In this episode, Jessica Pantages joins host Jason Mudd to explore how AI is reshaping storytelling and public relations
Tune in to learn more!
Watch the episode here:
Listen to the episode here:
5 things you’ll learn during the full episode:
- How AI is enhancing PR storytelling and content workflows
- Why marketers must understand prompt crafting and data literacy
- Ways PR pros can use AI to develop personalized media pitches and optimize translation at scale
- The importance of AI governance, including style guides, usage policies, and compliance tracking
- How communications professionals can evolve into “story systems architects”
About Jessica Pantages
Jessica Pantages is the chief communications officer at Egnyte, where she leads the company’s global corporate marketing and communications strategy. With over two decades of experience across aerospace, construction, consumer tech, and B2B software, Jessica brings a deep understanding of how to connect complex technology with real-world audiences.
At Egnyte, she helps teams leverage AI to streamline workflows, enhance storytelling, and maintain brand integrity at scale. Her leadership has been instrumental in navigating major company milestones, including a recent acquisition, and in guiding her team through the evolving landscape of content creation, governance, and digital engagement. Jessica is passionate about blending human creativity with machine insight to shape the future of PR and marketing.
Quotables
- “Humans will set the narrative arc and the ethics. Machines will handle the infinite micro stories.” — @JessicaPantages
- “If you try to avoid AI now, you’re just going to find yourself in a heap of trouble in the future.” — @JessicaPantages
- “Treat AI like any other vendor. You need a usage log, disclosure rules, and a style guide.” — @JessicaPantages
- “We’re just at the beginning of figuring out the prompts that give us usable drafts.” — @JessicaPantages
- “AI is a great beginning, but a terrible ending. It still needs human oversight.” — @JasonMudd9
Resources
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Additional Resources from Axia Public Relations:
- On Top of PR podcast episodes
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Episode Highlights
- [00:04:02] AI Is a Great Beginning, But Not an Ending
“AI is a great beginning, but it’s a terrible ending.” - [00:12:09] Governance Matters When Using AI in PR
“Governance is a really important component of this, so we treat generative AI just like any other vendor.” - [00:15:32] We Need to Learn How to Prompt, Not Just Write
“We’re going to have to learn how to prompt instead of how to write, and we’re going to have to be really thoughtful about how we present that work and how we layer our own values on top of it.” - [00:20:48] AI Will Change Roles, Not Replace Them
“It’s going to be less about how many words I wrote and more about the effectiveness of the words I directed.”
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Transcript
00:00:00:00 – 00:00:18:07
Jessica
Well, and it gets really interesting with AI too, when you start using it. I mean, my team right now, we’ve been having, kind of a debate amongst the entire marketing team around how which, type of apps we’re going to be using, which agents AI agents will be using. And we’ve been trying to figure out which ones are the best.
00:00:18:07 – 00:00:39:16
Jessica
One sees what our AI architecture is actually going to end up looking like. And we’ve had a number of people, for over a year, really testing different, agents within the AI atmosphere. And it’s interesting because one of, the people came back and she was saying, you know, I really like using all of these. They’re very helpful in writing a first draft.
00:00:39:20 – 00:00:59:03
Jessica
But there’s a lot of hallucinations within it. So, for instance, she would give a transcript of an entire, interview with a customer to develop a case study. But the AI agent would come up with a quote that was not within the interview. And so she would kind of talk about, well, what do I do in that case?
00:00:59:03 – 00:01:26:00
Jessica
And how do I how do we figure out that, you know, to get AI to better understand us? Now, most people understand with AI you have to just keep using it daily in order for it to really start to understand you. However, there is a place for us. I don’t think anyone has to worry about their jobs in marketing and communications because you can still get a good first draft like that, but it still takes human intelligence to then go back through, edit, review it, fix the quote.
00:01:26:00 – 00:01:34:24
Jessica
That wasn’t a real quote. You know, you’re never going to get something perfect from an AI, so you have to always have us here to really help, interpret.
00:01:34:24 – 00:01:44:23
Announcer
Welcome to On Top of PR with Jason Mudd.
00:01:44:23 – 00:02:13:28
Jason
Hello and welcome to On Top of PR, Jason Mudd with Axia Public Relations. Today we’re joined by Jessica Pantages. She is a seasoned marketing professional with more than 20 years of experience leading communications and aerospace, agricultural, construction, consumer and technology industries. As chief communications officer at ignite, she leads a global corporate marketing team that recently finalized the acquisition of ignite by two private equity firms.
