Welcome
Our Global CommTech Report is out. The TL;DR is eight in 10 think AI skills are critical, but six in 10 are doing nothing about it. Go figure. If you'd prefer to be in the four in 10 who do get it then book a call to chat about how you can incorporate AI in to your 2025 budget.
This week's CommTech tool pick is rather special. What I love about it is it is a genuine AI assistant. It doesn't try to do the job (badly) for you, but makes what you're doing faster and better. Read right to the end to find out more about why Cove is the AI tool that could really help you.
Another important report that has just landed is the seventh annual State of AI Report from Air Street Capital. We've read it so you don't have to. Key issues for you to consider are public perception of AI, generative AI misuse, data collection practices, and AI legislation and regulaton.
Karen Marshall
Listen to PR Futurist
Listen to the audio highlights
We've created another AI generated audio overview using Google NotebookLM.
pod.co
News
The Global CommTech Report 2024 is out.
The Global CommTech Report 2024 is out. It's mix of optimism and pessimism. The optimism is that eight in 10 think AI skills are essential or important. The pessimism is just four in 10 have an AI policy or have received AI training.
Even AI gets this is a huge problem for the industry. We ran the report through Google NotebookLM to create an audio overview. The key issue discussed by the AI presenters is the PR industry's failure to act quickly enough.
In her analysis and introduction Professor Anne Gregory says "[AI] is a not to be missed opportunity for public relations to move up the organisational food chain."
You can download it now. Please let us know what you think of the results or contact us if you'd like to book an AI and CommTech workshop to help you plan for 2025.
Stuart Bruce
purposefulrelations.com
Highlights of the ICCO Global Summit in Istanbul
The ICCO Global Summit in Istanbul was a blast. It was packed with amazing keynote speakers and panellists that showcase the very best of the global public relations and communications industry in all its wonderful diversity.
I've written up a short summary to give you a flavour of what you missed. Next year it's in India, which should be fabulous as the Indian PR profession is one of the most dynamic and innovative I know.
Stuart Bruce
linkedin.com
Get in touch
Free chat to help you plan for 2025
Following the launch of our Global CommTech Report we're speaking to senior comms leaders and budget holders to help them plan for 2025. You can book a slot to chat to Stuart Bruce about how you can incorporate AI into your plans and budget for 2025.
Miriam Silverman
purposefulrelations.com
Corporate affairs
UK government to reform copyright law?
The FT reports that the UK government will consult on a scheme that would allow AI companies to scrape content from publishers unless they “opt out”, in a move that would anger the creative industry.
At the Labour Party conference I attended lots of fringe events on AI and had an opportunity to talk to ministers (including Chris Bryant, minister for data protection and telecoms) and influential backbenchers with expert knowledge of AI and technology including infrastructure, copyright, privacy, security and related issues.
This is a garganuan lobbying battle. On one side we have big tech and on the other big publishers. Both claim their lobbying arguments will benefit little tech and independent creatives. There is an irony of the FT running this story without clearly disclosing it is one of the big publishers lobbying against reform. It's head of public policy was one of the experts on a panel hosted by the News Media Association. The panel was 'How can a Labour AI bill save creativity and spur investment in trusted journalism?'
The government wants to get the balance right between unleashing the potential of AI to grow the economy and benefit society, and protecting the interests of content creators.
Corporate affairs professionals in every sector need to be paying close attention to this and doing their own lobbying. The government's balanced approach of enabling big tech companies to use content to improve AI while protecting the interests of publishers is the right one. It is the one that gives us all access to the benefits of AI while protecting the media. To allow one to win at the expense of the other will cost us all dearly.
At another AI panel Chris Bryant quoted Rue Paul to make clear what he though the government's repsponsibiity was - "Don't **** it up!".
Stuart Bruce
ft.com
AI, digital and social
Microsoft's Copilot Daily synthesises news to create personalised daily summaries
You might have heard me talking about or writing about AI as a stakeholder and why it needs to be in comms strategies as far more than just a tool. In its raft of Copilot improvements Microsoft also launched Copilot Daily which is an AI-generated summary of news from quality, authorised sources. Unlike Google's AI overviews Microsoft is working with publishers and paying them an undisclosed fee for synthesising their content.
It's early days but AI is clearly going to have an even more disruptive impact on media and communications than the internet and search did. Watch this space.
Stuart Bruce
pressgazette.co.uk
Judges will be forced to rely on AI, legal chief predicts
In March I wrote about Sir Geoffrey Vos, the Master of the Rolls and second most senior judge in England and Wales. He made a speech at a legal conference where he argued that it is unethical for lawyers not to use AI. I pointed out the same applied to PR professionals. It is unethical not to use AI to work smarter and faster.
