Presented at the #CPRS2017 national conference. An overview of how #AI and #robots will affect the public relations profession.

1. PR by Robots and Artificial Intelligence
Jean Valin APR FCPRS LM
@JeanValin1

3. In a nut shell
AI in PR Now
Research
Content
Evaluation
Work processes
Implications

5. McKinsey Global
Institute says: 5% of
occupations could be
100% automated. 60%
of occupations could
have 30% of tasks
automated
Google’s AI can now lip
read better than
humans after watching
thousands of hours of
TV

6. We're closer to robots than you think. Intelligence could be the
product of a basic algorithm. Robots don’t need to be perfect.
They just need to be better than humans.
Where are we now?

7. Facts and figures about AI and automation
Almost all have access to computing device (WEF)
AI market in analytics, content creation set to grow from
$4.5 billion in 2014 to $9.2 billion in 2019 (IDC, 2016)
Potential to boost labour productivity by up to 40%
(Accenture, 2016)
But jobs, including in professions under threat (Sunday
Times, 5th Feb 2017)
Bank of England estimate 80 million jobs are at risk in
USA,5 million jobs in trucking alone

8. What is on the market
now?

9. ‘Professional services generally rely on a lot of data and
informa4on, and a rela4vely small amount of judgment. This
makes them ripe candidates for the applica4on of machine
intelligence. In fact, professional services may turn out to be more
suited to automa4on than menial factory or household labour.’
Michael Cross, The Role of Ar+ficial Intelligence in Law
Raconteur, (19 February 2015)

10. Second generation AI, beyond robotics

11. How will it affect us?

14. How is this impacting on PR?
Audience Research

15. How is this
impacting on
PR?
Influencer and
topic research

16. N e t w o r k m a p s u s e d t o
i l l u s t r a t e h o w v a r i o u s
influencers, journalists and
sub-topics interrelated.
Granular understanding of the
media landscape, who and
what is driving conversation.
Influencer Network Analysis
Commsmetrics for

17. • Interactive Dashboard enables further
interrogation of data.
• Clear understanding of the
Organisation/influencer roles in any
topic/theme.
• Further interrogation of specific
influencer roles.
• Identification of Influencers and the
relationship to other topics and
influencers in the network.
• Access more information on
Influencers via links to media
coverage, LinkedIn and Wikipedia.
Dashboard presentation

18. The output of the influencer analysis can be organised in
different ways. Includes human-led sentiment analysis to all
influencers and categorise them accordingly, providing
decision ready intelligence for communications planning
and media outreach.
Sentiment
analysis

19. Content

20. Evaluation

21. Thank you
Stephen
Waddington
Process. Workflows, campaigns
and everything

22. Automation is happening now

23. Your internet
footprint. Digital
DNA.
Nature of identity is
changing
Cyber security
Algorithmic
determinism
Fake news
Fake sites
Implications of all this?

24. Threat to traditional jobs (17%? 40%?)
Cost of prediction reduced
New thinking about how we add value
Organisations have choices, which is the
‘right’ one?
Judgement and emotional intelligence- our
bright light
People at the centre, so people and values
first
The ethical guardian role at last?
Implications for the PR profession

25. Purpose of our profession?
Will AI redefine our role? Organisational forms will
change.
What education will prepare us for that future
role?
What do we expect of entrants to the profession?
Digital intelligence, but values based.
What ethical codes will rule us and our automated
agents? Role of regulators?
Big questions for us

26. With special thanks to
Anne Gregory,
Alastair MacCapra,
David Phillips,
Stephen Waddington
Twitter:
@JeanValin1