00:02:13:28 – 00:02:16:00
Jason
Jessica, welcome to On Top of PR.
00:02:16:05 – 00:02:18:23
Jessica
Thank you, Jason, it’s a pleasure to be here today.
00:02:18:25 – 00:02:28:01
Jason
Yeah, I’m glad to be here too. And glad we got connected. We’ve known each other for years, and, we’re finally able to press, record and have a conversation with our audience.
00:02:28:02 – 00:02:30:09
Jessica
Yes, exactly. It’s been overdue.
00:02:30:12 – 00:02:43:10
Jason
Jessica, tell me, our tell our audience the kind of, elevator or executive summary of your company. What do you do and where do you do it? And you know what are some of your companies, what makes your company unique?
00:02:43:15 – 00:03:14:20
Jessica
Yeah, absolutely. So ignite is a B2B software company. We work in the collaboration, governance and, security spaces. We focus primarily on verticals such as construction, AEC, Life Sciences, and also, financial services. And so essentially we create a platform where people can share information. And we also have a very big area right now in AI.
00:03:14:21 – 00:03:21:00
Jessica
So we are looking at ways that we can leverage AI across, these vertical industries and beyond.
00:03:21:03 – 00:03:44:15
Jason
Very nice. Well, everybody’s interested in talking about AI and generative AI. We have our most popular episodes of On Top of PR tend to be where we explore AI. So I’m sure our, audience is going to be excited to to learn more from you today as we talk about our topic today of AI enhanced storytelling and empowering human creativity with machine insights.
00:03:44:17 – 00:03:55:11
Jason
So, Jessica, let’s start off, tell us a little bit more about how you first started working with AI and your transition into, working in the industry.
00:03:55:13 – 00:04:18:08
Jessica
Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think, you know, AI is certainly the topic de jure, and it is a space where marketing and communication and some people in our profession have to get much better at using AI, and I think it will help us in the future, become more efficient, more effective, and allow us to get even more done while still not losing that human aspect to it.
00:04:18:10 – 00:04:41:20
Jessica
So with the topic, you know, we discussed with AI enhancing storytelling and I think that is a way that communicators and marketers can use and look at AI. So it’s this idea of a fusion of human narrative instinct with machine intelligence. So if you think about it, you know, there are generative models in AI that can draft first past headlines.
00:04:41:23 – 00:05:16:04
Jessica
They can translate social media data. They can even create images on the fly. These are things that my team is actually doing right now, and it allows my team then to focus more on strategy and relationships than on some of the more tactical type things that we had been doing in the past. And a lot of other companies are looking at this too, you know, I was just reading the other day about the Associated Press partnership with Automated Insights, and now what they’re doing is they’re having AI auto right, 3000, more than 3000 actually quarterly earnings stories.
00:05:16:06 – 00:05:36:07
Jessica
And that helps, the reporters be able to then chase down deeper features about earnings. So I think I can really help us spread the human, human capacity and capabilities of contextualizing business information into pitches, press releases, and making them more relevant to reporters.
00:05:36:09 – 00:06:07:28
Jason
Very nice. So that’s one of the things I’ve told, clients and prospective clients for years is this idea that, you know, if they choose to outsource to a public relations agency that actually allows them to focus more on strategies and relationship building and being a trusted advisor internally? Yeah, through their organization. And I think sometimes people, you know, companies might feel a little threatened by bringing in outside, you know, PR, you know, and as you know, maybe a threat to their employment.
00:06:07:28 – 00:06:32:27
Jason
But actually, I look at it as the other way around is it empowers you to be able to delegate to the expertise of the PR firm while you remain highly available. And so if you think about it, if you’re tasked with a full day of work and then in and out of meetings, when are you going to feel, available and confident and, and, and helpful to the executive team members who need guidance, right.
00:06:32:29 – 00:06:54:15
Jason
So, you know, we want to be a trusted advisor to our clients, and our clients want to be a trusted advisor to the C-suite and executives within their organization. So, you know, when I talk to people who are not using AI, I really look at it as, you know, incredible missed opportunity to kind of elevate themselves into a highest and best use instead of doing a lot of the grunt work and the heavy lifting.
