI features for meeting summaries and notes, Otter.ai may face increased competition
    • You may find yourself removing “umms” from the written content

The PR industry has evolved from using basic tools like Microsoft Word and Cision to leveraging advanced AI-powered solutions. AI tools now assist with tasks like idea generation, press release creation, research, reporting, and monitoring. These tools have significantly reduced the time and effort required for drafting press releases, blogs, newsletters, or social media posts.

Although AI tools offer many benefits, they also raise the baseline for PR output quality.