By Don Bates
If we do one thing as communicators in 2025, it’s this: Start thinking and using AI seriously to develop and guide your strategic planning, programming and execution of communication solutions. But make it a priority, not an afterthought, because Ai and related technologies are fast becoming the waterloo for the successful practice of public relations, marketing and advertising.
Most reasonably-aware communicators “get” this scenario but, despite their awareness, they’re doing relatively little to take advantage beyond tasking ChatGPT and other chatbots to help them write and edit. That’s not getting serious with this extraordinary technology and what it portends for the future of communications at all levels.
Most communicators aren’t even tolerably familiar with more than one or two of the leading chatbots, ChatGPT most conspicuously. Take your pick from the others: Claude, Copilot, Chatsonic, Gemini, Hugging Chat, Jasper, Perplexity, Socratic and You.Com.
Most communicators aren’t familiar with what these chatbots are already offering that’s important to planning and delivering strategic communication: audio, video, web browsing, file uploads, imaging, translation, news prompts, writing templates, translations, attribution, plagiarism check and SEO insights.
If you need more reason to take immediate, concerted action, consider the following digested prediction of Leopold Aschenbrenner, one of the world’s leading authorities on AI’s escalating power and influence. He studies this stuff for a living, which includes his AGI investment fund. Aschenbrenner has mathematically calculated that AI will get at least five times better annually into the future, compounded!
By 2027/2028, he says, ChatGPT and other large language models will be as smart as one million PhDs worldwide. The implications are a challenged and a warning: “Imagine having the smartest PhDs in the world at your fingertips for the price of chewing gum.”
Management communicators can’t afford to keep avoiding what AI can and will do to improve individual and group performance. Advertising and marketing have achieved a modicum of progress in harnessing the technologies involved, but the public relations practice’s engagement has been decidedly slow.
Exactly, how do you address AI more seriously? For one thing, you must become more adept in its use. Devoting the required money, time and resources are essential, but waiting for this to happen full bore would be a big mistake. There are consequential steps that can take right now.
The managers of public relations, marketing and advertising departments and agencies must train employees in earnest to use and manage AI as more than an editorial function. In-house training is essential. Maybe have employees attend college courses on AI or professional development seminars and workshops offered by trade publications and trade associations.
Besides concentrated training, management also needs to hire one or more full-time employees or consultants to take charge of monitoring and sharing AI uses in general and by competitors. This person—and eventually team—should also be responsible for actively introducing staff to the best AI ideas and innovations. Self-training is nowhere near enough. Think military. Training is not a one-time proposition. This is much bigger than self-development.
As suggested, 2025 will be the beginning of a major shift in AI’s use and power, setting the stage for 2027/2028 and beyond. Those who fail to get involved as fully as possible, starting now, will find themselves with little or no recourse but to quit from exhaustion. AI will move so fast that trying to catch up will be a futile effort.
About the author: Don Bates, APR, Fellow PRSA, is an award-winning public relations executive, writer, trainer and consultant. During his career, he has worked for major international corporations, nonprofits and consulting firms. He has also taught part-time—to give back—in graduate PR programs at Columbia, The New School University, New York University and the George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management. [email protected]
More to ponder on what you should be doing with Ai right now if you’re not. https://spinsucks.com/communication/ai-in-pr-how-you-work/
I heard this about this Ai use in NYC during a presentation at Cooper Union on political advertisements since the 1940s. Two media experts have been collecting and sorting these ads by hand for almost 20 years into slides and film. Starting in 2025, they’ll use Ai to find all the ads, both local and national, sort them into categories with production and location information, and archive them for future presentations by them and by others after they’re departed for Elysium. This way, Ai will find and store these ads for political consultants, copywriters, students, teachers, et al, for generations to come. Imagine what you can do with Ai to monitor competitors’ messages, programs related to proposals, trends concerning your employer’s products or services, and on and on.