00:06:54:15 – 00:06:56:11
Jason
And I think you summarized that well.
00:06:56:13 – 00:07:13:07
Jessica
Yeah, absolutely. And I agree with you. I think this is something also the certainly I’m sure your agency is doing, you know, leveraging AI. And I think it’s it’s interesting, you know, in the past, perhaps people could have had that kind of perspective with agencies and be a little bit cautious. That was never my approach. I agree with you.
00:07:13:07 – 00:07:35:16
Jessica
I think it’s, you know, best to be able to have your people shine internally and allow some of the, you know, arms and legs and things that you need being done by an agency. But I think that, you know, for marketing and communications professionals taking AI and, and saying, I’m not, you know, I don’t think I want to use that because, you know, it’ll take away from what I can do.
00:07:35:18 – 00:07:49:22
Jessica
I think it actually can really enhance it. And I think that if you try to avoid AI now, you’re just going to find yourself in a heap of trouble in the future. You need we need as a profession to be able to figure out how we can really use it.
00:07:49:24 – 00:08:09:10
Jason
I totally agree, the analogy I’m using is, you know, you know what? Were you hesitant to start using a word processor? You know, when you were coming in your career and then, oh, were you hesitant to use a computer where you hesitant to use email? Were you hesitant to use the internet where hesitant to use text messaging and then social media?
00:08:09:13 – 00:08:23:17
Jason
You know, the answer is yes to those things, and you haven’t learned the lesson yet. You know, maybe it is time to find something else to do. But at the end of the day, you know, when I hear college professors say they don’t let their students use AI, I’m like, that’s like telling them, don’t use the internet.
00:08:23:19 – 00:08:45:22
Jason
You’re you’re you’re you’re you’re handcuffing them to not be able to use the tools that are readily available for them to, you know, produce their best work. So I don’t think anybody’s learning a lesson by being forbidden from using, you know, I, I think it’s teaching them. And I hope we’ll get to this later. You know, the ethical behavior of how to use AI, and how to fully leverage it.
00:08:45:22 – 00:08:46:26
Jason
So. Good.
00:08:46:29 – 00:08:47:16
Jessica
Yeah.
00:08:47:18 – 00:08:57:26
Jason
And so, you mentioned that your team is actively using generative AI to, develop images. What what tools do you recommend for doing that?
00:08:57:29 – 00:09:18:08
Jessica
Oh, my gosh, I should have known that you were going to ask me that. You know, there’s a couple different tools that my team has been using. First and foremost, you know, for headlines and for, improving our writing, improving our review times. We’ve been using things like Grammarly, EW.com and ChatGPT, which are pretty basic ones.
00:09:18:08 – 00:09:43:02
Jessica
I think that most people have been using, creative. My creative team is using Midjourney and Magnify AI as well as Firefly. So a couple of those are already incorporated into Adobe Suite. But it’s been very helpful for us. We just had three big vertical summits, virtual ones, and we were able to utilize AI generated imagery to get them all done within a very short amount of time.
00:09:43:04 – 00:10:13:01
Jason
Well, that’s music to, I think, everyone’s ears. So yeah, you know, we love our art directors. But sometimes they can take a long time and and honestly, you know, sometimes we’re not giving them the input that they need. And so I saw a meme floating around that said, you know, for people that work in marketing and PR and they, I believe this person use the term clients to refer to both you know, agency clients, but also to the clients that, you know, entail in-house people are serving the executives, in-house people are serving.
00:10:13:01 – 00:10:32:06
Jason
And they said, you know, you know, the best part about generative AI is that, you know, we’ll never be, you know, it’ll never take away our jobs because, you know, clients struggle to give really good input and input. That’s helpful, you know, and and so that even I learned, you know, interfacing with gen AI is I’m giving it input.
00:10:32:06 – 00:10:49:25
Jason
I’m like, okay, I used an expression that’s not as clear and direct as this needs to be to, to give it the direction and steps that I wanted to take. So I might use a colloquialism or something like that, that it just completely misunderstood. So, you know, I’m always stressing to people the importance of language and accurate language.
00:10:50:05 – 00:10:51:05
Jessica
Oh, absolutely.
00:10:51:05 – 00:10:53:29
Jason
Yes. Is even more of a reality check, I think, for them.
00:10:54:02 – 00:10:54:13
Jessica
Yeah.
