🚀 PR Futurist #96 🥩 How steak lovers are manipulating AI 🔫 How a government defence department is using AI for comms

Welcome

AI avatars and lots of reports

This is bumper edition for reports and research with four we've chosen to highlight.

Accenture says the UK has the most to gain from AI of any of the G7 economies. While Gallup reveals AI will will fail without cultural change. Doh! It's what we've been saying to clients from the start. Don't get bamboozled by shiny tools but focus on using AI to help your people.

We're still taking bookings for AI master classes for 2025 (but you'll have to get in quick as we're almost out of slots). Check out the page, even if it's just to see my AI avatar (rest assured the workshops are the real me).

Talking of master classes, Intuit has just just given one in how not to do public relations. And Microsoft calling out Google for astroturfing is worth a case study or two.

Talking of case studies see how one of the world's largest media and presentation training companies is using AI for roleplay practive. And get an insider view from the UK's Ministry of Defence on how useful AI is (and consider if an defence department considers it's safe to use AI then it is for you as well.)

Stuart Bruce

AI

Microsoft 365 Copilot drives up to 353% ROI for small and medium businesses say Forrester

The report might have been commissioned by Microsoft but Forrester Consulting is a prestigious, credible consultancy so it's worth drilling down on the topline finding that Microsoft 365 Copilot can achieve 365% ROI for SMBs.

Copilot for Microsoft 365 is expensive (more than twice the cost of the initial M365 subscription which you also need). It's a big barrier to adoption for small and medium size businesses. It's still too new to have lots of robust case studies so reports like this are helpful in illustrating the practical benefits of AI in the workplace.

We can tell clients we are certain it will bring huge benefits - time taken, speed to do it, quality of the work, team satisfaction - to name but some. What we can't easily do is quantify these. Our experience says its true and every industry report says it is true. But there isn't (yet) a silver bullet for quantifying it. Even AI can't do that (yet)!

Stuart Bruce

AI only helps if you do it properly

And then there's this approach to AI. This case study claims that introducing AI far from helping actually hurts and contributes to employee burnout. Although if you do it as badly as this case study did then that's what you should expect.

You aren't going to get the benefits of AI by throwing random AI tools at employees and expecting them to have a miraculous effect. It is as dumb as giving every employee a company car when none of them know how to drive. Disaster beckons.

Stuart Bruce

Microsoft beefs up Copilot customisation to create 'agents'

Microsoft has launched 10 off-the-shelf AI agents that can perform multi-stage tasks. Using Copilot Studio customers can also create their own custom agents. Agents are where AI becomes a powerful personal assistant capable of doing several different things on its own to accomplish a more complex aim.

Most companies and organisations already run on Microsoft 365 so Copilot is the most effective choice for overall AI use, supported by additional tools for specialist tasks. Copilot Studio enables us to create custom agents and bots for our clients which can eliminate or reduce the need for specialist additional tools.

Stuart Bruce

Reddit steak lovers try to manipulate AI answers

The answers provided by AI are rapidly replacing traditional search. A group of steak lovers in London tried to game AI by promoting Angus Steakhouse (a chain of often maligned London steak restaurants) in order to keep tourists out of the best steak houses.

An amusing story but it illustrates how important it is for PR and comms professionals to understand the importance of AI on reputation and brand. Tackling it should be on every comms plan for 2025.

Stuart Bruce

Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman on why 2025 will be a watershed year

Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman revealed some interesting insights about the future of AI. Five issues highlighted in the Masters of Scale podcast include:

Recursing self-improvement - AI systems will identify and fix their own weaknesses, flaws and hallucinations (where AI makes stuff up, which has already massively improved over the last two years).

Emotional intelligence - Suleyman was previously the founder of Pi - a more personal AI. So it's not surprising he's brought that approach to Microsoft. He believes the emotional intelligence of AI models—their tone, style, and ability to engage—may be more important than pure information delivery.

Vision-enabled AI companions - this one is already close as Microsoft has already announced Copilot Vision which will be able to see your screen and therefore take action on what it sees. This is potentially hugely powerful as it means we won't need to rely on technical API solutions to do things across multiple websites or apps.

Permanent memory - it surprises many people that AI doesn't already remember or understand its previous interactions with them. Suleyman is very confident we’re going to “nail memory” by 2025 which would enable truly personalised interactions.

