ChatGPT: How will it influence the future of B2B PR?

Written by Simpatico PR

Posted on 2023-01-19

Will there always be a role for humans in a profession such as PR – will B2B PR agency teams be replaced by chatbots translating briefs from clients into irresistible media pitches for journalists?

Will they prove to be more charming and informed than their human counterparts? Will they deliver better results?

These are questions worth asking after a week of media coverage following the launch of OpenAI’s latest artificially intelligent app ChatGPT, which in case you’ve been off-line, sunning yourself on holiday, has caused something of a stir.

Described by the FT as “fluent, clever and dangerously creative” back in the autumn, when ChatGPT was first launched, the bot has now achieved mass-market awareness being used for everything from solving computer code bugs, to writing fake Nick Cave songs.

No wonder it has professionals in the communications and marketing space worried.

Can ChatGPT replace human B2B PR teams?

If ChatGPT is really that good, what better way to explore what impact it and similar technologies will have on PR than to have a conversation with it, so we asked ChatGPT:

“How can you be helpful to B2B PR?”

Within seconds the bot reeled off a pretty comprehensive summary of what it claims it can offer to B2B PR clients.

“I can help with b2b PR by providing strategic advice on how to build relationships with customers, create content that resonates with target audiences, identify potential market trends, and develop effective outreach tactics. Additionally, I can help to use data-driven insights to improve the overall effectiveness of campaigns and help companies get the maximum return on their PR investments.”

Wow – we’re all out of a job then – from strategy to content, to market trends and tactics – ChatGPT has got it covered.

ChatGPT and B2B PR

But then we asked:

“Will you replace PR people?”

“No”, it chimed “I cannot replace PR people. PR is a complex profession that requires a combination of strategy, creativity, and communication skills, which are difficult to replicate with artificial intelligence.”

Phew! Damn right it is and of course all good clients know this – we hope.

There is quite a discrepancy between the answer to the first question and the second, which is revealing. So, what role could ChatGPT and other similar tech really play in B2B PR and wider communications?

"What are you ChatGPT?"

To quote ChatGPT itself – when asked “what are you?”, it replies “I am an artificial intelligence (AI) program, created to simulate human-like intelligence and responses.”

This is a rather disarmingly modest response which brings us back to a degree of reality.

Although AI is increasingly playing a role in content creation both in text, visual images and audio the truth is ChatGPT and similar “AI” don’t understand a word of what they tell us. They are more machine learning systems than truly intelligent.

Known as a large language model (LLM), this kind of AI scrapes and learns from a vast volume of web content, filters for relevancy and then using natural language AI, creates convincing human language responses.

Here’s ChatGPT’s response to the question: “How do you create the responses to my questions?”

“I use natural language processing (NLP) and artificial intelligence (AI) to generate responses to your questions. NLP is used to interpret the meaning of your questions and then AI is used to generate the most relevant response based on the given data.”

Because the information they digest into smart, human responses is aggregated from the huge array of content on the web, the output is probably accurate, but it may not be and has not been fact checked.

What these bots amount to is a super-useful time-saving tool which can help generate elements of copy, an outline or structure of an article or press release and help fact find or explain.

Yes, they could write entire articles

Dedicated AI content creation products for PR are already on the market for example Agility’s PRcopilot which can assist with the writing of press releases etc. creating multiple versions to edit.

But these tools cannot truly ideate or provide solutions to strategic or tactical challenges and opportunities and cannot (yet) create content effectively on their own.

If used exclusively as a content creation source, B2B PR output or any other form of content for that matter will soon start to feel bland, homogenous, un-human.

Some would argue – particularly journalists (who are on the receiving end of a great deal of thoughtlessly banal marketing speak in press releases and dull op-ed pitches) that no-one would notice the difference if B2B PRs used chat bots.

However, they and we know it’s the ideas written with human originality, in the right context and yes with the right spin that get noticed and used.

Convincing bullshitters - what tech developers think of AI

To get an interesting perspective on content AI, it’s worth having a chat with tech developers, who are acutely aware of the incursion of AI into their world.

On one hand AIs now capable of coding such as Github are being used widely to speed up the more basic aspects of tech development and sit within the wider Low Code: No Code space in which software allows those with no or rudimentary skills to develop basic applications.

But the AI available now are in no way capable of more nuanced or sophisticated work.

Experienced developers regard coding AI as “convincing bullshitters” and are concerned that a wave of low-quality applications which will turn out to be of little use and may even be potentially damaging or dangerous, could be the result if decision-makers commissioning digital products rely on them too heavily.

We are on the verge of a deluge of similar AI tools for many professional roles and walks of life. 

They will be hugely useful in taking the drudgery out of tasks, but until they are genuinely intelligent, they will remain convincingly dangerous and B2B PR will remain a very human profession.

About Simpatico PR

We help companies win more coverage through expert B2B PR thought-leadership - working in simpatico with your B2B marketing and business development team.

We are a highly experienced B2B PR agency team specialising in thought-leadership and media relations.

We help companies create brilliant PR-friendly content ideas that will interest editors and reporters. Our team of ex-journalists will help you articulate your expertise and win media coverage month after month, delivering a real return on PR investment.

Responding to changing business needs, we only employ senior people with the experience to deliver great results and work with you closely in day-to-day partnership. We’re designed to be an expert extension of your PR, marketing and growth teams.

Since 2010 we’ve worked with some of the biggest names in advertising, technology innovation and design. We have expertise in specialist fields such as fintech, edtech, payments, sustainable business, AI, CX, data management, adtech, martech, commerce, retail media, OOH, TV and radio.

Our clients value direct access to our senior team who can:

- Confidently deliver informed and knowledgeable PR advice based on years of experience working in public relations and in the media.

- Consider the long-term goals of your business, and the impact that any PR will have on this, through our understanding of broader business objectives.

- Offer innovative and creative PR and content ideas through our extensive experience of working in a variety of industries and sectors.

- Draw upon trusted and established relationships with journalists, Editors and publications which have been built and developed over many years of working together.

Our approach

We create thought-leadership content through the Book of Ideas© which solves a key B2B PR agency challenge – how to deliver a sustained, high-quality thought leadership programme.

Our approach captures lots of ideas through journalistic interrogation which can be channelled into media relations, owned channels, social and B2B marketing.

It helps facilitate a better press-office function by mapping expertise across a company and the issues and opinions you want to project. In other words, it makes news-jacking faster and better.

It creates a better media coverage hit rate, because we tailor content to engage journalists.

It is a tried and test formula that puts you and us in control of your B2B PR.