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AI tools for PR. How PR pros can leverage the best AI tools in 2024

AI tools will empower PR pros to refine their strategies, improve efficiency, and stay ahead in an ever-evolving media landscape.

Author

Thumos
July 21, 2024 • Read time: 16 minutes

The growth of artificial intelligence in all spheres of business means that the utilisation of AI tools in public relations will expand further.

In recent years, the PR industry has witnessed the introduction of numerous AI tools aimed at enhancing and streamlining the PR process. These tools vary in their specificity, catering to the unique needs of the PR sector, while others offer more generalised functionality that proves valuable to PR professionals in their work.

We’ve covered in depth how the rise of AI is changing the public relations profession; looked at specific AI tools like how ChatGPT can support the PR function including using it during times of crisis, and we’ve also covered how bad actors can use AI to sow disinformation.

This article focuses on the best AI tools for PR and how they can be used to support the PR workflow. No doubt this list will grow and change over time as new tools are introduced.

Table of Contents

What does AI for Public Relations mean? 

Artificial intelligence is being hailed as a major game changer for the public relations industry. At its core, AI for PR involves the use of sophisticated algorithms and machine learning techniques to analyse vast amounts of data and information more efficiently and accurately than even the most skilled human analysts.

This allows PR professionals to gain a fuller, more nuanced understanding of their target audience, as well as their competitors, the media landscape, and other key variables that can impact the success of a PR campaign.

AI can also be used to automate routine tasks such as media monitoring and sentiment analysis, freeing up PR professionals to focus on more strategic and creative work. It also supports in the creation of content, research and assists with day-to-day tasks saving time and money.

Big picture, AI has the potential to transform the way PR professionals work, enabling them to deliver more effective, targeted, and measurable results than ever before. 

The benefits of using AI tools for PR

There are numerous benefits of using AI tools for PR. These include:

Time Savings: AI tools automate repetitive tasks, such as media monitoring, data analysis, and content generation. This saves significant time, allowing PR professionals to allocate their efforts to more strategic activities and complex projects. Increased.

Efficiency: With AI automation, PR professionals can handle larger workloads and accomplish tasks faster. AI tools can process and analyze data at a much higher speed than humans, enabling more efficient decision-making and execution. Improved.

Accuracy: AI tools offer a high level of accuracy in tasks such as data analysis, sentiment analysis, and content optimisation. This reduces human error and ensures more precision.

Expanded capacity: AI tools act as an extra pair of hands, augmenting the capabilities of PR professionals. They can handle tasks at scale, monitor multiple channels simultaneously, and process vast amounts of data that would be challenging for humans alone.

Competitive advantage: Utilising AI tools in PR can provide a competitive edge. Organisations that leverage AI effectively can streamline their PR processes, deliver more efficient and targeted campaigns, and stay ahead of the curve in the rapidly evolving media landscape. This, of course, may not last forever in the hugely competitive PR market.

List of AI tools for PR

The list below highlights some essential AI tools for PR professionals to develop and implement their PR strategies. While not exhaustive, these tools encompass the most valuable options available.

With the current abundance of AI tools in the market, it’s important to note that not all of them are equally relevant or useful for PR practitioners. Some tools may merely replicate existing functionalities, while others may lack practical applications in the context of PR.

ChatGPT – the AI tool every PR should have

ChatGPT is a versatile all-rounder

ChatGPT is a versatile allrounder that can do writing, editing, social media posts, sentiment analysis, search engine optimisation, and brainstorming and ideation. Many of the current AI tools today are built using the ChatGPT API and using the paid-for premium version, ChatGPT Plus, you get access to a range of plugins that add more functionality and support.

In the future, every PR office will likely adopt a ChatGPT subscription as a standard practice, similar to having an email address and website today.

This widespread adoption will be driven by the fact that virtually every other PR office will also utilise such AI-powered tools, making it an essential and expected component of the industry.

There are also several ChatGPT plugins and extensions you can use to enhance your use of it. These include:

  • ChatGPT Summarise Everything – This Chrome extension summarises the webpage you’re on or the YouTube transcript of a video you’re watching

  • AIPRM for ChatGPT – this Chrome extension has a list of curated prompt templates for SEO, SaaS and more

PR-specific AI tools

Over the last 12 months, there has been a range of PR software vendors who are beginning to integrate AI into their existing SaaS products or develop entirely new offerings. Here are the PR-specific software providers who are using AI to provide an optimised service to their PR customers.

