Digital PR and chatGPT: Should the PR world be worried?

Last week we got caught up in the buzz about chatGPT after hearing about numerous case studies across different industries. I got to thinking about how chatGPT might impact our own sector of PR and specifically digital PR. So I decided to put it to the test.

Chat GPT is developed by OpenAI. These are same developers that brought us AI image generator DALL-E). It is described as a language model, and I asked it to write a blog post. I wanted to discuss its own effect on digital PR. I posted the results on our website. Having had some time to review what it came up with, and conduct some further tests, I’ve listed some initial thoughts below. People who were understandably concerned can let out a sigh of relief, my estimation is that our jobs are safe (for now!).

Prone to mistakes

After asking it to write a match report for a recent Swindon match (niché I know) it came back with information about a match from a previous season. It also got the names of some of the players wrong, and was quite generic in its response.

Can’t presently comment on current events

Expanding on the football theme, I then asked it to give me a match report for the Portugal-Morocco match that had taken place during the World Cup. I was told that it’s knowledge only goes as recent as December 2021. For campaigns that are reactive and reflective of the news agenda, this is obviously an issue, and so it’s application within PR at this stage is limited.

Quite generic

A PR’s strength lies in storytelling, pulling out the interesting parts from the information and developing them into stories. That can include hooks, combining data, unique information and interesting angles. These all craft cohesive themes with a consistent narrative strung through them. chatGPT can provide copy that can easily pass as having being written by a human. But, it lacks that sparkle that make a good PR’s writing stand out.

chatGPT’s potential value for digital PR

While we may be a way off from being out of jobs, there is still real-world value in using technology such as chatGPT. For example, it is a good tool for generating ideas quickly. I was putting together some ideas for green New Years resolutions and was struggling with inspiration. ChatGPT came back with 10 interesting ideas, almost immediately. While its output currently needs work to be developed, it is already a useful tool for sparking creative ideas. It could also be used draft basic press releases and blogs, which still need a human touch to refine them.

Our tip for the future

Organisations that are innovative and strive to work with AI will benefit most. The technology will inevitably progress and the learning will become more developed. Therefore this real-world use of AI technology such as GPT will evolve. The skill of PR, relationship-building, finding creative angles and opportunities and co-ordinating complex plans involves collaboration across teams. So thsi means that (for the foreseeable future at least) digital PR in human form won’t become obsolete.

To read what chatGPT had to see about itself, check the blog post here.