'AI needs more uptake and investment from the PR industry'

AI has gradually become an indelible part of our everyday lives over the last few years. From voice assistants and smart tech to autonomous vehicles and more, artificial intelligence and its applications are making our lives efficient on a daily basis. It has made its presence and utility felt in PR and communication, which are as much a part of our world today as technological innovations.

One of the sessions at the 3rd edition of the e4m PR & Corp Comm Women Achievers Summit and Awards 2022, held recently at Shangri-La Eros Hotel in the capital, focused on the ' The advent of AI and the ways it is shaping consumer experience'. The panellists - Atipriya Sarawat, Vice President, brand, communication and corporate citizenship, Fiserv; Priya Patankar, Head of Communications, PhonePe and Ridhi Agarwal, head - brand, marketing and communications, Delhivery – were joined by moderator Shrabasti Mallik from e4m.

Speaking on the advent of AI and how it has changed the world of PR and communications, Sarawat said, "When I think specifically of the PR and corp comm industry, the first thing that comes to my mind is how can we streamline routine workflows, especially in today's time when the productivity of employees and associates has become such a big talking point.

"But if you ask me specifically if there are any real solid use cases of PR really leveraging AI or communication – I haven't seen any. What I would like to learn is how we can leverage predictive analytics to be able to preempt a crisis for a client or whether AI can help us create new frameworks for measuring what we do in PR. I think the opportunities are huge, there is a lot of progress that we have made but I think that it requires a little more uptake and a lot more investment from our part as an industry.”

Echoing some of Saraswat's thoughts, Patankar pointed out, “There are three advantages that I largely see. AI has automated a lot of the 'busy work' and the team is usefully and gainfully employed.

"The second is social listening and digital trends are available in a shape and form which we can easily consume and figure out what is really going on with our brands. My brand is a digital-only and digital-first brand so those things do become important for us.

"Third, since I was also managing CRM for PhonePe till last year, and when I started managing CRM initially, a lot of the target groups used to be manually created. We stitched them together. But with time, when we started using AI and ML signals, we realised that we were actually able to target specific attributes, but that's not PR. We were sending customers communication, which was a lot personalised because we knew a lot more about them. Machines were getting more intelligent, with the kind of campaigns we were sending. I am hoping that some of that learning can also flow in PR eventually.”

Although Agarwal's thoughts resonated with that of her colleagues, she made some compelling points of her own. “I see AI and communication helping PR and communications from targeting your consumers better, more from a marketing perspective, and using AI as a marketing tool to reach an audience. We can tailor-make our content and messaging to reach a TG and I think that that should be the way to go,” she elucidated and added, “ A stronger use case I am yet to come across. Social listening is definitely helping target our audience better.”