71 per cent of PR professionals view artificial intelligence (AI) as ‘extremely or very important to the future of PR’, with 54 per cent already seeing AI appearing in how content is created. In short, these stats show a small part of the bigger picture of AI adoption in the communications industry.
AI is undeniably an exciting technological milestone. As with most new and shiny things, it’s not perfect, but it is a chameleon that can be adapted for use in industries ranging from healthcare to content creation. Its adaptable capabilities have therefore made AI tools a growing staple in the communications industry. Most frequently, PR and marketing folks are attracted to AI for the admin support it can offer: automation of coverage, news, key themes tracking and reporting, its ability to support marketing teams by creating hyper-personalized content, deep diving, and summarizing complex topics are just a few examples.
Reducing workload by offloading time-consuming admin sounds perfect in theory; it gives time-stricken teams with tight deadlines more time to focus on getting results, unburdens creativity, and allows us to come up with the next ‘big’ idea. However, there are guidelines and considerations to be accounted for, now brought to the forefront by the sudden integration of AI into everything.
Acknowledging the risks and challenges
Accuracy and reliability of AI:
Concerns around the accuracy of content that Large Language Models (LLMs) output are growing at the same speed as the innovation in AI itself. Take the phenomenon dubbed ‘AI Hallucinations’, for example. It’s a term used to refer to cases in which AI will generate false or misleading information, presented as fact, when an AI model fills in gaps with plausible – but ultimately incorrect – data from its training set. In theory, this is a perfect starting point for a new idea, in practice, it reinforces the need for a human expert to double-check its work.
Acknowledging that the accuracy of AI isn’t always up to scratch has understandably also sparked conversations around the wider impact of that on reliability. PR and marketing are built on a foundation of relationships. If you knowingly or unknowingly provide audiences with information that is riddled with errors, inaccuracies, or contains bias, then you are risking your reliability, your relationships, and ultimately, the reputation of your work. This is a risky move in the communications industry.
AI and ethical implications:
Significantly, concerns around the ethical implications of AI are becoming prominent, particularly when discussing reliability through different lenses: consent, privacy, the use of data, and transparency. There are more obvious areas to be aware of – such as never feeding an AI confidential material, and only using publicly available information when using an AI, to prevent it from using that data to train itself. There are, of course, ways to mitigate this. For example, the (sometimes expensive) paid models of some LLMs allow users to opt out of chats being used to train their models. But how trustworthy that is in an age of shaky data practices remains to be seen.
Time investment for AI:
Something often unaccounted for when discussing AI integration and adoption is simply time investment. An LLM is only as good as the prompts inputted, which means that for the fewest amount of errors and the least amount of time wasted in trial-and-error searches, there needs to be a considerable time investment in training people to know how to create the best prompts to get the most effective information.
Not only that, but to create custom GPTs to aid with things such as monitoring and analysis, you might need to dip into training people how to code. Granted, it’s basic coding that the parent GPT can support with (or that might already exist on the internet), but it’s something to consider when going all-in on using these tools.
AI and Sustainability:
Hand-in-hand with time investment is the growing concern around increased AI adoption is that of sustainability. In 2023, researchers found that a single AI-generated image can use as much energy as charging a smartphone. In a separate report released in 2023, there was an average of 31 million AI images generated per day. As of 2025, that number is now 34 million per day, and that’s just for generating images. A single message with an AI bot requires ten times as much electricity as an online search. Understandably, this has raised concerns with sustainability experts and activists about the long-term impact on climate change as the planet continues to heat up.
It’s likely that as AI technology improves and its uses are refined, more specialized and energy-efficient versions of the technology will become available. For the time being, as AI continues to be integrated into everything from search results to home applications, its carbon footprint will continue to grow alongside our own, and more meaningful, actionable conversations should be had about the impact of that and how we can mitigate it.
For technology that continues to change and advance every day, it’s an ongoing investment to achieve the best results. This means that adapting this won’t come at the same cost to everyone, with smaller businesses facing a bigger cost impact than others when adopting these tools. Being aware of the risks is a good starting point for learning how to navigate them and evaluate how best you can adopt AI into PR and marketing for the best results.
