6 things PR pros should understand about AI

Many talk of the impact artificial intelligence will have on PR, but there are plenty of misconceptions. Here are the basics every pro should know.

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PR pros are well acquainted with the idea that artificial intelligence (AI) will have an impact on their work. However, do they understand what impact it will have?

To get a better idea of how machine learning may affect PR, here are seven things to keep in mind, per Christopher Penn, @cspenn, an authority on analytics, digital marketing and marketing technology and co-founder of Trust Insights.

1. PR pros should understand the three things that AI does.

AI accomplishes three things:

2. PR pros must learn basic AI terms.

AI terms are often used interchangeably. It’s good to have a basic knowledge so that you know when a vendor is trying to sell you some AI-based technology that isn’t really AI.

AI is all stats and math, probability-based at its core. It’s about training a machine to think like a human.

With machine learning, you feed in lots of data which then self-assembles; that’s the value of machine learning. If you tried to write software that could predict every way someone could talk about your brand, it’s not going to happen. When it comes to analyzing media coverage, you can teach the machine positive versus negative.

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