He's now gone one step further saying lawyers will have "no choice but to accept the verdict of the machine." He said it would be impossible for lawmakers to always oversee and check all decisions made by AI. And he predicted that technological advances would rapidly outpace any new laws designed to rein in the machines.
Stuart Bruce
telegraph.co.uk
Research and reports
The State of AI Report 2024 is out
Now in its seventh edition the State of AI Report, produced by AI investor Nathan Benaich and Air Street Capital. is seen as one of the definitive industry research reports.
The report covers research breakthroughs and capabilities, commercial application areas and business impact of AI, regulation, economic implications, and geopolitics of AI. I've included a short summary to highlight key findings relevant to senior public relations, communications, and corporate affairs professionals.
Public perception of AI: The shift from a focus on AI safety to acceleration in enterprise sales indicates a need for corporate affairs professionals to have a seat at the table as decisions about AI are made. There is reputational risk in AI being introduced by companies, governments and organisations without at the same time working to ensure it has a social licence amongst stakeholders. This needs appropriate policies and safeguards and effective messaging that addresses public concerns while promoting innovation.
Generative AI misuse: The rise in misuse of generative AI tools underscores the importance of crisis communication strategies and proactive measures to mitigate reputational risks. If misinformation and disinformation wasn't already high on your agenda then they definitely need to be now.
Data collection practices: The source of information for AI large language models remains controversial and the jury is still out on legal questions. There is a need for oganisations to communicate transparently about their own ethical data usage.
AI legislation and regulation: The EU AI Act doesn't necessarily indicate a way forward. Corporate affairs professionals need to stay informed about evolving regulations and their potential impact on corporate strategies. Companies not directly involved in AI, technology, media and publishing need to stay on top of developments to ensure the lobbying battle between big tech and big media doesn't harm their interests should one side prevail.
The summary is written by me, but with assistance from AI tools which I used to ask questions and interrogate the report to find relevant sections which I could then read and analyse myself.
Stuart Bruce
stateof.ai
$11.9 trillion in value attributed to reputation... in US S&P 500 companies alone
Echo Research has published two reputation valuation reports looking at the value of reputation amongst the FTSE 350 in the UK and S&P 500 companies in the USA.
Echo Research's' US Reputation Dividend report reveals that corporate reputation accounts for 28% of the market capitalisation of S&P 500 companies, totalling a staggering $11.9 trillion. The UK report says reputation accounts for 30% of market capitalisation across FTSE 350 companies, equating to £719 billion.
A trillion is such a huge number it's hard to visualise. Imagine spending $1 million every day. It would take you about 32,000 years to spend $11.9 trillion.
In the UK top performers such as Shell, AstraZeneca, BP, Diageo and Unilever derive over half of their market value from the strength of their corporate reputations. Energy and healthcare firms see the highest reputation-driven contributions to their market value, while sectors like telecoms and real estate experience lesser reputational uplift. In the USA companies like Nvidia, Amazon, and Apple attribute over half their market value to reputation.
The report highlights that in uncertain economic conditions, strong reputations stabilise investor confidence, particularly in tech and healthcare sectors. The report emphasises that firms with strong reputations tend to have stable stock prices, while those with poor reputations face significant losses. Key drivers for enhancing reputation include long-term investment, effective people management, and financial stability.
ESG (environment, social and governance) goes negative as investors view it as a compliance/risk cost rather than value driver. I can imagine this will alarm and surprise some in the PR and communications community who like to wear their commitment to doing good on their sleeves. But let's be practical. ESG was always a financial reporting metric. That's one reason why it gained wide-spread acceptance.
ESG is a compliance cost. The fact it is seen as that doesn't detract from all the positive reasons for running a business in a socially responsible way. Doing good can and should be seen as the way to run a profitable, successful business.
Stuart Bruce
echoresearch.com
CommTech tools
AI to organise your messy thoughts
Amongst the plethora of AI tools it's often hard to spot the gems. I think Cove.ai might be one of them. It's a tool that helps you organise your 'messy' thoughts and expand on them using AI. You can use it to organise ideas, do research, plan projects and much more.
Cove has an infinite canvas that you can drop text, tables, PDFs, links etc on to. Cove provides smart suggestions to add extra relevant information and does a surprisingly good job at thinking as you might.
What I love about it is it is a genuine AI assistant. It doesn't try to do the job (badly) for you, but makes what you're doing faster and better.
The free version lets you create unlimited work spaces (projects), viewers and editors with the only limitation being 100 'cards' or individual elements. The paid version is only $10 a month, which compared to lots of other AI tools is a steal.
For the techies it primarily uses two Claude AI models - one for reasoning and one for speed. It also mixes in OpenAI's GPT, Meta's Llama and Perplexity. The smart part is you don't need to know any of this, as it seamlessly uses the best model to help you.
cove.ai