I recently attended an AI forum hosted by the American Marketing Association Chicago, where professionals across marketing, advertising, communications and technology came together to discuss how AI is best improving day-to-day work and how it is overhyped.
The honest answer? There was no single consensus. And perhaps that is the most useful takeaway.
AI is advancing quickly, and the tools we use today already look very different from those we used six months ago. Some teams are experimenting with sophisticated automations and custom agents. Others are still figuring out where generative AI fits into their daily workflows. Both approaches are valid.
For PR and communications professionals, the opportunity is not to adopt every new tool or chase AI for AI’s sake. It is to identify the practical applications that make our work sharper, faster and more visible without losing the human judgment, relationships and strategic thinking that make communications effective in the first place.
AI is upleveling – not replacing – great PR. But it is also changing how audiences find, assess and act on information. Here are three ways communications teams can practically put that shift to work today.
1. Optimize content for the way people (and AI) search
Earned media has always been important for building credibility. Now, it plays another role: helping brands show up in the AI-generated answers people increasingly use to research companies, products and industries.
Muck Rack Research analyzed more than one million AI citations across leading generative platforms to understand what actually drives visibility. Results found press release citations have increased 5x since July 2025. More than 94% of cited links come from non-paid media. Half of all citations are from content published within the last 11 months, with the highest citation rate occurring within the first week. AI is giving a whole new meaning to PR, and we must capitalize on this.
Clear, credible and consistent content has a bigger role to play in how brands are discovered. Communications teams can start with a few simple best practices:
- State the news clearly and early. Avoid burying the real announcement under broad claims or brand language.
- Use the language your audience actually uses. Frontload the terms customers, journalists and stakeholders would type into a search or AI query.
- Keep names consistent. Use the same company, product and executive names across press releases, blogs, websites and social channels. Consistency helps search engines and AI tools correctly connect the dots.
- Make information easy to scan. Clear subheads, labelled key findings, bulleted takeaways and FAQ sections all make content more usable for people and machines.
This is not about gaming the algorithm. It is about doing what strong communicators have always done: making the most important information clear, trustworthy and easy to find.
2. Measure not just where you appear, but how you appear
In traditional media relations, getting mentioned in a news story is important. PR measurement has often historically focused on questions like: Did we secure coverage? How many articles ran? What was the reach? Those metrics matter. But how you show up and the key messaging included in the article is even more important for brand building.
The same goes for AI search and this is where a communications scorecard comes into play.
Teams should keep a pulse on how your key messaging is getting reflected across all platforms, including earned media, owned content, social channels and relevant AI platforms.
Different AI platforms prioritize different source types. One LLM may favor news coverage, while another may surface reviews and a third prioritizes social posts. But across the board, they have one thing in common: they all look for consistent, credible fact patterns.
This is where an integrated approach wins:
- A company issues a clear press release which is picked up and syndicated in media outlets nationally.
- Journalists cover the news and validate it through additional independent reporting.
- The company’s website provides deeper context and proof points.
- Executives reinforce the message through thoughtful social content and subject-matter expertise.
When these sources are integrated and aligned, they become favored by AI tools since they are easier to find, understand and trust.
The goal is not to repeat the exact same sentence everywhere. It is to ensure each channel reinforces the same underlying truth.
3. Use AI to remove friction, not replace strategic thinking
The most productive AI use cases are often not the flashiest ones. They are the ones that remove repetitive work and give teams more time to focus on strategy, creativity and relationships.
One example discussed at the forum was automating speaking and awards research. Instead of manually searching dozens of websites for relevant awards, speaking opportunities or industry events, one woman set up a rule for AI-supported monitoring to surface new opportunities each week. The tool could also help create an initial workback timeline, summarize background research, identify recurring themes in coverage or organize a first draft of briefing materials.
That does not mean the work is finished.
A communications professional still needs to determine whether an opportunity is strategically right for the client or brand. Does it align with business objectives? Is the audience valuable? Is the executive the right fit? Is there a meaningful point of view to contribute?
AI can get us to the starting line faster. Human expertise decides whether we should run the race.
That distinction matters, especially as teams face pressure to “do more with AI.” Training an agent, testing a new platform or building an automation may sound innovative, but it is only worthwhile if it improves the work in a meaningful way.
The opportunity is practical, not perfect
AI is changing too quickly for anyone to have all the answers. The forum made that clear. Every organization is at a different stage, with different priorities, resources and comfort levels.
But communicators do not need to master every new tool to move forward.
The most important step is to focus on practical use cases that improve the work today: create clearer content, strengthen message consistency, monitor how your brand appears across the information ecosystem and automate the tasks that take time away from strategic thinking.
The future of PR will not be defined by who uses the most AI tools. It will be defined by who uses them with the most intention.
For more on how to strategically consider how AI is shaping your PR strategy, get in touch.