00:10:54:13 – 00:11:12:23
Jessica
Well, and it gets really interesting with AI too, when you start using it. I mean, my team right now, we’ve been having, kind of a debate amongst the entire marketing team around how which, type of apps we’re going to be using, which agents AI agents will be using. And we’ve been trying to figure out which ones are the best.
00:11:12:23 – 00:11:34:02
Jessica
One sees what our AI architecture is actually going to end up looking like. And we’ve had a number of people, for over a year, really testing different, agents within the AI atmosphere. And it’s interesting because one of, the people came back and she was saying, you know, I really like using all of these. They’re very helpful in writing a first draft.
00:11:34:06 – 00:11:53:19
Jessica
But there’s a lot of hallucinations within it. So, for instance, she would give a transcript of an entire, interview with a customer to develop a case study. But the AI agent would come up with a quote that was not within the interview. And so she would kind of talk about, well, what do I do in that case?
00:11:53:19 – 00:12:20:16
Jessica
And how do I how do we figure out that, you know, to get AI to better understand us? Now, most people understand with AI you have to just keep using it daily in order for it to really start to understand you. However, there is a place for us. I don’t think anyone has to worry about their jobs in marketing and communications because you can still get a good first draft like that, but it still takes human intelligence to then go back through, edit, review it, fix the quote.
00:12:20:16 – 00:12:29:16
Jessica
That wasn’t a real quote. You know, you’re never going to get something perfect from an AI, so you have to always have us here to really help, interpret.
00:12:30:04 – 00:12:48:26
Jason
Yeah. I mean, our loyal listeners have heard me say a number of times that, you know, AI is a great beginning, but a terrible ending. So meaning that, you know, it’s a great first draft. I equate it to having an intern or an entry level employee, and you have to oversee their work. And, you know, we’ve we’ve seen headlines over the years where an intern is allowed to do something.
00:12:48:26 – 00:13:13:19
Jason
And then it backfires in some way because of just the quality control or the lack of experience and similar things here. You know, a little hack that I’ve developed is I have a text replacement script that I prompt that basically tells, you know, for frequent commands that I will give to an, a generative AI tool. And one of them is, you know, basically like, hey, please double check your work.
00:13:13:19 – 00:13:46:03
Jason
You know, make sure, you know, you fact checked everything and you haven’t created content that didn’t exist with within the parameters or the input that I originally gave you because, you know, the, the false information is, is a big challenge. And, you know, another story that I’ve told before, Jessica, is one time I was working on, something and I asked, the gender of AI to absolutely verify these two facts, about a, company’s, background or their product in this particular case.
00:13:46:05 – 00:14:06:01
Jason
And it came back to me and it said, you know, I contacted Chris, and, at the company, and Chris verified, you know, A, B, and C, and I’m like, wait a minute. Like it came back with that response like that. And I’m like, how in the world did you call Chris? And that doesn’t seem like something that, you know, you one had time to do to that.
00:14:06:01 – 00:14:25:11
Jason
You know, I think it was in with your capabilities. And so I really doubled down on this and I just said, okay, what did Chris say exactly? How did you reach them? What’s Chris’s last name? What department? You know, and all this. And it just started out like, it’s like I didn’t get the last name. They work in, product support and all this stuff, and I was like, okay, this is crazy.
00:14:25:11 – 00:14:41:17
Jason
So I picked up the phone, called the receptionist at this company, and I said, do you have a Chris that works in product support? And they’re like, no, there’s only three people in product support, you know, and Chris is not one of them. And so I went back to, you know, that, I and I said, hey, what happened here?
00:14:41:17 – 00:15:04:02
Jason
You know, whatever. And, and ultimately, you know, it said, yeah, I called it, you know, at 1 p.m. and I’m on Eastern time, right. And it was only 1250, you know, and I’m like, how did you call it? 1 p.m. eastern time? It’s only 1250. And then it just started breaking down, like, you know, almost like, traumatic therapy session, like, oh, I’m sorry, I actually didn’t call.
00:15:04:04 – 00:15:25:13
Jason
And then I’m like, okay, why would you make this up? So I just kept having this conversation. You know, it’s a learning experience for me. Yeah. And, you know, that has given me heartburn and stress ever since. Because, you know, you really do have to just fact check and verify everything that, that it produces. So when you go into it with that lens and, and some cynicism, you know, it can be useful.