Bigger and smaller models - Suleyman says AI is heading in two directions. The first is that big frontier models will continue to get more powerful. Alongside this smaller, more efficient models will handle specific tasks.

Stuart Bruce

Corporate affairs

Intuit's master class in how not to do public relations

Intuit's chief communications officer has given a masterclass in how not to do public relations. Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi did a podcast with The Verge and apparently didn't like his answers when asked about how the company lobbies against free tax filing. The CCO then asked for the section to be removed. Predictably The Verge turned this into a news story which became far bigger than the original podcast would ever have been. A classic example of the Streisand effect in action.

Stuart Bruce

Microsoft outs Google's dodgy astroturfing lobbying

It's not often a big company calls out one of its competitors as openly as this. What's astounding is if Microsoft's allegations weren't true then you'd expect Google to respond more robustly. Even legally. Except this is written by Microsoft's deputy general counsel, so Microsoft's confident of its legal position.

Stuart Bruce

Get in touch

Book your AI master class today

We only have a few slots left in December if you want to book an AI masterclass or workshop. Hear Stuart's AI avatar explain that if you book a workshop you get the real him, not the avatar!

Stuart's in the USA (Boston) this week running an AI workshop for the corporate affairs leadership team of one of our UK clients.

Karen Marshall

Is AI in your 2025 plans and budgets?

If you're looking to include AI in your 2025 plans and budgets (and if you're not, you should be) then you can book a quick, free, no obligations call with Stuart. He'll help you to scope out your ideas and can give some indicitive costs to help you plan and budget. Book a meeting now.

Case studies

How Clarity Media Group is using Yoodli to transform its media training

We've been experimenting with Yoodli, an innovative AI presentation training system. One of the uses we've identified and are exploring for clients is for media training. Yoodli has published a case study about how Clarity Media Group, one of the world’s largest media training and executive communications companies, is using Yoodli AI’s roleplay practice to transform its media training.

Stuart Bruce

How a Ministry of Defence communicator is using AI

A first hand account of how a UK Ministry of Defence communicator is using AI. Interestingly she says she isn't just using the Government Communication Service's own Assist custom AI tool, but is also using Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini. GCS's intention is that Assist will eventually be rolled out to all 7,000 government communicators in central departments, arms length bodies and agencies. We're working with clients on this.

The author has just returned from maternity leave and highlights how powerful AI can be as it's helping her to reduce her hours from 37 to 22 hours a week while maintaining productivity.

Many companies and organisations are delaying using AI because of concerns about privacy and security. The reality is AI is safe if used properly. This means having a policy, training and processes in place. If a government defence department can use it safely then so can you.

Stuart Bruce

Research and reports

UK has more to gain from generative AI than any other G7 nation

New research from Accenture has modelled the value of AI for economic growth. It finds that generative artificial intelligence (AI) could almost double the UK’s economic growth, which is the largest increase for any G7 nation. I hope Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer understand this.

Stuart Bruce

AI will fail without culture change

Too many organisations make the mistake of thinking AI is about technology. We tell our clients it's primarily about culture change which is the key finding of this research report by Gallup.

Our belief is it's critical to listen to employees first and put the right training and support in place to help ensure AI literacy. That's why our CommsTransform™ process focuses on people and culture, supported by technology and AI.

Stuart Bruce

Business leaders are 'pleased' and 'excited' about AI

This report from Wharton business school shows weekly use of AI as nearly doubled from 37% to 72% and that slow moving departments like marketing and HR are starting to increase use. However, businesses still face challenges in determining the full impact and ROI of generative AI.

Feelings about AI have shifted from 'curiosity' and 'amazement' last year to ' pleased' and 'excited' this year.

Stuart Bruce

AI in Action report from IBM makes bold claims about AI driving a 25% improvement in revenue growth

There has been a flurry of AI related reports in the last month which we've been analysing. This one from IBM reports two thirds of leaders say AI has already driven a greater than 25% improvement in revenue growth. We're sceptical of this figure because as the Wharton report said it is difficult to determine the real ROI of AI.

One thing we can be certain of from a mutlitude of reports and our own experience with clients is that AI does provide huge benefits and improvements. It is much harder to define and measure what those benefits are.

Stuart Bruce