Balancing Act: Implementing AI into marketing and public relations work 

The world of marketing and public relations is evolving faster than ever before and staying ahead of the curve is no longer a competitive advantage– it’s a necessity. Especially when the goal is to deliver top-tier results for clients.  

It should come as no surprise that artificial intelligence (AI) is responsible for the majority of the industry-wide state of urgency. And whether you like it or not, AI capabilities will continue to expand and improve at exponential rates– making it pertinent that marketers and creative teams learn to embrace, adapt, and leverage the booming technology!  

The Rise of AI  

The tale is as old as time– your old pocket-size dictionary was replaced with spell-check, the broom replaced by the Roomba, and Siri has made multi-tasking easier than ever. AI isn’t new, it is evolving.  

As early adopters of artificial intelligence technology, we’ve been able to streamline previously tedious clerical tasks, intercept the threat of potential PR crisis on behalf of clients, improve the efficiency and accuracy of reporting, and foster both ideation and inspiration during creative processes.  

However, the benefits of AI integration stretch far beyond improving the efficiency and accuracy of numbers and stats. Alleviating our team from the mental load associated with mundane, laborious tasks has increased overall bandwidth and has also freed up space for their raw talents to thrive. The result? Award-winning work.   

Successfully Implementing AI 

Employing AI as a supplementary aid rather than the definitive solution is imperative for agencies that are looking to still establish meaningful connections for brands with their audiences. Here are a few examples of how we enlist the power of AI in our day-to-day operations:  

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Our go-to tool for task management, used agency-wide, is Asana. With the help of Asana we’ve been able to efficiently track project deadlines, organize client success teams for internal communications, successfully onboard new team members, and more. However, thanks to recent Asana’s AI integrations, our team is spending even less time tracking deadlines and more time creating!  

Here are a few of our favorite AI upgrades from Asana:  

• Auto-generated Subtasks: Using information within a parent task, Asana Intelligence has the ability to auto-generate actionable subtasks, each with descriptions and assignee 
• Smart Summaries: AI does the legwork and gathers action items, tasks, and highlights key details from an assigned task 
• Smart Editor: Helps teams to write clearer, more compelling tasks or responses that strike the right tone (for example, polite vs. direct or concise vs. detailed).  

SOCIAL MEDIA

Beyond task management, we’re big fans of the AI advancements within the social media realm. Through Social Listening tools like Brandwatch our social media team is able to monitor the conversations happening on social media across over 100 million sources on behalf of our clients and intercept any emerging threats using Brandwatch’s smart, real-time alerts. Brandwatch AI advancements also provide valuable insights regarding the sentiment of online conversations about the brands we represent, news stories, trends and more!

CREATIVE

Surprisingly, AI has impacted our teams creative process– for the better. Surely we’ve all encountered AI-generated images that appear realistic at first glance, only to reveal subtle flaws such as missing fingers and misplaced backgrounds upon closer inspection, serving as a poignant reminder that nothing quite compares to the human touch. However, with the proper tools intact, AI can serve as a powerful ally for creatives.  

Here are a few of our favorite ways to embrace AI in the creative process:  

• Inspiration and Idea Generation: AI tools like ChatGPT can help creatives find new sources of inspiration by generating fresh ideas, suggesting key words, connecting ideas, and organizing thoughts.  
• Visual Ingenuity: Visual artists can use AI-generated images as a tool to source inspiration. AI technologies currently have the ability to draft up abstract patterns, warp images, and create unique compositions, fueling an artist’s creative spark 
• Automated Content Generation: Language and image-based AI models have the ability to instantaneously generate articles, blog posts, and social media posts. While this content still needs the human touch to edit any flaws, it can help to save a few steps and work as a valuable time-saving resource  

You’ve heard the old adage before– you snooze, you lose! Instead of looking at AI as a threat or a definitive solution, look to embrace it as a supplementary aid to your agency’s success. Artificial Intelligence and technological advancements aren’t slowing down anytime soon, so it is better to get your team on board sooner than later!