MUMBAI - Artificial intelligence can accelerate how PR teams research, monitor coverage and draft responses, but the human judgment required to decide whether to speak, what to say and who should say it remains hard to automate. That was the central argument at IndianTelevision.com's Campaign Chai, an invite-only leadership discussion in Mumbai that brought together senior communications executives to examine how AI is reshaping the industry.
The panel, moderated by Anil Wanvari, founder and editor-in-chief of IndianTelevision.com, included Vishaal Shah of Moe's Art, Mausam Shah of Maars Communicates, Vikram Kharvi of Bloomingdale PR, film and entertainment publicist Parull Gossain, Tanya Shandilya of Kaizzen, Sangya Lakhanpal of Pitchfork Partners, and independent PR consultant Prashant Golecha.
Execution scales, judgment doesn't
The line between what AI can do and what it cannot became clearest at the moment of decision. The panel said AI can monitor conversations, flag negative press, draft responses, build media lists and speed up routine work. But deciding whether to respond publicly, what to include and who should carry the message still needs human control.
"AI should be treated more like a mentor or assistant rather than an autonomous decision-maker," one speaker said. That distinction matters for agencies in a moment when clients are scrutinizing what they're paying for. As technology accelerates the execution side, the industry begins to reassess what its value actually is: strategy, experience, crisis judgement and counsel.
Rethinking what agencies charge consumers
Several participants said that advisory work has become what they call valuable. It uses experience rooted in nuanced understanding of the communications ecosystem-the exact thing that machines don't know.
The conversation also pushed back on an industry myth that AI is automatically cheap. While individual tools may be free to use, what sits behind those systems can hinge on human labor, infrastructure and specialist expertise. The panel agreed that in some cases, saying that insight is not worth burdening on the automatic price tag.
Search is shifting - and the interplay is where it gets tricky
The conversation on AI moved beyond internal operations into consumer behavior. Search patterns are shifting from keywords and search terms to rich, conversational queries that yield one large-language model answer. Rather than typing "hotel in Goa," a user might describe exactly what they want, for whom and in what season - more context, more complex understanding.
That shift heightens the value of credible, third-party coverage. Brands currently presenting abbreviated or contradictory narratives across PR channels, social, content, influencer and paid space risk confusing the systems and losing the interest of the people they want to reach. The panel therefore argued for more integrated communication, in which messaging is consistent everywhere that a consumer might encounter a brand.
For PR teams, the upshifting skill set is clear. The more professionals understand how models consume their content and how prompts shape outputs, the more effectively they can steer brand representation. This isn't simply an IT concern - it's fundamental to how the agency service operates. Formal training in AI Public Relations Specialist Training can help bridge that gap between tactical execution and strategic AI oversight.
Why this matters for PR and communications teams
For professionals, the shift does not mean pitching is dead - on the contrary, the basic law of visibility has moved. This means clients will pay not for faster execution, barely a commodity when a machine can do that part cheaply in some routines, but for the judgment behind it.
Teams that pair an AI-first workflow with solid strategic counsel will see the largest shift in demand - while those that rely on purely manual tasking or fully automated output will be limited to only commodity-sized work. Committing to hyrid ways of working that maintain the human choice (or "final human override") in design, placement and message, places both you and your firms are going to be increasingly valuable. For continued resources, review AI for PR & Communications - it's relevant to the content above because it digs into exactly how AI is impacting brand reputation work, using workflows you can apply to client mandates.
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