PRophet

PRophet is an AI tool specifically made for PR professionals. The platform uses AI to help modern PR professionals become more “performative, productive and predictive” by generating, analysing and testing content that predicts earned media interest and sentiment.

It works by using AI to analyse your media pitch or press release and recommends the journalists that are most likely to cover it and creates a tailored pitch based on their unique profile.

The company recently announced two new AI features: the Multi-Pitch Generator and the Biography Generator. These updates enhance the platform’s capabilities by allowing users to create up to 25 personalised pitches for reporters in under three minutes and generate executive biographies in seconds using AI technology.

Meltwater

PR software company, Meltwater, has been building its AI capabilities over a number of years. In 2021 it acquired AI company, Deepreason.ai, help build one of the largest knowledge graphs of public information.

Meltwater offers a suite of PR SaaS tools some of which include AI embedded into them. This includes a ChatGPT-powered writing assistant, an AI-enabled consumer insights service which uncovers actionable consumer insights and an AI video analysis tool which “captures insights from video content on social platforms through advanced computer vision which identifies logos, celebrities, scenes and objects.”

In September, the company launched its AI Writing Assistant. Powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, it is designed to aid social media managers in producing enhanced and engaging social media content efficiently.

Acting as a supportive colleague, it offers dynamic language suggestions, utilises renowned copywriting models such as AIDA, and ensures governance and brand safety, aiming to bolster the creation of compelling online communities around brands.

In this article, they provide an in-depth overview of how they use AI and machine learning in their suite of services.

Axios HQ

Axios HQ is an “Essential Communications Management (ECM)” platform that offers AI-powered software to help organisations effectively manage their internal communications. It provides a range of features to assist in planning, writing, and sending updates that it says have been proven to enhance trust, transparency, and alignment.

With Axios HQ, users can leverage generative AI to brainstorm topics, generate original images, translate text into different languages, search past audience interactions, and more.

The platform also offers solutions such as smart brevity guidance, best-practice templates, collaborative editing, powerful analytics, design customization, and integrations.

Axios HQ says it is used by over 450 organisations across various industries, catering to businesses of all sizes.

PressPal.ai is an AI tool for PR professionals by media database company, Muck Rack, that surfaces relevant journalists based on press release keywords generated by its integrated press release creator.

Launched in beta in 2023, PressPal.ai aims to help PR professionals save time and improve their press release targeting. The tool generates a press release based on a brief description and provides a list of relevant journalists to target. PressPal.ai utilises Muck Rack’s extensive media database, which includes data on journalists and media outlets from various platforms.

Much Rack is clearly playing the long game when it comes to the use of AI in PR. The company recently hired its first-ever AI lead to “enhance the Muck Rack platform by uniting its comprehensive trove of data with the best of AI technology.”

Preston by Intelligent Relations

Preston is an innovative PR platform that offers an all-in-one solution for media monitoring, AI-assisted pitch writing, journalist recommendation, and outreach. It’s designed to deliver rapid, transparent PR results for businesses of all sizes.

The platform distinguishes itself with several key features. First, it provides robust media monitoring, processing millions of content pieces monthly to keep businesses informed about relevant trends.

Second, its AI-assisted pitch writing tool, built on top of advanced models and pre-trained to understand specific company messaging, crafts personalized pitches that resonate with the media.

Additionally, Preston offers a comprehensive database of over 200,000 journalists and influencers, ensuring targeted and effective outreach.

CisionOne

CisionOne, recently launched in the US following its UK debut, integrates media monitoring and outreach into a singular platform, offering PR and communications professionals tools for navigating the media landscape.

This platform combines live, in-depth media insights with a comprehensive approach to connect with journalists and influencers. A notable aspect of CisionOne is its exclusive access to Dow Jones content, including renowned publications like The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, offering users a valuable source of quality content.

Powered by Cision’s proprietary AI, CisionOne is designed to identify impactful stories and decipher the underlying intentions in media narratives, aiding professionals in making swift, precise decisions.

The platform also includes features such as the Brand Risk Score, which identifies potentially harmful media content, and Narrative Tracking and Stance analysis tools, which are expected to provide a more nuanced view of media coverage and sentiment.

Overall, CisionOne aims to transform industry workflows by offering a tool that not only responds to current media trends but also helps shape future brand strategies.