00:15:25:13 – 00:15:43:04
Jason
And I think a lot of people, when they say extreme, extreme statements like, I can always tell when something’s I generate, it’s like, well, you can probably tell when something’s been poorly. I generated with either poor input or not enough training. Because meanwhile, some of the content I’ve produced in our agency’s producing, you can’t tell it’s AI.
00:15:43:06 – 00:15:50:15
Jason
Even in the first draft. But that’s because we’ve invested hours, in training and uploading input and giving information to it.
00:15:50:17 – 00:16:00:05
Jessica
Exactly. It does. It takes a long time to train AI, and to make sure that you’re giving them the right prompts in order to get the model to spit out, usable drafts.
00:16:00:05 – 00:16:13:14
Jason
So 100%. Yeah. Okay. So some of the items we want to discuss today is how AI is transforming PR, by turning consumers into co-creators and enhancing engagement strategies.
00:16:13:17 – 00:16:40:05
Jessica
Yeah. I mean, I think there’s some really interesting, case studies out there of ways that we are trying to better engage consumers, and make them sort of AI advocates for our brands. You know, if you think about Coca Cola, just how to create real magic, where they invited fans to remix the classic Coke ai, iconography with ChatGPT and Dali.
00:16:40:08 – 00:17:06:15
Jessica
And it was interesting because for the way that Coke did that while protecting its brand is they provided a website for a limited time with access to branded elements to digital designers. And then the campaign became part of Coca-Cola’s Real Magic global brand platform, which is rooted in this idea that magic lives in unexpected moments of collection that happen every day and create an extraordinary, you know, environment.
00:17:06:17 – 00:17:33:07
Jessica
So the crowd generated, art filled outdoor billboards, they had social media fields. They had an entire, user generated, you know, area where people could go in and see these beautiful images that were created. And I felt like that was a really good example of how you can still manage your brand, but allow your consumers to come in, get more, hands on with your brand, and create incredible things that you can then leverage.
00:17:33:09 – 00:17:38:25
Jessica
So the brand keeps the oversight, but you end up with this user generated storytelling.
00:17:38:27 – 00:17:57:24
Jason
Yeah, I like that. That’s pretty cool. I think, you know, there’s always seems to be, you know, like a theme when it comes to, like, what I thought it was like, you know, using something like that to create Super Bowl advertisements, right? Where, you know, that could be something that, I think, companies and brands could look into.
00:17:57:26 – 00:18:07:05
Jason
This episode is brought to you by audible. Enjoy 30 days free of Audible Premium Plus by going to on top of Pre-comp audible.
00:18:07:05 – 00:18:31:22
Announcer
You’re listening to on top of PR with your host, Jason Mudd. Jason is a trusted advisor to some of America’s most admired and fastest growing brands. He is the managing partner at Axia Public Relations, a PR agency that guides news, social and web strategies for national companies. And now, back to the show.
00:18:31:22 – 00:18:34:14
Jason
So, any other thoughts on how AI is transforming PR?
00:18:34:17 – 00:18:56:13
Jessica
Yeah. You know, I think for PR in particular, you know, a lot of PR work has been, you know, drafting media pitches. The way that we’re now using it in ignite is we can, leverage one of the AI agents to auto draft these media pitches for us. And then what we tell it to do is to go look at a journalist’s last three byline.
00:18:56:13 – 00:19:24:12
Jessica
So we provide that training to the AI agent, and then we ask them to tailor hooks accordingly. So that’s one way that we’re doing it. We also are using, you know, translation AI globally to make sure that they’re translating our press releases. Having translation, tools for video captions and then deep diving into figuring out more technical topics, you know, having, I help us leverage that from a tech perspective.
00:19:24:15 – 00:19:29:21
Jessica
So how do we take technical topics and make them more accessible to the average person?
00:19:29:21 – 00:19:33:01
Jessica
So we’ve been using that a lot in our press office.
00:19:33:01 – 00:19:53:03
Jason
Nice. One thing that I’ve been struggling with, with and comes to AI is, you know, you’ve got so much power and content capabilities at your fingertips, but I’m often producing more content than I can actually do something with. Right. Yeah. And I worry that, not only, you know, do I feel that way, but that might colleagues will feel that way as well.
00:19:53:06 – 00:19:56:18
Jason
Is that something you guys have faced, and if so, how are you addressing it?