AI and humans can work in harmony
Alongside the precautions, AI is a diamond in the rough; it has already demonstrated its huge potential and benefits to offer to the communications industry, and despite all of its risks, AI isn’t a technology that should be dismissed.
We know that humans still stand out for our ability to connect through emotions. The most creative and impactful campaigns come from human hearts and minds, so we know AI won’t replace our human approach to creating campaigns and communications strategies; however, it can support us. AI can and should be used in generating thought-provoking ideas or predicting impact before a news story goes live, for example.
The way to use AI to its fullest capability is to master the art of collaboration. LLMs haven’t yet reached the point of being completely trustworthy on their own, so the value of human input should not be disregarded. Whilst undeniably useful, AI is not, and should not, be the end-all, be-all. Making it such will create an unstable industry, where clients will receive bad work, freelancers will receive bad work, and before we know it, the foundational skills of PR and marketing will be long forgotten.
In terms of calculating predictions and impact, if 2025 has shown us anything so far, it’s that we’re in increasingly uncharted territory for what will cause a scandal – we’re looking at you, Coldplay concert!
AI has, and will continue to be, an integral part of crisis comms. Its efficacy has already been demonstrated when used to predict crises and simulate crisis scenarios by companies across the globe.
Access to and the ability to process all the information available about an industry, its history, and market conditions means that AI models will anticipate situations that might have otherwise been missed or have not happened yet. This is a great way to allow PR teams to prepare response strategies for every eventuality, better than we have been so far. Once again, the human expert cannot be missing from the picture to be able to address a crisis in an appropriately humane way and be adaptable to the situation.
And of course, it shouldn’t be dismissed that AI tools are an asset for visual storytelling. Long gone are the days of struggling to create a visual concept for an idea, when AI tools can easily create the perfect visual, without much of a hassle or a background in design. This will continue to grow in impact once the sustainability aspect of it is no doubt addressed with future technological advancements.
Looking at an AI-powered future
With AI changing every day, it’s a Sisyphean task to predict exactly where it’ll end up in a month, let alone a year, and how that will continue to shape the industry. Who knows – maybe we are all wrong and are shortly to be replaced by the very models we ask for support! I’m a big fan of sci-fi; however, I feel that may be taking it a bit too far to have this become our reality.
With the current use of AI being to cut down administrative tasks and create content, it has been simultaneously a revolutionary support tool and a point of concern for the growth and sustainability of the industry. After all, the craft of storytelling is one of the foundations of what we do.
Traditionally, industry juniors are tasked with the most administrative responsibilities of monitoring and reporting. The delegation of these tasks to AI should, excitingly, mean that juniors can get involved and contribute in a more impactful way, earlier on in their career. This has the power to change the trajectory of the industry’s career ladder as we know it, as long as the introduction of AI doesn’t reduce the number of entry-level jobs available.
PR and marketing, as industries, pride themselves on creativity. With a slow but present shift to more diverse hiring, there is a vision in place to ensure creativity is captured from everyone who has to offer it, no matter their background. This should continue despite the growth of AI in the industry, especially if there is an opportunity to get new creativity in the room, faster, and uphold a smooth workflow with the benefits of AI handling the research and admin side of things. The less exciting stuff.
AI’s second most influential impact, being used for content generation, is also a great asset. If you are already a good writer who can review and edit the shortcomings of AI-generated text, this is an editorial dream. Looking to the future, the use of AI for this purpose shouldn’t stop, but should account for all the challenges it presents, taking note of the accuracy of LLMs, the reliability, and the long-term impacts of even a minor oversight.
For me, the ideal endpoint is when AI becomes a reliable sidekick with a significantly smaller environmental impact. At Gallium, we champion sustainability and will continue to invest our time and value in the people; they are the foundation of PR, our relationships, and our results. At the same time, we recognise the value of AI and its benefits when adopted effectively. We look forward to seeing this innovation evolve, and PR and marketing with it.