AI writing tools

There is an abundance of AI writing tools available today and it’s fair to say the feature has been somewhat commoditised but there are a number of AI writing tools every PR professional should be using.

ChatGPT – as already mentioned, ChatGPT should be the first AI tool every PR professional uses because it’s so versatile especially for writing and editing.

Reword – Reword is an AI writing tool that creates high-quality content in a unique tone of voice that reflects your brand’s identity. It creates highly realistic content that mimics the finesse of a seasoned human writer, ensuring content quality. To train the AI, you can simply connect your Google Search Console, allowing the AI to comprehend their existing content and learn about your writing style.

Originality.ai – Originality.ai is a cutting-edge plagiarism detection tool designed to safeguard the authenticity of your AI-generated content. With its advanced capabilities, Originality.ai prevents plagiarism and ensures your content remains original and unique. This tool proves particularly valuable for SEO content, as it minimizes the risk of algorithmic penalties that can impact search engine rankings.

SEO AI tools

AI tools can provide extensive support in the development of SEO content, encompassing keyword research, topical clustering and article writing. Again, these tools are abundant but some of the best include:

Marketmuse – Marketmuse is an AI and SEO tool allrounder. It helps with researching content for your articles, optimising them using the best SEO practices, comparing your content with other top competitors and suggesting improvements, listing the questions that people are asking for FAQ, providing you internal and external link suggestions, and even creating an automated content brief and entire article for you.

NeuronWriter – NeuronWriter is an AI-based SEO writing tool that almost writes entire articles for you. Powered by ChatGPT-4, it has 20 writing templates which can generate copy at the click of a button, a competitor SERP analysis, an internal link checker and an NLP content optimiser.

AI assistants

AI assistants can support you in your day-to-day PR work by allowing you to quickly respond to emails, summarise articles and videos, create social content and many other time-saving activities.

HARPA AI – HARPA AI is a Chrome extension which provides a range of features including research, copyrighting, summarising, social content creation and much more. Surprisingly HARPA AI is still free as there are competing services with fewer features which charge to use.

AssemblyAI – AssemblyAI is a speech transcription service which will transcribe a YouTube video and then you can ask it questions about what was said in the video.

Fireflies – Fireflies is an AI tool that records and auto-transcribes meetings over several platforms like GMeet, Zoom, MS Teams, etc. You can watch these recordings later to review the session and extract points you might have missed or wish to visit again. Fireflies provides automated meeting summaries, so you don’t have to watch the entire session again.

AI for PR research

AI empowers PR researchers with powerful tools to analyse data, discover patterns, and make informed decisions. By leveraging AI in research, PRs can speed up the process, uncover new insights, and accelerate progress.

AskAI – AskAI is a research tool for your own content. Simply add your documents (it supports PDFs, websites, doc, docx, CSV, and txt files), create your own AI and ask it questions. With AskAI you have your very own chatbot trained on your own content. Take a look at JiggyBase which does the same thing but includes PowerPoint files.

ChatPDF – ChatPDF is a simple but useful tool to search PDF files. Simply upload a PDF document and ask the chatbot anything about it. Haven’t got time to read a large PDF document? Ask ChatPDF to summarise the key points.

AI tools for PR are just getting started

As we navigate the early stages of this emerging technology, it’s important to acknowledge that the AI tools for PR discussed here represent the current landscape, but it is a landscape that is evolving rapidly.

As the field of AI progresses, we can anticipate that the range and capabilities of AI tools tailored specifically for the PR industry will expand and diversify.

The dynamic nature of AI means that new tools will likely emerge, offering even more specialised functionalities to support PR professionals in their work.

These future AI tools for PR could be designed to address specific needs such as sentiment analysis, influencer identification, media outreach optimization, or crisis management.

As the technology advances, AI tools for PR will likely become more sophisticated, harnessing advanced algorithms, natural language processing, machine learning, and other AI techniques to provide PR practitioners with enhanced capabilities and insights.

The continual growth and refinement of AI tools will empower PR professionals to refine their strategies, improve efficiency, and stay ahead in an ever-evolving media landscape.

It’s worth noting that staying up to date with the latest developments and trends in AI for PR will be crucial. Keeping an eye on industry advancements, attending conferences, and engaging in professional networks will enable PR practitioners to leverage the most relevant and effective AI tools as they become available.