00:19:56:21 – 00:20:17:29
Jessica
Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, that’s just we kind of view that as an opportunity to be more specific in our content creation. So we now have, a really strong content calendar. And we have taken the time to use AI to look back on the content that has been created. I think, you know, a lot of companies over time.
00:20:17:29 – 00:20:35:08
Jessica
I mean, we have so much content that has been created, and I know that, you know, my peers and others have experienced this where you have to take some time to go back to look at, you know, what was created. It’s, you know, basically like a website, clean up your content cleanup. I mean, every couple of years people have to do this.
00:20:35:10 – 00:20:54:12
Jessica
But what we’re doing is implementing AI to have it automatically do it in the background for us and come back and tell us, you know, which is still relevant, which content do we need to perhaps either update or get rid of? And so that’s really been beneficial for us. I mean, I think it’s an incredible opportunity to use that for our content creation.
00:20:54:16 – 00:21:18:01
Jessica
It also helps us identify like if we have gaps in our content that we just didn’t see, maybe or if there are gaps that we purposely had. It’s good to have someone, you know, kind of remind you and look at stuff and say, okay, well, you have, you know, content in this area, but maybe, you know, for us, collaboration might need more content, whereas governance and security, we have a number of pieces of content in that area.
00:21:18:07 – 00:21:25:01
Jessica
So it helps us really know where to point our resources so that we’re using them more effectively.
00:21:25:03 – 00:21:39:23
Jason
Nice. Well, that’s a good segue. Into, why should we be paying attention to AI governance and ethical concerns around the technology rapidly evolves in the communications profession. Where are your thoughts on that, Jessica?
00:21:39:25 – 00:22:11:15
Jessica
Well, I think it’s super important to make sure that you are creating, you know, governance for your AI and being careful with your security. So, for instance, you know, I would treat it like you would any other vendor. So you need to have like an AI style guide which is parallel to your tone of voice style guide. So include, you know, things that you will not train AI’s on to like a do not train list, maybe disclosure rules and review checkpoints and, you know, a usage log for compliance.
00:22:11:21 – 00:22:19:28
Jessica
So you need something like that to make sure that, you know, people are using, is using AI appropriately for your company.
00:22:20:00 – 00:22:30:29
Jason
Okay. Great. Got it. And we’ll put in our episode notes. We’ve talked about this before, but we have an AI policy template available to our audience. So we’ll add that to the episode notes so that people can check that out.
00:22:31:01 – 00:22:34:03
Jessica
That’d be great. Yeah. That’s another important thing to have for sure. Yeah.
00:22:34:03 – 00:23:03:05
Jason
I want to circle back. Earlier in the conversation, you were outlining, a lot of very efficient things that you’re using AI for. And I’m not going to pretend to remember all of them, but there were there were several things there. And I just have to be honest, the kind of the light bulb, the contrarian view in my mind kind of popped up and said, you know, obviously some of these tasks that you’re now using AI for, you know, is eliminating, at least some labor costs from your organization.
00:23:03:05 – 00:23:25:17
Jason
You mentioned translation, you mentioned editing, and things like that. So, you know, there’s definitely some sort of pivot, that you know, the market is going to have to absorb, as you know, maybe there’s, I’ll call it, less sophisticated work being, delegated to AI. But, you know, at some point someone was making these captions or doing some sort of activities, right?
00:23:25:19 – 00:23:27:24
Jessica
Yeah. Yep.
00:23:27:26 – 00:23:47:27
Jason
And, you know, there’s certainly in the employment market, you know, we’re seeing some layoffs happen. And at least for me, part of it’s the bias of my network in my community. But I’m seeing a lot of writers who are, you know, coming out saying, hey, I’m looking for something new. And I think part of that is probably a little bit AI driven, you know, because.
00:23:48:00 – 00:23:48:26
Jessica
Yeah, there’s.
00:23:48:29 – 00:24:03:06
Jason
Content is easy to get out of a generative AI tool. Again, rough first draft needs a lot of hand-holding and tweaking, and you got to give it the input, like, we talked about, like, a style guide and otherwise. But I do sense that companies are taking advantage of them.
