‘Industry only got amplified with the introduction of ChatGPT’

The second session of the recently-held IPRCCC 2022 engaged a group of stellar panelists in a thought-provoking discussion on the subject of Industry 4.0 and its effects on PR. The panel, moderated by Shrabasti Mallik, exchange4media, comprised Abhilasha Gupta, Head - Global Corporate Communications & Public Affairs, Tech Mahindra; Bhanu Arora, Senior Vice President - Corporate Affairs and Communications, METRO Cash & Carry India Private Limited; Lovina Gujral, COO, Candour Communications; Pranav Kumar, Managing Director, Allison + Partners, and Sayantani M Roy, Chief Strategy Officer, PR Pundit.

Industry 4.0 refers to the current era of connectivity and advanced analytics that has been transforming the industry and businesses for quite some time now. When asked how she would describe Industry 4.0 and how she sees it as, Roy said, “Industry 4.0 is nothing but digital transformation. We have seen that in PR, when we started about 22 years ago, we used to deliver press releases by hand and now we are checking press releases on Whatsapp, which is a tool and a technology. The entire digital and the technology is there in our day-to-day lives as we go on working on our operations. What I would say is, if we were to apply the principles of marketing, whish is the basic Philip Kotler of product and promotion process to this, then, the technology is all pervasive. There are products today, when we are researching data and analytics, which helps us do our job better. Are we in the right place for digital transformation? Well, yes. PR is one of the professions that has a direct access to the corner room and very few professions have that. Are we promoting it right? Well, may be not. We are talking about technology and transformation in this closed group of communicators but when you go out to digital transformation and other symposium is there anything that is discussed on PR there? May be not and we can certainly promote it better. So, overall my sense is, its there for us to embrace and it impacts all aspects of how we do our job but it is not technology versus people, it is how we make it better for ourselves and how do we deliver better for the companies who partner with us.”

Gujral added, “I do work with a fair number of technology companies. I think the Industry 4.0 essentially started with digital transform but driven by new technologies like cloud computing, IOT, robotics and automation. So, when we hear terms like AIML, these are nothing but tools that are used for digital transformation, primarily for the core industries of manufacturing etc but now we are seeing its adoption across various sectors and we see that with our clients regardless of the industry that they are functioning in and regardless of the size and scope of their business. So, it is happening everywhere. The need for this came primarily for increasing efficiency, for upgrading talent usage, for saving cost etc. So, we are seeing all these things and that is what has been primarily the change from the way businesses were conducted earlier to those that are being conducted now, post this digital transformation era. How it is affecting PR is that now regardless of whichever sector a PR professional works in, you need to be able to understand and appreciate these technologies, and to be able to build them into your messaging for your clients because every sector today is tech-driven. That, I think, is the crux of the matter. Every PR professional should be technologically well-versed and should have an understanding and should be able to weave that into a communication narrative.”

Speaking on if the PR industry is ready for this revolution and in what ways it is ready, Kumar said, “That's a great question. Do I know the answer? No. But may be I can make some assumptions. As my co-panelists rightly pointed out, Industry 4.0 has already been around for a while and I think, in some sense, may be about 10 years ago, we have really started to embrace social, digital and online more and more. So, I think knowingly or unknowingly, we have been compelled to embrace all of thse new platforms and tools, and I think, we are certainly well on that path to evolution because that is the demand of modern-day PR and modern-day corporate communications. So, I think, certainly, there are steps being taken and we are all using social media monitoring tools and CRM tools, to be able to use elements of Industry 4.0 to give us insights and data that we use to create compelling campaigns and ideas for our clients. But Industry 4.0, as a concept, has been around for a while and I think, it has only got a bit amplified with the induction of ChatGPT 3, which was at the tail end of last year.”

Talking about the possibilities and challenges that the Industrial Revolution 4.0, ChatGPT in particular, holds for the industry, Arora said, “If we have to study the Industrial Revolutions, there are opportunities and gaps, which we need to understand. The only thing that we are talking about right now is that we are are getting worried for nothing. If you see the first revolution, which started probably around the 1780s, the next revolution took 100 years. The third revolution also took about 100 years. But the fourth revolution that we are talking about now, took only about 40-50 years. It is happening at a lightening speed, which means what? We need to be kind of worried as it is being talked about everywhere. IBM laid off a lot of people and a lot of people are just worried about what will happen to their jobs. Now, ChatGPT or AI or using the digital technology, I think, there is an immense amount of opportunities which are available. Now, what is it replacing. It is replacing mundane work. We are trying to get immediate results. It has immense potential. What we can do away with are mundane jobs, rely on AI, robotics and all those things which are available -  biotech and nanotech – and which are being used currently. I think there are enough number of opportunities which needs to be explored. It is just the tip of the iceberg that we have discovered. There is a long way to go.”

Gupta added, “Technology is there for you to leverage. Now whether you make it an enabler or whether you use it for something wrong or mundane, is upto. But I think its there for all of us to use. And to answer the question of whether we are ready, I would have a slightly contrarian view and say that we are already there. I think we are already digitised and are already using these tools to our advantage. For instance, at Tech Mahindra, we are using a press release portal for the last five years, which is already a digital way of creating a press release. So, there are innumerable tasks which are there whenever a press communication goes out and we have been using this portal, which is automated every menial task of a corp comm person. So, we are already there but what do we need to do? I think we are also supposed to think about a policy and copyright issues and we need to understand that if tomorrow I am using a paragraph that ChatGPT is giving me, is that mine or is that ChatGPT's?”