Another year, another wave of new AI tools promising to transform industries. But beneath the hype, something more interesting is happening. The focus is shifting from what AI can do, to how we train it to do it better.
And here’s the good news for PR pros: our core craft of building relationships and telling stories hasn’t changed. What has changed is how we do it with smarter tools, sharper insights, and deeper data than ever before.
Of course, not all AI tools are created equal. AI is only as useful as the data it learns from – and how well it’s trained to serve your needs. General LLMs like ChatGPT or Gemini can be helpful starting points, but real impact comes when we fine-tune tools for PR-specific challenges and audiences.
Smarter Media Outreach with AI-Trained Assistants
Media outreach is largely manual: building lists, cross-referencing articles, sending best-guess pitches. I didn’t think the day would come for us to have AI-powered assistants to help bring much more nuance and precision to our pitching.
Take PressPal AI from Muck Rack. What sets this tool apart is that it leverages Muck Rack’s vast database of historical pitch notes and journalist responses – meaning its recommendations are grounded in real-world media engagement patterns. This allows PR pros to generate pitch drafts that are not only well written, but also aligned with a journalist’s tone, coverage style, and interests. This is not only sharper, but also saves us a lot of additional research time.
Elevating Content Creation Through AI Personalization
Let’s be honest – content creation with AI has become a bit of a circus lately. We’ve all seen those posts that look like they were written by a bot stuck in a loop of rocket emojis 🚀 and unnecessary —em dashes.
But done well, AI content support isn’t about churning out more posts or fixing punctuation quirks. It’s about giving PR teams the ability to create smarter, sharper content, faster while staying true to the brand voice.
Many PR teams are now using custom GPTs trained on their brand archives, tone of voice documents, and historical press materials. This ensures that first drafts of press releases, headlines, captions, and even internal documents reflect brand style and accuracy from the start, saving time and reducing rework.
And AI’s value doesn’t stop at content generation. Tools like Agentic AI, recently launched on the TEAM LEWIS website, help users surface materials and insights they didn’t even know they needed – pulling up relevant case studies, supporting data, or fresh angles that can make the next piece of content even stronger.
In this way, AI personalization isn’t just about producing content faster. It’s also about helping users create better, more insightful content by intelligently surfacing the right information at the right moment.
Deeper Audience Engagement and Insights
If there’s one thing AI should make us rethink, it’s how we understand audiences.
Most PR teams already use AI for the basics – social listening, sentiment analysis, keyword trends. All useful, but not exactly groundbreaking anymore. The real opportunity lies in going deeper: using richer signals (behavioral patterns, engagement data, even biometrics) to uncover insights we couldn’t have spotted before.
At TEAM LEWIS, our world-first Training for Trust (TFT) tool exemplifies this next-level thinking. TFT uses biometric and behavioral data (from eye contact to voice tone to body language) to help executives present with more trust and authenticity. It’s not just analyzing what people say, but how they come across and how they make others feel.
That same mindset should shape how we approach AI in audience engagement. Instead of asking “what’s the sentiment?” we should be asking: “how can we better understand what’s really driving audience behavior and how can we respond in more human, meaningful ways?”
Ethical Considerations: Training AI Responsibly
Of course, with all this opportunity comes responsibility. And in AI, data ethics can’t be an afterthought.
Many open or free AI tools come with terms of service that let them learn from and reuse whatever data you upload. That may sound fine – until it’s your client’s sensitive IP or internal documents being swept into someone else’s training set.
That’s why PR teams need to be crystal clear about what data can (and can’t) be shared with external AI tools. It’s also why Team LEWIS built SideKick, our own in-house AI, designed to keep confidential data securely managed and off-limits to third-party models.
More broadly, it’s on agencies to help clients navigate this space. We need to have proactive, transparent conversations about AI usage, data governance, and long-term risk. The tech may be evolving fast, but when it comes to ethics, there’s no shortcut.
The Takeaway: Smarter AI, Smarter PR
If there’s one thing this new wave of AI has taught us, it’s that the tools alone aren’t enough. What matters is how we train them and how creatively we apply them to real-world PR challenges.
Whether it’s writing sharper pitches with PressPal AI, surfacing better content with Agentic AI, coaching executive presence with Training for Trust, or building robust data safeguards with SideKick – we’re only beginning to scratch the surface of what’s possible. And that’s so exciting to witness.