00:24:03:09 – 00:24:43:18
Jessica
Yeah, I think you’re right. I think it is. It is something that we as professionals in this particular profession need to be very aware of is the fact that, you know, it does make teams more efficient. And so there are potentially lesser type roles. But I always kind of view that, you know, as an opportunity for something different than, for instance, if you look at like if we kind of, equate this a little bit to like the rise of the fractional CMO or the rise of the fractional Co, I think that more companies are going to be able to take advantage of the expertise of people in our profession while also, you
00:24:43:18 – 00:25:04:00
Jessica
know, while also big companies continuing to use, you know, people and, and AI at the same time. So I think there is this opportunity for us, professionally to sort of look at our occupation in a different way. So for instance, you mentioned, like a lot of writers are out there. I mean, it’s hard to create your own firm.
00:25:04:00 – 00:25:25:07
Jessica
I’ve done it before myself. It’s really difficult and hard to get, you know, people to, hire you. But I also think, you know, when you look out there, there’s lots of websites now that have popped up that are allowing people to, you know, hire people just to do one off sort of thing. I think that might be a little bit where our, profession is moving.
00:25:25:07 – 00:25:39:16
Jessica
I think big companies are going to keep big teams. I think smaller companies might have smaller teams and be a little bit more efficient, but I think that there will be a surprise at some point to all of us that something else will rise out of this that will need.
00:25:39:19 – 00:25:44:13
Jason
Yeah, I like that. And I and I think, I tend to agree with you on that. So,
00:25:44:13 – 00:25:56:04
Jason
What, the what is the next generation of public relations and communication professionals? What must they do to master and integrate AI into their workflows?
00:25:56:06 – 00:25:58:06
Jason
Effectively?
00:25:58:06 – 00:26:04:08
Jessica
Yeah. I mean, I think a couple things. First of all, you know, you and I talked about prompt craft.
00:26:04:08 – 00:26:14:23
Jessica
I think the next generation has to know how to get the model to give them usable drafts. I think we’re just at the beginning of that. I mean, we kind of talked about it earlier about what I’m seeing at my company.
00:26:14:25 – 00:26:32:29
Jessica
I think we’re just at the beginning of like figuring out the prompts and how to create usable drafts, but that’s something that we’ll need in the next generation. Data literacy is never going to go away. I think reading dashboards for insights, not just numbers, is something that the next generation of marketing and communication professionals are going to need.
00:26:33:01 – 00:26:54:29
Jessica
And then, you know, we did kind of talk about this earlier, but I do think ethical judgment is something that is going to have to, a skill that is going to have to really be refined by people so you can spot hallucinations or bias, you know, I think senior, executives in our profession can run red train, red team drills.
00:26:54:29 – 00:26:57:10
Jessica
You know, I think they can give interns a brief,
00:26:57:10 – 00:27:03:18
Jessica
let AI generate it, then collectively critique the tone, the facts, and to make sure it’s still fits.
00:27:03:18 – 00:27:06:13
Jessica
So I think we’ll see more things like that.
00:27:06:16 – 00:27:29:22
Jason
Yeah, I totally agree. And, with what you’re saying exactly. Based on that, I’m wondering and, you know, I’m not going to make a decision right now, but I might put, some of my favorite AI prompts into this episode notes, or I might wait and record a solo cast about that or. Yeah, even put it into, our, weekly, our PR hack of the week email.
00:27:29:22 – 00:27:42:18
Jason
I have to think through where the best way to share that is. But you’re reminding me, I think that a lot of our audience would, would benefit from seeing some of the prompts that, you know, my team and I have developed that we kind of have templates for as as our go to.
00:27:42:18 – 00:27:43:28
Jessica
So yeah.
00:27:44:01 – 00:27:58:05
Jessica
Absolutely. That’s that’s something my team is working through as well. So some of my team, has more has moved further along than others. And I think that’s something that we all need to take up the mantle and just make sure that we’re doing so. That would be very helpful. Add that.
00:27:58:07 – 00:28:27:12
Jason
Yeah, I think some takeaways, from this conversation and others is one, have a AI policy that you’re doing a great job of communicating. I say both internally and externally, so that you know, your agencies, your vendors, you know, whomever you’re using are also understanding, you know, what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable. You know, to your company, number one, number two, like we said, you need to have more, I think more of an authorized tech stack, that, you know, your team is using and you’ve enabled.
