Artificial Intelligence (AI) has exploded this year, and there are now more ways than ever to use it, particularly in the world of marketing and PR. Because of this, there have been lots of conversations around whether it may end up taking our jobs, but is this actually possible? Read on to find out…

It’s normal to worry about this sort of thing

In a recent survey, 37% of marketers said they were worried about losing their job to AI programs such as ChatGPT and Google Bard. However, it’s important to remember that being afraid of a machine taking your job is not a new phenomenon.

In the early 20th century, drivers of horse and carts were worried that the invention of the car would mean that people wouldn’t need to be driven anywhere anymore. Even earlier than that in the 15th century, the few people who knew how to write were worried that the invention of the printing press would mean their skills and expertise would not be needed anymore, but all it actually did was bring literature to the masses and create much more demand for what they did. While these inventions did disrupt their industries, they did not put people out of work, they just gave them different tools to use.

It’s impossible to make progress without change, and change is usually the root of our fears. We all want to progress and grow, so we have to embrace these fears and not let them stop us. As an industry, we have been through huge changes before: the introduction of GDPR, COVID-19, and even further back, the introduction of the internet and social media.

Rather than worrying about AI taking our jobs, the biggest fear we should have is not embracing new technologies when our competitors have. A recent survey by ICCO PR found that 25% of respondents said they don’t plan on ever using AI tools, which could have serious consequences for them and their clients.

How can AI help us marketers?

We at Voice personally believe that AI is highly unlikely to ‘take’ our jobs because it lacks the contextual knowledge and personal approach that humans have and can apply to different situations. For example, a lot of the information that ChatGPT currently relays is outdated and unreliable, so it still requires factchecking and the common sense not to believe everything it tells us. It also cannot offer the personal relationships that we pride ourselves on having with our clients which ultimately enable us to provide such a strong service. However, AI tools like ChatGPT can be really useful for assisting us with our jobs by:

< Speeding up processes by asking AI to do some of the heavy lifting

< Summarising long pieces of text such as books or research findings

< ‘Banishing the blank’ by giving you a starting point for press releases, blog posts, social media posts etc.

< Giving ideas for campaigns or strategies

< Proofreading

AI is just another tool at our disposal

We think it’s important to remember that AI is really just another tool at our disposal, but one that has so much potential to help us increase productivity and save time. PR guru Stephen Waddington believes that the PR industry has been slow at experimenting with AI, but that we should definitely be giving it a go even if we aren’t fully adopting it into our strategies yet.

So, hopefully this has calmed your fears a little bit and given you some ideas on what to use AI for. Whatever your stance, it’s important to be aware of the latest tools and how they are evolving, as well as who in your industry is using them. At Voice, people are at the core of everything we do and the knowledge and experience each team member brings and the relationships we form with our clients just cannot be replicated by AI.

Published on Monday 26th June 2023.