Six Smart Ways to Use AI in PR Without Losing the Human Touch

How to Leverage AI in PR (Without Losing the Human Edge)

AI is now standard in PR. As of January 2025, 75% of PR professionals use generative AI, up from 28% in March 2023, according to Muck Rack's State of AI in PR report. See the data.

That adoption brings a clear split: AI speeds up research and admin work, but it also fuels lazy spam that burns relationships. The fix is simple-use AI for leverage, not as a crutch. Keep humans in charge of strategy and storytelling.

1) Know Your Customers Faster

Build buyer personas in hours, not weeks. Use Perplexity AI with your customer data to spot common traits in your "best" segments-industry, company size, buying triggers, renewal signals. Then ask Claude to generate and refine personas as you add new inputs.

• Prompts to try:
  • "Here are attributes of our top 100 customers. Create three personas with goals, pain points, and buying criteria."
  • "For Persona A, what product features matter most? What objections should sales expect?"
  • "Rewrite our value prop for Persona B at the awareness, consideration, and decision stages."

This is especially useful if you sell into multiple industries. You can quickly test messages by vertical and stage in the buying process, then validate with interviews and win/loss data.

Data tip: Don't paste sensitive or personal data into public AI tools. Anonymize and follow your company's data policies.

2) Track Competitors and Trends

Start with AI to draft a competitor map: direct players, adjacent players, and emerging entrants. Then verify manually-AI can invent companies or attributes.

• Ask for positioning summaries, differentiators, pricing signals, and recent announcements.
• Use AI to monitor analyst and media coverage, customer wins, funding, and product launches.
• Use PR-focused tools to flag spikes you can newsjack or trendjack. Grok on X can help track real-time shifts.

Weekly workflow: synthesize updates, adjust messaging, and queue timely pitches tied to a news hook or data point.

3) Research Influencers in Minutes

Skip manual tab-hopping. Use GenAI to build quick dossiers on journalists and analysts: beat changes, recent articles, preferred angles, and pet peeves.

• Prompts to try:
  • "Summarize [journalist]'s last 10 articles. Note recurring themes, story formats, and contrarian takes."
  • "Suggest three angle options that extend this recent piece: [URL]. Include a one-sentence pitch for each."

For market stats, Perplexity AI is strong at returning data with source links you can verify. Use those citations to strengthen pitches and bylines.

4) Repurpose-Don't Replace-Human Content

Let humans write the core narrative, especially for niche or technical topics. Use AI to transform and package that narrative across channels.

• "Turn this white paper into five LinkedIn posts for IT buyers."
• "Tighten this media pitch to 120 words, keep the hook, remove jargon."
• "Convert this press release into bullet points for a sales deck."

Then use tools like Gamma to turn content into decks, one-pagers, or PDFs in minutes. Always review for tone, facts, and brand consistency. Journalists can spot generic AI copy instantly-and will tune it out.

5) Automate the Admin Work

Start small: meeting notes, summaries, and follow-ups. ChatGPT and Copilot can transcribe calls, tag highlights, and draft action items.

• "Summarize this transcript into decisions, owners, and deadlines."
• "Draft a recap email for attendees. Keep it under 150 words."

For long-form research-white papers, filings, and technical docs-use targeted prompts to cut reading time by 80%.

• "What's the core thesis?"
• "Extract all references to private 5G."
• "List every statistic with its source."

Always QA before sharing. AI can miss nuance or misassign tasks.

6) Build a Simple Monitoring System

Consistency beats complexity. Set up a weekly rhythm you can sustain.

• Monday: Competitor and trend scan; shortlist 2-3 timely angles.
• Tuesday: Draft pitches; tailor to 5-10 high-fit influencers.
• Wednesday: Repurpose existing assets into social, decks, or briefs.
• Thursday: Analyst outreach and customer proof gathering.
• Friday: Review insights; update personas and message tests.

Bonus: Keep Humans in Charge of Content, Connections, and Strategy

AI can surface intel, but it can't build trust. Relationships with journalists, analysts, customers, and partners still win the coverage.

Use AI to prepare faster and pitch smarter. But keep the story human, specific, and relevant. Generic blasts destroy credibility.

Quick Start Checklist

• Pick one AI use case to pilot this week: persona refresh, influencer research, or meeting automation.
• Create a prompt library in a shared doc so the team iterates on what works.
• Add a human QA step to every AI-assisted deliverable.
• Measure outcomes: pitch replies, meeting quality, research time saved.

If you want structured learning paths for PR and marketing roles, explore curated options by job here: Complete AI Training.