Welcome
A week's an eternity in AI
Harold Wilson said a week's a long time in politics, but it's even longer in AI. While we were at the PRovoke Global Summit in Washington DC OpenAI announced a raft of improvements to ChatGPT, but this news was eclipsed on Friday when OpenAI's board dramatically fired CEO Sam Altman.
BREAKING NEWS: As I was finalising PR Futurist Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella tweeted to "share the news that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, together with colleagues, will be joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team."
The dust hasn't yet settled, and rumours are rife. It's by no means clear who the 'good' guys and the 'bad' guys are and if the board made the right or wrong decision.
One rumour was that OpenAI's board had made a huge mistake and Satya Nadella's tweet appears to confirm that's what Microsoft thinks. Microsoft's $10 billion investment in OpenAI gives it a big say over what happens and rights over its technology and intellectual property. This is further evidence that Microsoft is keeping well ahead of its competitors in AI.
The OpenAI announcement included the ability to create custom GPTs (we are enjoying experimenting with the amazing possibilities). Microsoft quickly followed by launching Copilot Studio that enables you to create your own custom Copilots. One thing that this means is it's now much easier to use your own intellectual property and data so generative AI content is based on your organisation's expertise and experience.
In other news Stuart is speaking at the PRCA Measurement Conference as part of AMEC's Global Measurement Month and he's also shared his thoughts with PR Moment on what communications folk need to do to prepare for a potential change of government.
Stuart Bruce | PR Futurist
News
Purposeful Relations to speak at PRCA's Measurement Conference
Stuart is speaking at the PRCA's Measurement Conference on Thursday 30 November. The 'Elevating Insights for Success Conference' is a half-day virtual conference as part of AMEC's Global Measurement Month.
Other speakers include Nik Pearson, head of corporate communications (automobile and sustainability) at Honda; Jonny Bentwood, global head of data and analytics at Golin; and Richard Bagnall, global co-managing partner of CARMA.
Tim Bailey
prca.org.uk
What do comms professionals need to know about change of government?
PR Moment asked PR agency leaders what a potential change of government could mean for PR and communications professionals.
Stuart's contribution was to emphasise that it isn't just public affairs professionals who need to prepare, but that every PR and communications professional needs to be up to speed. Through his issues management consultancy Stuart Bruce Associates he is providing briefings to mid-size companies who don't have large or dedicated public affairs functions or external consultancies, as well as public affairs teams without in-depth knowledge and experience of the Labour Party.
Karen Marshall
prmoment.com
OpenAI board fires CEO Sam Altman
Last Friday OpenAI made the shock announcement that the board had fired CEO Sam Altman.
My 'hot take' was that we should ignore 'hot takes' as there would be lots (there were, and they are still coming) as they'd be based on speculation and rumour rather than facts and reasoned analysis. The weekend has made the situation no clearer and OpenAI's own announcement raises more questions than it answers.
OpenAI's communications since the sacking have been far from open, clear or consistent. As C Northcote Parkinson said: "The vacuum created by a failure to communicate will quickly be filled with rumor, misrepresentations, drivel, and poison."
Even before the rumour mill subsides, we know that whatever the reasons for the corporate turmoil it won't stop the AI revolution or the need for companies and organisations to adopt policies and strategies for the new world.
BREAKING NEWS - Microsoft's rapid appointment of Sam Altman and Greg Brockman gives credence to rumours that the OpenAI got this wrong and perhaps explains why its communication is so opaque. Is the reason the OpenAI board hasn't provided a good explanation is because it doesn't have a reasonable explanation?
Stuart Bruce
openai.com
Data, measurement, analytics
AMEC Award winners for 2023
In previous years I've judged the AMEC Awards so know what calibre of entry is needed to win an award. I missed this year's award ceremony in London as I was with a client in Edinburgh to run a workshop helping it to create a customer measurement and evaluation framework.
This year's winners across a range of categories for effective measurement and evaluation of communications include South America based monitoring and analysis company GlobalNews Group, Experienced Media Analysts, Hard Numbers, Ornico, Onclusive and Ruepoint.
Congratulations to all the worthy winners.
Stuart Bruce
amecorg.com
Crisis communication
London mayor Sadiq Khan is latest politician to be deep faked
Just a month ago we wrote about a deep fake audio smear imitating Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and now the same has happened to London mayor Sadiq Khan. Disinformation (the deliberate distribution of false information) has always been an issue, but the rapid advances in AI means any individual, organisation or company is at risk of an attack.
It's something we've long warned against when working with crisis communications clients and was a major theme when we attended the PRovoke Global Summit in Washington DC. Speakers at the summit advocated the need for: "proactive engagement before an attack occurred and the need to respond rapidly to threats. This means a well-prepared crisis communications plan, and the right tools to monitor and navigate the information landscape."
Stuart Bruce
inews.co.uk
AI, digital and social
OpenAI announces major improvements to ChatGPT
In the last PR Futurist we trailed rumours about the announcements at OpenAI's Developer Day and as the official announcement shows they all happened. Despite the announcements rapidly being eclipsed by the shocking corporate changes at OpenAI it doesn't make them any less significant.
One big 'takeaway' is that ChatGPT's new features encroach or replace many third-party AI services and tools that acted as a 'wrapper' for OpenAI's large language model. Two of these that should be of immediate interest to PR and communications professionals are the ability to create custom GPTs for specific purposes and the team capabilities.
Stuart Bruce
openai.com
Copilot Studio enables custom 'Copilots'
No sooner had OpenAI announced the ability to create custom GPTs using ChatGPT than Microsoft announced a similar feature for Copilot. At the Microsoft Ignite 2023 conference Microsoft announced Copilot Studio, a low-code tool to customize Copilot for Microsoft 365 and build standalone copilots.
Microsoft is taking a dual-track approach to releasing Copilot. It is rolling it out slowly to customers, but progressing rapidly with adding new capabilities.
Stuart Bruce
microsoft.com
Reporters without Borders publish Paris Charter on AI and Journalism ethics
Reporters without Borders and 16 partner organisations have published the Paris Charter on AI and Journalism. It attempts to define ethics and principles that journalists, newsrooms and media outlets around the world will be able to appropriate and apply in their work with artificial intelligence. It's worth looking at this alongside the Warsaw Principles published by ICCO, which attempts to define ethics and principles for the use of AI in public relations and communications.
Stuart Bruce
rsf.org
Telegraph adopts conservative approach to AI
The Telegraph is the latest publisher to issue guidelines for how AI should be used. Perhaps not surprisingly it takes an incredibly (small c) conservative approach. Broadly its policy on generative AI, is "permissive" for "back office" use but prohibits its use in journalism.
It's a good example of why organisations need to move rapidly on AI and keep adapting what they do. Some of the Telegraph's concerns are ones that should have been top of its agenda... a year ago... but have now been addressed so need tackling in different ways.
Concerns about potential copyright infringement and uploading sensitive internal information are both ones that can now be tackled and aren't reasons for restricting the use of generative AI.
Stuart Bruce
pressgazette.co.uk
Get in touch
As it's AMEC Global Measurement Month...
Purposeful Measurement helps organisations, whether an agency or in-house team, to up your measurement game. We will work with you to put solid processes in place to demonstrate the ROI of your work and drive cultural change within your team. However, our real value is showing how the data and analytics you collect can be used to plan campaigns with higher success rates.
Contact us to talk about how Purposeful Relations can help you innovate to better planning and outcomes.
Tim Bailey | Digital Futurist
purposefulrelations.com