00:28:27:15 – 00:28:59:01
Jason
Third, I would say is, you know, you need to have some formal. And you talked about this, some formal training or what methodology used to give the right input. And then, and then for I would say, you know, some kind of standardization of the prompting, that you would use. And then lastly, the steps that you go through once you’ve had a generative AI draft that you go through internally to make sure something just doesn’t hit and, you know, for example, I did a training with my team and I recorded it so that people who couldn’t attend live could see it later.
00:28:59:01 – 00:29:18:28
Jason
And I took one of our clients I had. I draft a bio, I showed them how it worked and blah, blah, blah. I saved it to our our shared directory, but I didn’t. Mark, this is a rough draft. This is AI generated or anything like that. But the training, if somebody watched the training it link to it. And so the person, one of the people who didn’t attend the training went to look for somebody’s bio.
00:29:18:28 – 00:29:40:02
Jason
They found the bio and they sent it and it was not correct. And, and, and I didn’t realize that they had kind of saved it or bookmarked it and was using it on the regular. It was correct enough that it worked. But, you know, at the end of the day, I learned a valuable lesson of we need to label the file, you know, to, what draft it is, or express that this was a test.
00:29:40:07 – 00:30:00:12
Jason
This was done for demonstration purposes only. And, you know, the person’s argument was why I hadn’t seen the training yet. And my argument was, well, you should have watched the training, you know, since we made that investment. So, just because we’re wrapping up here, how might our audience, best get Ahold of you? If they want to connect with you and continue the conversation.
00:30:00:15 – 00:30:13:13
Jessica
Absolutely. Well, you can reach me on my, work email at Jay pantages@ignite.com, or also on LinkedIn. Jessica Pantages. Yeah, that’s that’s quite the best way.
00:30:13:15 – 00:30:22:13
Jason
Wonderful, wonderful. Any parting words of wisdom when it comes to leveraging the power of PR and, and your role that you would want to share with your colleagues?
00:30:22:15 – 00:30:40:27
Jessica
Yeah. You know, I think in the future we’re going to end up seeing, I don’t think are is ever going to be able to write brand stories or I my apologies is never going to write brand stories by itself. I think we’re going to see story layered APIs. I think we should think of AI agents as auto assembly copy.
00:30:40:27 – 00:31:07:18
Jessica
You know, maybe imagery and tone modules based on real time audience feedback. And then we would then push out variations to social media or the newsroom in seconds. So I think humans will set the narrative arc, and the ethics and machines will handle the infinite micro stories. Right. So we should kind of view ourselves, maybe in the future as more story systems architects, instead of just communicators.
00:31:07:18 – 00:31:10:18
Jessica
And I think that’s exciting for everybody.
00:31:10:20 – 00:31:29:07
Jason
I much prefer the term architect and operator. So I’m on board with that. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, absolutely. Jessica, thanks again for being here. We really enjoyed this conversation. And, I hope you did too. Let’s stay in touch and, continue to keep our audiences updated with your progress and, your, insights.
00:31:29:10 – 00:31:32:07
Jessica
That sounds terrific. Thanks so much, Jason. This was a great time.
00:31:32:10 – 00:31:53:06
Jason
Yeah. Thank you, I agree. Thank you. So with that, it’s been another episode of On Top of PR. If you enjoyed the conversation with Jessica today, I’d hope you take a minute to share this episode with your friends and colleagues, whether that’s on social media or through email or DM or text message, whichever way you can reach someone that you know of or you can think of that would benefit from today’s conversation.
00:31:53:06 – 00:32:02:06
Jason
We want to thank Jessica for sharing her smarts with us. And, if you have any questions or comments about this episode, please feel free to leave a comment or contact Jessica directly with that. This is Jason Mudd from Axia Public Relations. Signing off, helping you stay on top of PR.
00:32:02:06 – 00:32:57:27
Announcer
This has been on top of PR with Jason Mud presented by Review Mixer. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode and check out Paso’s ad on top of pr.com.
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About your host Jason Mudd
On Top of PR host, Jason Mudd, is a trusted adviser and dynamic strategist for some of America’s most admired brands and fastest-growing companies. Since 1994, he’s worked with American Airlines, Budweiser, Dave & Buster’s, H&R Block, Hilton, HP, Miller Lite, New York Life, Pizza Hut, Southern Comfort, and Verizon. He founded Axia Public Relations in July 2002. Forbes named Axia as one of America’s Best PR Agencies.
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