AI is everywhere, or so it seems. It’s found at the top of most Google searches, summarizing the results. It’s on news sites as articles debate usage ethics, effectiveness and economic impact. It’s ever-present in the media with 15 of this year’s 66 Super Bowl commercials being made with AI or highlighting AI companies and products – giving this year’s big game the “AI Bowl” moniker. 

The PR industry is no different. Muck Rack’s 2026 State of AI in PR report found that 76% of PR pros used generative AI in some part of their workflow. 

Of course, there are residual concerns with accuracy and bias.  So, how can you join the 83% of PR pros who are using AI to increase the quality of their work and the 93% who are using it to speed up their processes? 

Save Time, Still Revise

Of the PR pros using AI, 86% are using various AI tools to edit and refine their writing. 76% report using it for research and insights, and 74% report using it in their writing and content creation. 

98% of professionals are editing the text generated by these AI tools, but the edits are getting less extensive – down from 61% to 45% who reported having to make edits to most of the text created from 2024 to 2026. 

As AI content continues to improve, concerns are also rising about unscrutinized content losing originality and unsubstantiated information making its way into releases, pitches and other distributions. The more confident and polished the content seems, the more concerning this becomes. Therefore, it’s important to remain vigilant in fact checking the materials it creates while infusing your brand or expert voice to maintain individuality and credibility. 

Adapt Faster, Stay Relevant

While there are weaknesses within AI’s capabilities, it has proven itself in processing and analyzing large datasets quickly. Using AI for this purpose allows PR professionals to recognize patterns and uncover trends quickly – ultimately allowing them to be at the beginning of a news cycle rather than the end. This allows PR professionals to use it to: 

1. Curate Industry News Reports – You can use certain software to do this, but ChatGPT and Gemini can also curate the top articles for your industry or specialty. Some can send these straight to your inbox, while others will require you to make the request each time.
2. Identify Emerging Topics – AI can scan social and search channels to flag unusual spikes in conversation that could provide a viral opportunity, identify a crisis or predict the next trend.
3. Research – Working with a new reporter or outlet? AI can quickly analyze their recent articles to provide you with insights on what they’re covering and what angles might be most relevant to their beat.

Further, by analyzing what pitches are most successful and which messages are generating more coverage and conversation, PR professionals can use AI to refine their strategies, ultimately resulting in more success. 

This ability to process and analyze data also allows it to monitor reputation and analyze sentiment – spotting threats and risks and creating opportunities for faster crisis response.

Provide Perspective, Build Trust

As AI usage becomes more common, so are journalist concerns. According to Qwoted, 41% of US journalists strongly oppose AI-generated pitches, citing they include errors, miss nuance and create an echo chamber where they ultimately receive multiple variations of the exact same pitch from different sources. Some go as far to report running pitches through detectors and throwing out any emails with glaring AI usage. 

When working with reporters, especially those you’ve not yet established credibility with, it’s more important than ever to do the following: 

1. Prove your expertise (or your client’s) with verifiable facts, not buzzwords like “leading expert”
2. Offer unique, valuable insights that can’t be gleaned from a basic search query
3. Provide the needed quotes, bios and context so they’re not left with extra work to see value in your pitch

As PR professionals, our role is to build trust and earn credibility for our clients, but we can’t do so without maintaining strong relationships with our journalist counterparts. While AI can play an effective role in optimizing our productivity, if used in excess, it can fracture our reputations. By using it to save time and adapt, we can revise, stay relevant and ultimately provide valuable perspectives that benefit all parties.